I have an idea for a good choice of games if I ever get round to completing it, but I was wondering if it would be better to make it one possibly long game or a few shorter games.
In my choice script game I have it branching out quite a bit with different play through of characters who end up on different sides. Also another component which can take in effect to change the storyline again if you pick your cards wrongly. If I do a long story then it ends right there as a one off and if people like I won’t be making another sequel, but if I do it in parts then it would be hard to pick up from where the player left off with the previous part. There are pro’s and con’s for each but its not really something I could decide by myself.
Depends, firstly what’s “long”? If your individual books are going to be less than 100000 words I’d think twice as you’ll get heaps of " it’s too short" complaints.
Secondly if you are branching, unless you have a save system of sorts a sequel is going to make it tricky to track especially if they’re taking off from wildly different starting points in the sequel.
If it’s going to be really long though, you might lose steam and not finish it as a single mammoth work.
I got a lot of complaints on how Trial of the Demon Hunter was too short at 85k words, so I made Captive of Fortune 140k words and it made no difference. I strongly suggest making your gamebook 200k+ words if you feel up to it. It will be very worth it.
I’m definitely unsure of an close estimate for a word count but I have a lot of ideas that I plan on doing in it.
the only problem with motivation is being stuck with coding, when I solve a problem I can write quite a bit.
With the branching, I think its more of a taking whose side type of thing which will mean different characters and setting but in whole are quite similar to each other. I could keep track of the different story line but I was just wondering what the reader might prefer more.
yeah, for my game idea I really want to make things big, like a nice thick book that you can get really deep into, just with options. I’ve tried a lot of choice of games and find it disappointing when I really get into one and it ends! and then I either have to wait for the second part or just think about the story over and over because though its complete, its not enough.
Exactly. If I could do it over again, I’d have my works put together as one, which is what I had I had initially planned. I learned my lesson, and now I’m going to only release long gamebooks from now on.
Nods, a lot of the length also has to do with play through length as well as total words. If you’ve got a branching game unfortunately you’ll needed to make it more words total than a linear game. (I learned that there hard way too). If the differences are only going to be minor or cosmetic like you’re saying though do they affect the storyline enough to warrant the time put into writing and coding it? May be worth having something simpler and shorter that you’ll finish for your first story then move onto more complicated things if you want next time.
