Gamebook traps #1 Only caring about the successful route

Hello all!

Today, I'll be talking about a mistake that I have made when writing gamebooks and that is only focusing on the successful route.  This involves working out hte correct path through the book and then just throwing in some other options that will lead to failure or just aren't the optimal path for the sake of giving the player more choice but then not really putting as much effort into writing them or even checking that they fit into the gamebook.

I noticed this after writing Sharkbait's Revenge.  I tried to make sure that all of the paragraphs were useful to go to if you made the correct choices to go with them.  However, that was never going to work out and there are some decisions that were worse than others.  For example, when you are breaking into a house, you have to face several guards.  Going through the middle is worse than sneaking around the edge of the house. 

What happened was, when I was playing through my Windhammer entry, I only focused on the optimal routes which means that I missed certain things, like the correct paragraph numbers.  I had forgotten that other people would not know that they were bad choices and make them.  I just made the best choices and made sure that they worked.

There were also problems with game mechanics.  Was I just throwing in some situatuins that would be impossible to beat and therefore might as well be sudden death paragraphs?  I also playtested the sub optimal routes a lot less so I had no idea whether anyone taking them could survive and win the game or whether they would be mercilessly killed much later for making one silly mistake and therefore having their time wasted.


How have I reduced this problem?

Check all of the options:  Yes - just having to spend some more time being more thorough would solve most of the problems.

Get someone else to read it:  This other person has no idea what the successful route should be, so they will make all kinds of suboptimal decisions and tell you if they work.  Also, you can ask them if they can tell if they know which route is the best one based on how much effort they think has been put in the paragraph. 

Concentrate on all the failure routes first and make the death paragraphs entertaining ways to die:  Even if the player really botched up and adventure and gets themselves killed, they still deserve an entertaining and engaging read. 

Some people care less about victory and more about the story and exploration.  Some players are probably just sadists and want to get their player killed in increasingly bizarre ways. 

All of these player types will be disappointed if they have to walk through several non-descript rooms to a two line death paragraph.  The bad routes and failures should be just as entertaining. 

Beneath Nightmare Castle and Creature of Havoc nail this idea. 

Also, from a gaming point of view, a player will have no way of working out if this is the optimal route or not based on the amount of effort put into the paragraphs.

So there we are.  Remember that even if a route is destined for failure, it still deserves your attention.

Happy gamebooking!

April A to Z 2013

Ahoy there fellow gamebookers!

I'm thinking about the April A to Z challenge this far in advance, however, because although I have a lot of real life commitments, I still want to produce a post a day for a whole month as I find the process challenging and fun and it also allows me to see lots of great blogs and for lots of people to look at my blog and, by extension, the blogs and sites of the people I talk about (I hope).

So if you have a blog and the time to devote to doing the April A to Z, I would recommend that you do in order to find some great new blogs and pick up some followers to your own blog.

This is what the format for 2013 is going to be.  Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have collected some more interviews from people in the gamebook world I missed the first time round and with people who wanted a repeat interview. 

However, if you are reading this, you haven't heard from me about an interview and you would like to feature in the April A to Z, please drop me a line at sl1605@gmail.com.

I'm anicipating that I won't have enough interviews for all 26 days so in the days that I don't have an interview, I will be posting a mini gamebook.

So there you go - news and entertainment all rolled together in one monthly challenge along with your regular serving of Sunday installments. 

I'm looking forward to it already.  I hope you are.

Happy gamebooking!

gameBOOKs vs GAMEbooks part 2 - gameBOOKs

Before you read this, why don't you read two excellent blog posts which partially or wholly talk about the smae topic of game vs book in gamebooks.

First, there is this one by Paul Gresty, author of Arcana Agency.  And then there is this one by Grey Wizard, author of the Mysterious Path comic.

Back now?  Let us continue.

So here we have gameBOOKs, gamebooks that place less emphasis on the game part and more emphasis on the book (or story) part.  Interactive fiction falls into this category.  What characterises a gameBOOK.

There may not be any victory criteria:  Whilst some gameBOOKs have a clear objective for victory, some of them involve you jsut seeing where your choices will take the story.

