Random pick a path generator?

[Callan S.]

I was idly thinking of making a randomly generating pick a path adventure/choose your own adventure, as a new kind of content for one of my games. Just thought I'd float the idea around a bit first?

[Jackolantern]

Choose Your Own Adventure games are dead simple to make in HTML. Obviously the choices would be represented by links. And there is something else you can do, if you really want to enforce that people cannot go back and choose another path if they die

Doing something like this is one of the very few times I think obtrusive Javascript is fine, since the JS does not make up a larger application really, and it is so simple to just throw it right into the link. And beyond that, each piece basically is part of the link! You could write your link like this:

Code: Select all

<a href="neverGoingHere.html" onclick="window.location.replace('forest.html'); return false;">Go to the Forest!</a>

The actual page you are going to if you click this link is forest.html, not neverGoingHere.html (you would probably replace that one with your game's main page, since that is what will show on the bar at the bottom or in a tooltip. What happens is that the page will simply update to forest.html, but the history will not be updated, thus not giving the user any way to go back. Of course, in most browsers the actual address bar does display the real address for security reasons, so they could write them down as they go and go directly to them if they really wanted to. Of course, making it in PHP and adding a very simple sessions variable that holds the only page the user is allowed to be on, along with some code at the top of each page to both throw the user back to the page they are authorized to be on and also update the session variable could basically make it nearly uncheatable.

Not that it is really "cheating", but it does kind of harm the experience if the user simply goes back to change their decision, and it is very tempting to do just that with an HTML CYOA game lol.

[Callan S.]

Since the actual place you go to when you click a link will be randomly generated, yeah, I intend to store that stuff in session variables.

I was more wondering about peoples thoughts on the places being randomly generated rather than author written places? Just wondering if implementing it would be up against any percieved problems with that, or if it seems cool enough to people, like nethack dungeons are randomly generated and pretty much everyones fine with that?

[Jackolantern]

I guess it depends on the gameplay. A traditional CYOA game basically has no gameplay beyond choosing where you go, so each choice must be written out by hand, since that is the only compelling content. However, if there is gameplay at each location then I think randomly generating them is fine. NetHack is not simply choosing where you go, but killing monsters, questing, getting loot, etc. If all you did was look at each randomly created level, I don't think anyone would play lol.

So I guess it depends on just how much this is going to be a Choose Your Own Adventure game. If it is text-based, and you just read and make decisions, it must all be written out, but if there is more dynamic gameplay, random generation should be fine

[Callan S.]

Heh, compelling content...given how often people seem to be picky about what is compelling and what is somehow not, then why not random content? As no one hands out any sort of charter describing what is compelling content, why not random material? If one is left to guess what is compelling, why not deligate to the dice to decide what content there is?

I get a bit tired being stuck at this point. If you go to classic story telling around a fireplace, the storyteller can read his audience and from their responces tell what is more or less compelling for them, and so adjust his story on the fly to emphasize or further include those things.

Don't have that option in this browser game format. Unless I round up playtesters - and even then, probably have to watch them as they play.

Anyway, I'm thinking the locations all join up like a maze - find your way through the maze. That's what the pick a path games I've played were - mazes to navigate (because certainly the combats were pure dice rolling, there was no player skill element). At best the pick a path mazes gave you some clues as where not to go, in the fiction presented.

[Jackolantern]

A maze to me would be gameplay. I am not saying "compelling content" to mean great content, as that is typically elusive, but only to mean the part of the game that hooks the player; the reason the game exists. In the traditional CYOA books that I was referring to, the narrative is really why the game exists. The "choose your path" aspect is just a different way to read a book. Without the story, the book begins to fall flat. I think your idea of CYOA is somewhat different from these books, as there was no tangible "maze" in the CYOA books

[Callan S.]

I've literally flow charted some CYOA books - a flow chart is a maze.

It's confusing as well - it's kind of like saying a type writer should come with a written story. I thought the idea of choosing your own adventure was to choose it, not be told an adventure? Why not just click thought a prewritten story with a 'next page' link at the bottom, if it's just about reading?

I don't know - I think a random generator I create is going to produce pretty much what I would produce if I had manually written something. After all, I have no idea what anyone thinks is compelling - no one out there gives any idea of it (except in broad strokes), so without a compass to navigate by I'm just working at random anyway. And I think choosing your own adventure to some degree entails the reader also writing their own story by their choices. In as much, I aught not be writing a story. The random elements end up more like paint on a palette for the reader to select from in their creativity.

I think until some audience gives concrete advice on what is compelling (oh, there's a ton of broad, vague strokes advice out there, I know), I think creating a random generator is pretty genuine. It's probably a reflection of the overwhelming number of entertainment sources audiences have now, and how that means they don't even have to say 'write these things: X, Y & Z', they can even just say 'be compelling' and they're in a position of leverage that that can't be dismissed instantly.

The genuine responce is to unleash 1K of monkeys at 1K of typewriters upon them - let them be swollowed up in a compelling that happens by pure statistical chance, if it happens at all.

'Cause the whole 'be compelling thing', when it's driven by a market that is oversaturated with entertainment, seems kinda debauched. Like the relation between creator and audience has become not a human one.

Them's my deep thoughts on the matter!

[Jackolantern]

I would be interested to see how it turns out If you could get a random story generator to create a cohesive story, that could be useful in many other games as well!