I’ve put up a very short demo of a story I would greatly like to expand. Your role is a tribal leader. Can you make decisions that lead to you becoming King. If so, what kind of King will you be?
The short demo doesn’t even begin to answer those questions, but that’s what I would like the story to be about.
I haven’t looked to see if there are any policies concerning multi-author works, but…
I’m very open to the idea of writing with others. I’ve collaborated with people in the past, and it’s always fun. My writing style is minimum in detail, but as long as you aren’t the king of detail, we’d probably work good together. If anyone is interested in helping write this story with me, let’s chat.
I’m not worried about the publishing side of things right now. If we get to that stage, I would be more than fair with dividing profits. Equal shares for anyone who takes a major role in the writing. No extra piece for me. Or we could decide to use the money in another fashion, perhaps help promote Choice of Games to get more people involved and interested. This site is a great thing, and I would love to see it not only continue but grow as well.
Oh! I am really loving this so far. I know it’s not very political now, but i simply love maneuvering around problems and solving them and getting everyone to like me so i can rule the world with charisma!! >:3
I really enjoy the plot so far, and I saw few errors. The only major one I think is on the last page that reads
“James punched James in the face.”
I do believe you meant Jim.
Hmmhmmmhmm collaborative writing eh? I’m not opposed myself, and I really do like this. I might be interested. I can message you or vice versa, and talk about certain details.
Happy Readin’!
Thank you auto-correct. I’ve already fixed it along with a few other misspelled words. There are probably others since I didn’t run it through a spell check. Just quickly put it online. Can’t update online until tomorrow at the earliest. Thanks for pointing it out.
You aren’t a king quite yet. You are more of a tribal leader. However, becomming a king is within your grasp. Will you become King or will your people rebel against you?
It’s all in the choices you make.
I don’t think there were any other typos? At least non that I saw.
As I mentioned before, I’m super open to this being a multi-author project. One writer also already put her hat in the ring.
And I don’t just mean writing your own scenes or even whole story lines (I’d like that as well). I also mean helping me edit and expand parts already in the story. I’m not super good at detail. I can never think of good details. I think in terms of dialog and main plot. I’m more of a telling writer than a showing one.
So, if you have a detail that you think would be good to include, I’ll put it in. I’ll keep track of who contributes and how much. Everyone will get a mention on a credits page, at the very least.
How to suggest
Simply quote something from the story and then add your part so that I know where you are talking about. If you are adding something in the middle of something already written (for example, expanding a sentence of mine), you may want to make your part bold so I know that it is the addition.
You are welcome to expand as much as you want (to a degree). Don’t go crazy. And I will be the final judge if it is good for the story. (As long as it isn’t crazy, you should be OK)
Let’s see if this is a success or an utter failure.
(to give you ideas about what I’m looking for and where the story might go)
As far as this initial chapter, I think I know how it ends. Not sure of all the details until then. The ending is pretty clear: a town or tribal council is formed to help solve some of the problems the people have been having. I haven’t eluded to much yet, but it’s more than just the relationship issues mentioned so far. Either near the end of this chapter or at the beginning of chapter two, lots of problems are brought up. Perhaps in both locations as this could be a reason for forming the council in the first place.
The area is separated into family farms, which alludes to some organization in the past. Perhaps it’s similar to what England was like after the Romans left in that there is civilization but no one has taken the lead yet, at least not in the area the main character lives.
It’s been every family for themselves for the most part. Maybe some trading but definitely nothing organized for the whole area. And there is no contact with the outside word. I’ve thought we could tackle that in a future chapter. Keep things internal for now.
This is a fantasy world. I’m OK with paranormal stuff being included, but I think I want average people to either not be aware of it or believe it’s just myth and legend. Fantasy elements should stay in the shadows, in other words.
OK, that’s all I got for now. Please brainstorm and suggest away. (Your turn in other words.)
I like it a lot so far, especially the stats that you have currently (it’s nice when you can have a multidimensional MC). However, it would be interesting to see another way of choosing stats instead of just “I was known for my ambition”, you could run a prologue where the MC’s choices and interactions with the other families influences their stats. This could also influence how the other families react when the MC takes over (I’m guessing that’s what happens). An example would be, if the MC has a high ambition stat, instead of people coming to them, the MC would go around putting their nose in other people’s issues to solve their problems and therefore gain respect and power.
Might I suggest changing your title to You are a Ruler?
