Has there ever been any thought toward putting in a game mode of some sort that would write the game text and the player’s choices to a file, thus creating a transcript of a full playthrough?
I think in a way, yah but not really. Though I was thinking of trying to make one but my skills arent that great with javascript and CSS but im working on something like that.
Randomtest does that if you select “show full text during game”.
I have good news im working on a transcript so people can buy discount pizza from my upcoming pizza business while they play game game :3 like when you’re reading if you get hungry just tap the pizza button on your screen or click it and then you can order pizza on the fly and get some credits in the game yo… So it’s a bribe really though one huge draw back you have to live in texas in order for it to work and also live within 20 miles of my house so… yah… BUT YAY!!!
Lackofmops-- I’m talking about something players can use, to retain a memento of a play experience. Although how do you make selections for randomtest?
2Ton, I don’t entirely follow?
@Chrysoula Are you meaning something sort of like the summary at the end of Life of a Wizard but more detailed and able to be printed on paper?
I think so and you guys arent feeling my idea? no one wants pizza while they read?
I haven’t finished Life of a Wizard so I couldn’t say. Look, we’re writing interactive novellas here, right? Or novels? When somebody buys a novella and they love it, they can reread it whenever they want. When a player goes through one of these games, they’re constructing their own personal novella. If they want to reread a particularly favorite playthrough they have to play again and hope they make all the same decisions. It’s also sometimes problematic that you can’t flip back a few pages to reread something that you might have skimmed, misread or really enjoyed before. So I’m imagining something that just writes the game output to a file, as you play it.
@2Ton I actually rather like the idea, although I don’t see why it is better than simply ordering a pizza from, say, Pizza Hut and having them deliver it to my house.
It is better because you’d be feeding a starving artist, it’s also like charity plus my pizzas are unique with 22 different spices and 3 different ways to cook them, I also have many sauces and it’s never frozen and it’s faster delivery…if you live by me…
@Chrysoula Oh! You mean to write down the entire game, word-for-word, not just a brief summary of your character’s life! I’m not at all sure on this, but would that be a form of plagiarism?
@2Ton You know, I can never really tell with you- are you being entirely serious about starting a pizza business, or not? On a different note, I doubt I could even name twenty-two different spices or three different ways to cook a pizza…
T.T why does everyone doubt me. I will make sure to post my website’s link to you when it’s up and running.
@Galador It would only be plagiarism if the player then took the transcript and tried to publish it as their own novella. It would technically be copyright infringement if the player passed it around freely to all their friends but I’m not too fussed about that either. What I’m imagining is just a way for a player to enjoy the story they’ve already paid for again, in a more passive form.
(Some video games with cutscenes allow you to access those cutscenes again once you’ve unlocked them; you might be able to follow most of the plot of that kind of game by just watching the cutscenes. This would be something like that.)
@Chrysoula Hmm… I can see where you are coming from, but I think I’d personally rather just have some kind of summary of your journey and your adventures rather than the entire thing. If I want to read the entire interactive novel again, I’ll simply read through the whole thing again.
@2Ton I’ll be looking forward to it!
Well, what I’m imagining is that the game author could include something in the game which would offer the player the choice to have such a transcript created. Nobody who wasn’t interested would have to look at the file (or even have it cluttering up their space) while people who would like to save playthroughs can do so. 
I know that for me, playing and reading are slightly different activities and I’ve been irritated in the past when I wanted to see a particular scene again and the only way to do so was to play again and hope I made all the right choices. I’ve also hated not being able to flip back to a previous page (because I was playing rather than reading closely and I didn’t realize that until too late). And some games are longer than others and people who play may wish to spend their actual playtime making different decisions while still retaining the ability to reread a previous story.
This is obviously more interesting in games that have a lot of variability and options. in short games where you see almost everything each time, it isn’t as much of an issue.
@Galador @2Ton
The pizza stuff is getting off topic guys.
@Chrysoula
Strictly speaking javascript can’t write files to the local machine - there is some sort of FileSystem API in its infancy, but it’s not something that’d be - as yet - suitable here.
I can appreciate your desire for a transcript generator and I’ll certainly say that it would be a worthy addition to many a CS game, but it’s probably something that needs to be incorporated deeply into choicescript - and there are definitely more pressing/important/useful features and functionality on the waiting list.
I’d be more interested in something like a transcript for testing purposes. Seeing how someone plays your game can really offer a lot of insight into what to work on. It seems more trouble to implement than it’s worth, though.
As for a full transcript, I don’t know the most efficient way to go about adding that at the moment, but for a short recap you can just have a handful of variables for important points in the story, and a page in the stats page that will reflect those variables.
As for the idea of a transcript, I doubt that it would be really useful either for testing, as the writer can just track choices with a more dedicated system that only gives them what they need better, nor do I think it would be a real fun feature, as it would just be going back over what you just did.
Yes, it’s clear not everybody in the forum thinks it would be useful. It remains true that some people would find it useful, either for testing or their own playing. There are a lot of potential Choice players who aren’t forum members!
@CJW – I considered the limitations on Javascript. I think there might be a workaround related to email? Which is so far from ideal that it may not be worth pursuing, of course. Still. I wanted to get the idea out there.
I also really really think the ability to flip back ‘pages’ (but not change choices) would be really useful, from a player experience perspective.
And, while I’m throwing out a wishlist, collecting metrics on choices made in live play would be fantastic. I know Varytale has something like that. Randomtest is incredibly useful but, well, random.
This example shows that it should be possible to download a text file at any moment. It just requires a variable containing the texts.