More than one satisfying endings:  You will probably live in most gameBOOK endings and these endings will have varying degrees of success.  It may even be up for debate as to which ending is better.  For example, in the CYOA book, The Race Forever, you could end up finding gold and becoming rich rather than winning the race.

Death is less likely:  Whilst you might die in a gameBOOK, it does not happen as often as in GAMEbooks.  There might be no hit point meter and most of the decisions you make won't be life threatening at all.

More backstory:  These gamebooks have no problem defining your age, gender, career, outlook on life and many other facets to your persaonality.  You may even get a name if you are lucky, so you are able to visualise your character.

Fewer stats:  You may even have no stats in the case of CYOA books and the stats may not measure your hit points but rather your relationships with people (see Heroes Rise.)

Choices revolve around what you want the character to do or in which direction you want to take the story:  GameBOOKS are very non linear because there is no objective to fulfil so you can take the story anywhere.  Should I become a ninja or a pirate?  Should I go to the party or play compuoter games?  Also, because there are no victory criteria, there is less agonising over which decision is the 'right' decision.  You can just sit back, decide to do what you want and see where the story takes you without fear of getting yourself killed.

Your character and NPCs are defined by their background, decisons and relationships rather than by stats:  It is more about how the story unfolds than winning, losing or getting the most points.

It may not be in the second person:  In some cases, you may not be playing a character but rather choosing how a story moves. 

Examples of gameBOOKs:  Choose Your Own Adventure, Life's Lottery, Choice of Games.

So there we are.  As you probably expected, the game/book divide is more of a sliding scale than two categories.  Next week, we can look at some gamebooks that are  and see if they are more game or more book.

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gameBOOKs vs GAMEbooks part 1 - GAMEbooks

A gamebook is an amalgamation of two things - a game and a (story) book.  It's all in the name, really.

What this means is that you canget gamebooks that are more game than book and gamebooks that are more book than game.  I'm going to define the game and the book part of gamebooks, state what characteristics each one has and what type of player would like them.

I will refer gamebooks that are mainly game as GAMEbooks and gamebooks that are mainly book i.e. they focus on story and character rather than stats and winning as gameBOOKS.

GAMEbooks

Here are some characteristics that make a gamebook more game than book.

Clear objective for victory:  Since there is more emphasis on game, there is a way to win and a way to lose.  The objective is usually something like kill the wizard or find the treasure or escape the dungeon.  Sometimes, the objective is revealed to you part way through the gamebook, such as in Creature of Havoc or Black Vein Prophecy but it is always there.

Few (usually one) satisfying ending:  Since there is one objective, most GAMEbooks only have one good ending where you meet the objective.  Most other endings usually result in your death, or, if they don't (for example, if you decide to spend you life being a monk in the Crimson Tide), the text usually states that you have failed in some way.

More life and death struggle:  Since in GAMEbooks, you either win or die, there are plenty of combats and life threatening situations for you to fall into.

Very little backstory:  GAMEbooks are moer likey to be the kind of gamebook with a few paragraphs about some evil wizard which aren't really relevant to the rest of the game as you then just have to crawl around a dungeon to kill them.  Warlock of Firetop Mountain is a classic example.

Use of stats:  There are more stats in a GAMEbook than in a gameBOOK.  These stats usually revolve around the abilities of the character rather than anything to do with the story, such as their fighting and magical abilities.  Characters in GAMEbooks also have some value to measure hit points as opposed to gameBOOKs, where, if death is a possibility, it is usually due to the text rather than any situation.

Choices mainly revolve around resource management rather than what you would do as a character:  Since you have a load of stats, the rules usually have a way of manipulating those stats.  Destiny Quest is the perfect example of this.  Should I use my charm ability now or later?  Which die shall I reroll?  Should I drink this potion of vanish?  Should I take the speed enhancing item or the brawn enhancing item?  These are all very interesting decisions but none of them revolve around the story.

Your character and the NPCs are mainly defined by their stats and equipment rather than by their interactions with others and their decisions: A lot of NPCs won't even have names as they are there to provide you with a combat or some other stat based challenge.  Your character will probably be defined by which stat is highest or which skills and spells they have (chosen based on their ability to win you the game rather than flavour.  It is not uncommon to pick a wizard with both healing spells and damage dealing spells.)

