The hit to readability will definitely outweigh the ease of bugfixing for some authors who need to see their prose laid out as linearly as possible. I eventually got used to both gosub and multireplace (after using neither in my first game) and use them all the time now, but I don’t think anyone should be pushed into using either one.
You can write a great CS game without them (or Implicit Control Flow, or maximising use of fake_choice, or any other coding efficiency tweaks). That’s the joy of Choicescript – it’s for everyone, not just people already accustomed to thinking in code.
I am absolutely never going to use implicit control flow, it’s more trouble than it’s worth! I like my gotos thank you very much (now if we could also get some hk-51s…)
Hk, can edit me any time I love him. thry writing is incredible they had no expresion and is funcionally an asset robot likeall in game. However that writing elevate them as one of most fondly remembered companions of all time.
Just cause that’s where they should, doesn’t mean it’s where they do
I’ve loved multireplace ever since I learned it works with formulae and not just one-option-per-possible-value… but it also means I cry a little inside whenever I realise I need more than one multireplace and have to decant the whole thing into an *if
ngl, regarding code efficiency and such, I think sometimes an underrated thing is like… cognitive load and the amount of effort it takes?
I’ve had a couple of segments in my work where I know rationally that I could be more efficient and minimise the reused words, but figuring out how to do that would require me finagling a whole lot of stuff in the background, which would then have the potential for me to bungle it and have to correct that…
And in those instances, I sometimes go ‘you know what? it’s like twenty duplicated words, I rarely do that. it is a far better use of my energy, time, and focus to code this in the simple way that’s slightly less efficient and then keep on writing’.
That’s why a focus on what feels natural for the writer is upmost. It doesn’t matter if something is efficient by technicality if it is decidedly very inefficient in how it changes your ability to understand your own text. If you have to sift through the multi-replace to try to individually piece together how different variables interact and that causes you to stall to a standstill trying to figure it out then it might not be better than just using a series of *if statements, if that is easy to understand for you/the writer/etc and keeps things moving.
“Code Efficiency” is not really even a positive or a negative thing, I only was talking about it being dissuaded since from the perspective of a ‘all I want is a 1 million word book and I won’t read anything less’ perspective than it’ll be harder to do if you try to maximize efficiency in lieu of word count.
You mean using them as a true or false based on if a formula is true, or are you referring to another way to use them that I am unfamiliar with? Like: @{(cat > 2) there’s too many for your hands to keep up!| you take your time gingerly petting the feline${s}}
For sure… it’s much less of a cognitive load when you’re a programmer already! Also it’s not that necessary (unless it’s what you like to do, in which case go wild), unless you’re copy-pasting huge chunks of the exact same code in every scene and then find a bug in it…
(Also twenty duplicated words? You could easily exceed that with the efficient code to avoid the word duplicates.)
To cheer people to trying to start with games or it is afraid hearing about multireplaces etc…
I still code basically like 2013. Code works and games play. Choice of dragon or Tin star don’t disappear or become worse because they are not modern coded.
I am saying this because each jam, at least one person says to me privately something like I would like to try out but each time read people talking about code, arrays and go subs I go scared because I don’t understand and I don’t think I can’t do that.
The thing you don’t have to do so. In fact 99% things people believe that are necessary they are not at all.
What they need is a clear vision, writing and a common goal. Anything else is icing on the cake .
So everyone that feel like they can’t. You certainly can.
I’ve chosen the five rounds of the archery tournament, which will be a last archer standing; each archer can miss once before being eliminated.
Round one will be a simple shot at a target at a mid-range distance.
Round two will be a shot at a long-range target.
Round three will be the shot at an arrow balanced on the head of a convict.
Round four will be a shot to try and cut the rope of something swinging (originally, I thought it’d be another convict, but I’m starting to consider a vase or something where you are aiming to cut the arrow so it lands onto a pillow below it)
Round five will be when there are only two archers left, and they each stand in front of their opponent’s target and have to try to shoot their arrow to hit the target behind them.
