Copy-pasted from the message thread:
STATS (can have different names in different tales to fit genre):
Genre Savvy VS Trope Breaker (opposed stat; only relevant in figuring out who baddie is ie you can add to it, but don’t need to test it.)
Mind (aka intelligence, quick thinking, wisdom, willpower, magic, education)
Body (strength, agility, endurance, attractiveness, physical training, magic)
Soul (magic, heart, wit, faith)
Health - which is restored to 50 every time the MC goes back into the real world - but is a measure of “fail” within each world; if the MC runs out of Health, they pass out and wake up back in the real world, with no macguffin). But only if they do stupid stuff, or it’d be too annoying to play. (In non-violent games, this might be “Path to love” for romance or “wit” for satire). This is ALWAYS a temporary stat, that is restored fully by contact with the bookshop (except in the real-world section of the climax, because drama is good). Unlike all the other stats, DON’T use fairmath for this one (or it’ll be impossible to fail).
In each story, the MC has at least one chance to build stats (mind, body, soul, genre savvy, trope breaker), and has the ability to lose ALL their “health” (some along the way, with a final blow at the climactic mind/body/soul test).
The climactic challenge in each story needs to have a Body, Mind, and Soul array of solutions. Eg if you want to fight a wizard, you can:
-hit them with a quarterstaff
-run up stairs, so they trip on their long robes as they follow
-appeal to their better nature
So a “body” type character would win with a quarterstaff but fail with the others (unless they’d played enough other games to also have a strong Mind and/or Body stat).
The basic style is 2nd person present tense, (eg “You are worried…”), as per Sashira’s draft opening above (which we all rather liked) - it’s message 107 in this thread, btw. She or I will put it in a shared dropbox soon.
In terms of genre, stories rarely fit perfectly into one genre so instead of the MC picking up a scifi book, he/she/they will pick up a book with a title and/or cover as described by whoever is writing that tale (eg “Captain Gark and the Space-Rat Fiasco”). That way, we will automatically get a huge array of stories that will be recognised by a genre-savvy reader but won’t result in endless arguments about genre. I think we’ll need to know titles (use your game title) so Uncle Irwin and the MC can refer to them via radio.
I think 10 minutes/10,000 words is a nice amount to aim for, but stories find their own length. So if yours ends up at 2000 or 40,000 words that’s fine too (especially if the reason it’s longer is because of massive branching into meaningful choices, rather than blocks of text).
Coding: Try not to capitalise, and try to use underscore for spaces.
The simplest way to gender code (much as it’s annoying to default to male) is to use {he}, {him} and ${his} for pronouns. If all else fails, your trusty editors will fix it. (Options will be he/she/they.)
At the resolution of each story, a crucial NPC picks up an object that doesn’t fit their genre at all, and suddenly starts acting totally unlike themselves, and someone on or in them (their clothes/eyes/fingernails/lips/hair - it varies for genre) turns red. The MC must get the object off the NPC using their mind/body/soul stats (any of which work if the stat is above 70, meaning that it’s possible to win in one direction on the first story, but is also possible to unlock multiple winning endings on later games or different play-throughs).
As the MC grows more experienced, more info is revealed.
-The books are physically improved after the MC travels through them.
-The MC needs an object that doesn’t belong to the genre in order to get back into our world (or to lose all their health, but that’s a VERY unpleasant process regardless of genre).
-The macguffin is only revealed at each story’s resolution.
-The books are being scrawled on in red ink when the MC is absent.
-Uncle Irwin is trapped, but there are traces of him everywhere (and sometimes a “woman in red” who clearly hates him). The MC is searching for Uncle Irwin, and hears genre-appropriate mentions of him in each story, eg in crime the “Irwin case” is a cold case, in romance he’s that young man that married for love and moved away, in scifi he’s Doctor Irwin, etc. The MC realises there’s a lot more to their uncle than they knew, but he’s always a good man - and is still communicating through the radio.
-With enough macguffins, the MC is able to alter the radio so it now works in both directions.
-Uncle Irwin doesn’t seem to know what book he’s in. The MC knows that the book a person is in should be completely obvious. Something is messed up.
-Uncle Irwin is a fictional character; your (deceased) Aunt Iris brought him into the real world to live.