Examples of GAMEbooks:  Fighting Fantasy (with Legend of Zagor taking an extreme approach), Destiny Quest, Trial of the Battle God, some Tunnels and Trolls solos.

When to use more paragraphs in gamebooks

Good morrow to you all!  Today, I'm going to write about something that can be used in literature that I will call, for want of a better term*, timing. 

What I mean by timing is the use of splitting up the story into paragraphs and chapters in order to let the reader process what they've read and speculate on what is coming next.  When used well, this can really up the tension.  For exmple, Dostoevsky is very good at using timing in Crime and Punishment.  Here is the end of part 1, chapter 6.

Someone was standing stealthily close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly, and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard the latch unfastened.

The last bit of this chapter builds up to this - the ringing, happens not once, not twice, but three times, each time, Raskolnikov getting a bit more nervous.  Then the chapter ends with the latch unfastening...who is coming through the door?  What is it going to mean for out anti-hero?  This ending leaves you hanging and makes you want to read more, even though it's midnight, you can barely stay awake and you need a wee.

Dr Who also makes a good use of this with the endings to two parters, such as The Rise of the Cybermen.  How on Earth is he going to get out of this one?

DELETE!  DELETE!  DELETE!

Why on Earth am I talking about this?  I'm talking about this because gamebooks can make great use of this technique to build up tension as every paragraph is like a little chapter.  If you end the paragraph at the right point, it will keep the reader engaged as each paragraph can end in a little cliffhanger with the choice being how you get out of it.

There are also other reasons to have lots of paragraphs in gamebooks.  I have written before that in order to save space in some gamebooks, you can have the consequences of a roll spelled out on one paragraph rather than creating two new paragraphs to detail success and failure. For example, you can test your luck to avoid or be hit by an arrow.  If you are lucky, you dodge it.  If you are unlucky, you are hit by it and lose 2 stamina points.  Ken St. Andre has a reason not to do this:

The benefits of having all saving roll results appear in different paragraphs is that it reduces the temptation to cheat. If your paragraph says, Make a L1 LK saving roll and if you make it take 100 gold pieces; if you fail it then it’s a contact poison trap and you die is that the player knows what he’d better do before even reading the rest of the paragraph. Make them turn the pages. It increases suspense and playability.

If you do not have a maximum limit to the number of paragraphs, not having the results on the paragraph would increase the suspense, although in some cases where the consequences are obvious (if you bet 5gp on the flip of a coin, you know that if you roll a 1-3, you win 5gp and if you roll a 4-6, you lose it), it may still be a waste of paragraphs.

So that is something to think about when writing a gamebook.  How am I going to end this paragraph?  Is it going to create suspense?  Is it going to create a sense of danger and make the player really agonise of the decision? 

There we go.  Have a nice week :)

 *I'm sure that there is a better term, but I have not found one.

Gamebooks that are dangerous vs gamebooks that feel dangerous

He didn't see that one coming.
This isn't Forest of Doom, you know.

Most gamebooks have sudden death paragraphs or another risk of you dying in some way such as through combat.  However, in some gamebooks, your death may come completely out of the blue after you have done something that you thought would have perfectly innocent consequences.  In other gamebooks, there is a constant sense of menace and danger which make you think that death lurks at every corner but you may be pleasantly surprised when some failed luck roll or springing a trap only results in minor damage.  There is a difference between gamebooks that give a sense of danger and gamebooks that are dangerous.

Since feeling dangerous and being dangerous are too separate things, there may be a discrepancy between
how much danger I think I'm in and how much danger I'm actually in.  One example is in Grailquest 2 when you are given a map and offered the choice to enter several nondescript cottages.  If you CHOOSE WRONG, you might get this little message.

At least you will now be able to avoid that paragraph when you're playing Grailquest as an app.

You can also go to the well.  I bet there's nothing
dangerous in the well.  That's why it's called a well.
Because it will all go well.

There was no warning there.  I was in a deserted village, so the worst I was expecting was some monster who had eaten all the villagers to attack me, but instead I got a cottage to collapse on top of me.  I can't even think of any logical reason to do this in the real world at least.  Grailquest is humorous, so it may have been an attempt at a joke but I did not enjoy it.  Now in Grailquest, death is strictly not the end, but it does mean you have to start over with new rolls and buy new stuff, so it might as well be and this will increase the tedium factor*.

