Hi all,
I’ve been a longtime reader of interactive fiction and gamebooks (the later more so), and as someone physically disabled, life can be both dull at times and trying at others. Rather than living my illness, I’ve decided to take up a new path in authoring my own gamebooks through ChoiceScript. With any luck, a debut with a Hosted Game (likely a line of them) will lead to greater things with the label!
That said, I’m not a coder by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ll likely have a million questions to ask when creating a title with gamebook style (lots of numbers, rolling, etcetera involved). My first post here mistakenly violated the forum rules by offering to recruit a coder for pay! The moderator has kindly decided to leave it readable for now if you’d like to reach me by any of the methods left available.
For now, I’ve gotta do this on my own! So, the questions.
- My debut project includes a party of four characters. Although each character’s name and what they are in terms of their class (think D&D) is predefined, I’d like to give the player the choice of which character is the leader of the group. In other words, they’re choosing which of the four is the main character, through which they interact with the rest of the game and its party.
So, how would I implement this and have it carry through to the rest of the game, with each character perhaps having different choices to provide options and replayability?
An example of the entry which opens the choice might be…
“I remember the four of them quite well. Heroes in their own time,” she said. “I know not whether it was by chance or the guidance of the gods, but their leader would soon be…”
- Simon the paladin
- Evella the mage
- Korek the priest
- Losara the rogue
From that point, the game takes place from the point of view of whichever character is chosen as the leader, with the characters not chosen tagging along as party members. Options, not to mention entire branches of the story, may close or open according to which character is chosen and which ones are the accompanying party members. How might I approach accomplishing this design in the code?
Another, perhaps shorter question. I’m using CSIDE for guidance but wondering about a few things which may align with my above concept. I mostly write gamebooks, so numbers and rolls are a big deal to me.
- How do I define a list of attributes, and separately, a list of skills which can be advanced in play?
- How, within ChoiceScript, can I prompt a roll of a character’s attribute or skill (or both) versus a die with my choice of sides (i.e. d6, d20, etc) based upon a choice they make? This would require including a target number for success, of course.
- How can I include the party members in this system? Can they have their own separate character sheets with attributes, skills, and so on? Can I have their stats roll just as the hero’s would, when the hero is given the choice of having a party member do something?
I know it’s all a bit complex for a debut project/first project, but gamebooks always demand quite a bit of crunchy number stuff. If this is going to be my new hobby in life (a far more enviable one than just living my disability day by day) then I’ll happily jump right into the thick of it! Thanks so much for your help!