I think the character creation part of the game is really useful for telegraphing what length of game it is. If you have 30+ choices before even getting to the game, people will expect a huge game. If you have two choices, people expect a less huge game.
This is so much tempting me to make a one-question character creator and then give a huge game just to mess with readers. But I don’t really like making separate character creators, and not necessarily making huge games either.
This creative writing guide says to include lots of sensory description. The easiest way to do that is to put in lots of food-related stuff. So I think I’ll make this game a mash-up of gritty underground fighting and Bourdain-style food travelogue.
I can’t say I’ve noticed a correlation between character creator length and game length. The best signal for size is word count, in my opinion. Many doorstoppers have minimal unobtrusive character creation integrated throughout the story (my preference) while many games with tax form length questionnaires are quite short and linear.
Typically, character creation questions don’t affect size much — a sentence here, a word replacement there (you read the newspaper with your ${eye_color} eyes). If there are 30+ character creation choices before I get to make the first roleplaying choice, truthfully, I’m not thinking “wow, this is going to be a huge game” but "wow, I’ve spent 30+ mouse clicks on low-stakes fluff that will probably never be referenced again and I have no idea if this game can deliver compelling choices” because that’s largely the expectation the other games I’ve played have set.
But I’m unrepresentatively curmudgeonly about low/no-narrative stakes character customization. Tons of other people get real benefit from being able to specify their character is a tea drinking, blue jean wearing, alternative music listening, green car owning person who decorates their apartment in a modern style. (Tea/coffee/occasionally a third option customization seems very important to many as it’s very common now. Personally, unless I’m playing Choice of Beverages, I do not care what my character drinks.)
That said, I think lengthy front-loaded character creators with no skip or preset options are great. It quickly signals the game cares a lot about customization and less about other things, efficiently repelling the wrong players (me) and attracting the right ones, which is exactly what a good demo should do.
I feel this might depend on what kind of questions it has - if I get a ton of questions about things like my character’s background, profession, military specialization, and attitude to eldritch monstrosities, I’d expect them to come at play later - but eye color and the like 99% probably won’t affect much, yeah.
(Maybe I should make a jam game or something where your morning beverage is essential to the fate of the world.)
I usually drop out immediately if it’s 10 questions about my eye color, coffee preference, glasses types, etc. Not my style of game. The ones where they ask “and you grew up in the county of…”, “your brother’s cousin’s wife’s sister was [a bank robber/scandal-tainted socialite/potato farmer]”
To me, that implies that the game generally will take 80 hours to play and I need to remember 100 pieces of information, but it could be an intricate and detailed world
I find it hard to digest an extended series of “my cheekbones are like this, my nose is like this, my glasses are like this” questions, especially before I’ve got to know my character’s personality, because unless there’s some kind of story reason to go into such granular detail it feels like I’m making a picrew. It wouldn’t put me off playing a game by any means, but it does slow down my momentum at the start - when for me that’s when momentum is most important.
That said, an advantage to allowing players to specify skin colour and some other appearance elements is that it’s an easy way of signalling that you’re not assuming that the PC is white. I’ve also started enjoying allowing players to specify their PC’s build to let them know that I’m not assuming their character is always thin (or that a female PC is always short/male PC is always tall for that matter). It’s also a little reminder to me when I’m writing, not to inadvertently write a “default” that won’t gel with everyone - eg avoiding descriptions such as “you go so red that you feel like everyone in the room will see it”. But it is equally possible to write around those kinds of descriptions and leave it to players to fill in the details that are important to them.
I love extensive character creators, if the choices become flavor text. It’s so cute when the ROs compliment your eyes or being short comes in handy for a secret mission.
It’s not necessary for these things to happen, but I love when they do. The only ones that are 100% necessary are first names and if the gender isn’t set, then the gender choice. I don’t like when the gender of the MC is vague. Even if nothing in the story changes, the pronouns and titles at least should
I like my gotos thank you very much (now if we could also get some hk-51s…)