This is an example of a situation that does not feel dangerous but it actually is dangerous, and it made me frustrated.  

The other situation with discrepancy, a situation that feels dangerous but actually isn't could be most of Daggers of Darkness or Fangs of Fury.

In both books, you have to brave a huge unstoppable army led by an all powerful sorcerer alone in order to reach victory.  You also have a time limit which results in your death if you go over it.  Most of the decisions you make have completely unexpected consequences and you end up in some pretty precarious positions.  In Daggers of Darkness, if you board a ship, it is attacked by dragons and sunk (as a sidenote, I could probably count on one hand how many sea going vessels that you board in gamebooks aren't sunk).  In Fangs of Fury, you are knocked out and wake up to see a goblin about to chop your head off.  Oh and you also have to go into a volcano, which, thankfully, is the only volcano that is not filled with magma.  However, in all of the above situations, you survive through a series of improbable events and the worst you face is a tough, but not impossible combat.  This is also the only reason I can think of why it is possible to ride two tigers across a river one handed**.

I find both of these books a lot of fun as they remind me of a Rincewind style romp where you constantly find yourself in way over your head yet just about escape by the skin of your teeth.  However, once I found out that actually, despite, appearances, I probably won't die, the books lost their sense of danger.

In the cases where the feeling of danger agrees with the actual danger, there is less of conflict of interest.  In non dangerous situations that aren't dangerous, I will have a predictable yet boring time, such as buying stuff from a shop.  Very few whole gamebooks  are like this, though I can play Fabled Lands this way if I spend all my time buying trade goods and ferrying them from one place to another.

In dangerous books that feel dangerous, I will probably make decisions that get me killed and take several attempts to win the book, but I can't feel annoyed about it because it's clear that the situation is deadly.  Take Deathtrap Dungeon.  It does exactly what it says on the tin.  It's a dungeon.  Full of deathtraps.  And no one has made it through before.  So I can never be surprised if picking up a goblet or prising a gem from an idol (I can never remember which one) is going to get me killed.   Nowadays, anything that says 'By Ian Livingstone' comes under this category.  It doesn't matter if his next gamebook is called 'Cuddles with Fluffy Bunnies', you'll probably still die before you've read your fourth paragraph.

He hopes you get the point.

To summarise this post, I have made a diagram:

	Feels dangerous	Does not feel dangerous
Is dangerous	Dying is expected and met with acceptance. Victory is sweet and a good reward for my hard work. E.g Deathtrap Dungeon.	Dying is met with frustration as it is usually unexpected. Victory is met with frustration as I did not expect to take so long. E.g Chasms of Malice.
Is not dangerous	Dying is expected but won’t usually happen.  Instead, I get the feeling of tension with my decisions without the punishment of sudden deaths. The excitement may wear off when I realise that most decisions have small consequences. E.g Fangs of Fury.	I am probably not questing but playing some simulation of life in a fantasy world.  E.g Fabled Lands if I spend all my time trading.

In summary, the most frustrating situation is one that does not feel dangerous but actually is dangerous.  However, situations that feel dangerous, but actually aren't, whilst being fun for a time, eventually lose their magic.  This can be remedied by having a few instant death or high consequence situations just to keep the players on their toes. 

Situations that feel non dangerous and actually aren't dangerous might result in boredom.  Of course, in these situations, there is probably some tension besides life or death struggle, such as how much money you make, how powerful you become or how high some score you have becomes, so it can still be intersting as long as you are not expecting life or death situations.

Situations that feel and are dangerous, whilst they may result in lots of character death, should not result in frustration as I should be able to see it coming.

So there we are.  I would like to make my books feel dangerous, but the clincher is not making them frustratingly dangerous or boring once the player realises that they can do anything and not die.  I'll need to get the balance right.  

*I am loving the fact that there is now enough material about gamebooks on the internet that I can link to it with examples to highlight my opinion.  You're great gamebook world!

**Is it even possible to write about Daggers of Darkness without mentioning the cover?

Announcement!