Choicescript allows different genders to be added with ease. I’m sure your game would reach a wider audience and have a chance for publication if you make that change.
Beyond that I played it a bit and will watch out for more.
Are you suggesting women can’t be Kings?!? Outrageous!
Seriously though, one of my favorite book series as a kid did have a plot-point that the nation could only be ruled by a King, not a Queen. Yet, during the course of the story, the ruling class decided that there was no law/reason why a woman couldn’t be King. So, the series simply defined the word King to mean the regnant and the term Queen to mean the person married to the regnant. Both regardless of gender. I always liked that subversion.
I’m fine with that, only there is none of that in the current text.
I’m known to be a pretty wild and crazy guy! I’m just acknowledging that the word king traditionally refers to male ruler. Maybe “You are a Monarch” or Rise of the Crown - might be fitting titles. I’m pretty sure there are people here who would give the game a chance if it didn’t seem like a gender locked title.
Genderlocked/not-genderlocked is only the change of a title and a few stats, pronouns and such. Seems COG is very 21st century, and I’m fine with that.
However … if I were to write the story with a woman as the lead character, it would be quite different. How I envision the character would be completely different. The background, how she rises to power, and so forth.
To be true to that, the story would have to have an immediate branch in the beginning so that it’s really two stories.
Of course, I could write a gender neutral storyline, and the only way I can think of doing that would be to describe a world where women are either equal or very nearly there, as opposed to how women were viewed in our timeline when kingdoms were just beginning to form (post Roman, that is).
I have ambitious ideas, but I’m not a prolific writer, so who knows if this thing goes anywhere. It’s certainly early enough to change gears.
Which brings me to the stats. I would like the stats to be authentic with the story, so yes, I would love an ambitious character to act that way. Now, I have so many stats (and even if I condense them) that I can’t possibly write a story line for every possible eventuality. But having a few storylines where certain stats can be grouped together would be great.
My first attempt at interactive fiction was right before this one. Last week, actually. That one was called You Are a Super Hero. Still would like to do that one too.
Anyway, I mention that here because I had envisioned a series of titles all starting with You Are …
You Are a Monarch might work (though I do like Rise of the Crown), but as I’ve mentioned above, I’m concerned that a story line I come up with wouldn’t be true to a female lead. It would simply be a changing of the labels.
Thanks to our male-centered history it seems off … or funny … or something for a woman to walk around ordering medieval type men around. But if I work that into the story somehow, I would have to explain how she’s able to do that, whereas I don’t think I would have to with a male lead.
Oh, what a quandry!
Readers of interactive fiction might look past it, but I would want to explain it somehow, even if it’s just a section that appears in the story if the lead is a female. The ladies would get an extra scene or two, in other words.
I’m new to Choicescript as well. Might I suggest writing from the second perspective? it will allow you to bypass writing from a male perspective or female and make it easier.
IE: You look around and observe the throne room before you. It radiates light as candles drip wax slowly onto tapestries hanging on the walls. A squire approaches saying “player_name” etc.
Now you can formulate other character responses based on gender with a simple if statement.
*if (gender = “male”)
The squire blah blah
*if (gender = “female”)
Etc etc.
The trick is to use gender neutral pronouns or titles like leige or ruler. Couple that with using if statements and you’ll find you can write characters easy.
Might I also give a little more advice? I’ve found this very useful in my writing. I had a professor that hammered into me that you don’t need to write from a mans perspective or a woman’s perspective. That often times comes across badly. Instead, define your characters objectives. Ask yourself: What do they want and how are they going to get it. When character have strong objectives with high stakes it makes the story better and the sex of the character doesn’t matter. The same goes for villains. The best ones know what they want and won’t let anything stop them.
It’s already in 2nd person, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I think the main problem is me; just need to neutralize my mindset a little, and if there is a difference in the gender storylines, try to keep it to as much of a minimum as possible.
With a little work (and not even that much I think), I could have king and queen. That would simply be another variable. King for male and queen for female. We’ll see.
And if the concept seems interesting enough, you are more than welcome to write it with me. Another writer has already joined. Branch off and maybe this thing could be really big.
Or, it could be an utter failure. EIther way it’ll be fun.
Are you using a text editor or a program to write your game? If you’re gonna have more than one person writing it might be a good idea to use chronicler. It allows a flow chart and can make sharing the project much easier if everyone just has to update one file and share it between you.
Thanks. Fixed it on my side.