Topic by Dark 2008-10-05 16:21:08

  • Dark
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Has anyone got a mind for devising and designing fiendish traps, evil creatures, and nasty combat. who is the most devious dungeon designer, the most creepy creature creator, the best batle builder?

Here's a chance to find out, thanks to the chronicals of Arborell windhammer gamebook prize!

the first competition of it's type, anyone is welcome to enter. just submit a 100 section gamebook written in rich text format to the chronicals homepage, and you could be up for honour, glory, and a cash prize of 100 Australian dollars.

for all competition details, check Here on the chronicals competition page page and while your there, have a look around for the chronicals various offerings.

happy monster making!

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

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Reply by Neo_007 2008-10-05 19:07:33

  • Registered: 2007-08-23
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Hello again Dark.

Just sent off an email to them as I did not know what was meant by gamebook or what 100 sectons or 40 A4 pages was about. Sounds a little CYOA ish. Worth 100 Australian buckazoids. Fair enough.

Yo

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Reply by Dark 2008-10-06 00:22:10

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Hi Nio0.

gamebook is the generic term for anything cyoa, fighting fantasy or other.

100 sections seemply means 100 game sections of choices, with each choice in the adventure having a number.

as for the character generation, that means you have a character which you roll stats for, which are either used as in a tabletop rpg to make difficult choices and decisions in the story, ---- for example, rolling against your characters agility stat to see if they can climb a wall faster than a persuing enemy, or a roll against their strength score to see if they could break open a door.

for some great online examples, using the famous fighting fantasy rules and combat system (there's a very good explanation of the rules on the page), go to http://www.ffproject.com/

Hth. i think if you only added some combat and statistics rules (perhaps the ff ones), into one of your Cyoa stories, ---- assuming of course it was 100 game sections long, you'd have a submitable entry.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Dark's Website

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Reply by Neo_007 2008-10-06 02:09:52 (edited by Neo_007 2008-10-06 02:47:25)

  • Registered: 2007-08-23
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Thanks Dark.

Mine are 50 to 70 pages. But wind up feeling like 7 to 10 rooms. They want submission in rich text format so you can submit graphics with it I guess - so what they want is CYOA story format it seems that hangs together. I don't know. I'll check with them - they haven't respnded yet. Mine do have a bit of interactive fiction to them - a puzzle or 2 to solve. 

Thanks for the link.  I've seen this site before. The ff skills angle are interesting. Reminds me of some old style mud stuff - improve your health, armore, etc as you fight.  I'll read up on it some more. But to base results off of dice throw ... sort of d and d stuff. Never did that as a kid.

But suppose you loose on a roll of the dice ... it then throws you into another room instead of you die and end the game ... add other players ... the book story lines rules as cyoa style for each player ... you have a referee or moderator to control the dice and book ... make it web hosted ... and you have a d and d mulitplayer. Interesting ... the site game would be mostly just text story for each character/ player. Anyone thought of this or tried that? I wonder if it would be worth it.

Anyway I'll talk to them. What I do may be outside of their need. But I am close and they may be interested. I could hammer out another short story if what I do fits the bill.

Update : I've studied the site more and it seems real d and d to me. I'll think on it.

Yo

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Reply by Dark 2008-10-06 14:26:29

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Yep, similar to D&D, though with more emphasis on making choices in the story, and a much simpler combat and skills system. it's not usually devoid of puzles though, ---- see books like hellfire or hunger of the wolf for some good examples.

depending upon how difficult you wish to make the story, it's usually bad manners to let just everything rest on one dice roll. usually there is a way to improve things during the story, for example by collecting magical weapons and armour to aid in combat.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Dark's Website

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