Once again, I intend to do the April A to Z challenge in the same format as last year I would like to interview people in the gamebook world.  It creates a lot of exposure as over 1700 bloggers signed up last year and as well as writing blog posts, we also surf the other blogs.  I will be emailing some people in the gamebook world soon for interviews as there is plenty of gamebook goodness to look forward to in 2013.  If you would like to be interviewed, please leave a comment or email me at sl1605@gmail.com.  I'll interview you and then assign a letter to you so that I can cover all the letters.  I look forward to it!

David Walters talks about his next big thing

 Hello all!

Today we have a guest post from extremely talented author and very good friend, David Walters as part of him being linked to from Andrew Drage's next big thing blog hop.

So without further ado, here is David...

Who are you?

Existential questions aside, I’m David Walters, author of six novels: young adult historical books Samurai’s Apprentice (1, 2, 3), adult historical fantasy Dragonwarrior (1 & 2), and fantasy novel City of Masks. I’m also part of the design team for the Way of the Tiger role playing game which should be out in the next year or so.

You can check out a couple of my latest online articles in the latest edition of Fighting Fantazine http://www.fightingfantazine.co.uk/index.html

To truly answer the question, you should know I don’t really exist. I’m a fiction created by myself, springing into existence a couple of years ago, a fictional author writing fiction.

Anyone who has read my novel Dragonwarrior will understand the identity angst caused by the question ‘who are you?’.

What else do you have coming out in 2013?

I’m due to release my novel Samurai Master soon – it continues on the story from Samurai’s Apprentice 3, which was conceived as a trilogy but as it turns out the characters have a lot more story to tell, so will now be part of a series of six books. Kami’s journey continues for all his fans, and he’s got some exciting times ahead after his surprise decision at the end of Shogun’s Apprentice.

Also, I’ve got a gamebook called The Canticle of the Demon in the pipeline for later in 2013. I’ve been a fan of these ‘choose your own path through the story’ books for a long time, and want to write one that draws heavily on characterisation, tension and drama. This one will be set in and around a monastery, and of course contain a demonic influence – the rest is under wraps for now. There is a bit of a resurgence of the gamebook genre at the moment, and it will be fun to contribute to that.

I’m also working as a designer for the Way of the Tiger role playing game, and also have another few side-line projects but I’m not revealing any details on those just yet. I’ve also got to finish the Dragonwarrior trilogy – so much to do, and so little time.

Just how different is it writing a gamebook compared with writing a novel?

A novel is rooted in character and usually has a distinctive emotional arc for the main character. In most gamebooks, you are the hero who chooses which path to take, so there usually isn’t the same emotional arc: a gamebook is more about the world you explore and the choices that you make. There are some third person gamebooks that try to do a bit of both, such as The Arcana Agency by Paul Gresty at Megara Entertainment that does just that to learn a bit more about it.

I am interested in challenging myself as a writer, and this means trying new directions and ways of doing things.

When writing for the Way of the Tiger role playing game, you are part of a design team, how different is it working as part of a team rather than as a solo novelist?

The great thing about being part of a team is you can take more creative risks, as the group act as counterbalance if you go too far, double checking your work, and also they can spark off ideas in a collaborative way which help ideas to grow in unexpected and interesting directions. The only potential drawback to group creativity is you have to be prepared to compromise on your artistic vision, as you are bound by the agreements of the group, but on Way of the Tiger I’ve been given a very free hand to write for it, within the pre-established world. I think that is mostly due to the fact that the team are all so busy with other side projects!

There have been dozens of pieces of artwork created for the Way of the Tiger RPG, as the book will be released more than 200 pages & in full colour throughout. It was fascinating to see how artists on the project create artwork based on what I’ve written, and similarly it was an interesting exercise to be given a piece of artwork as a starting point and have to write some story or background around it. Again it is part of the collaborative process which sparks new ideas, or making old ideas go in different directions.

The original Way of the Tiger gamebooks were written by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, so this is my first time writing in a world that someone else has created, so that has been an added challenge, and I’ve tried to be as faithful as possible to the original author’s work. The original Way of the Tiger books were a big influence on my eastern style of writing, and so I am having tremendous fun writing in that world.