I have spent the last couple of years on the net, looking for a way to make my own gamebooks so that I can share my adventures with other people. I have had little luck of finding one that didn't include programming knowledge or downloading several files that may or may not work on my system. I have found your website about four months ago and have loved the gamebooks that you have. I want to make gamebooks like these, but I am having little luck. Can you help me?

If by 'gamebooks like these' you mean automated versions that track your stats etc. then as far as I know a certain amount of programming is unavoidable. Nonetheless, I would recommend that you take a look at http://www.fightingfantasy.org or http://www.spielbuch.net, both of these let you make gamebooks for online play and you might find that the programming is not so bad once you get down to it.

Stuart Lloyd
Thu Apr 12 17:32:06 2012

Hi Alex,

It's great to see you want to write more gamebooks. There are plenty of gamebook creation programs out there.

Scroll down this page - it is the group after the author/illustrator pages.

http://www.gamebooks.org/show_links.php?type=gamebooks

I use ADVELH to make gamebook documents - you can also make hyperlinked HTML files.

If you want to make more of a hyperlinked program, I have used Adventure Cow http://www.adventurecow.com/ which is very simple to use - you just type in the paragraphs.

Choice of Games
(http://www.choiceofgames.com/category/user-made-games/) says that its system is easy to use even for users with no programming language. I have not used it os I cannot comment.

There is also the Choose Your Own Adventure Wiki where I presume you write a gamebook by creating several hyperlinked wiki pages.

http://editthis.info/choose_your_own_adventure/Main_Page

Hope this helps!

bcyy
Mon Apr 16 08:01:58 2012

I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer the questionnaire, but here goes (for the applicable questions, anyway):

What was the first gamebook you read (that wasn't your own)?

Metal City Mayhem (Sonic series)

What is your favourite gamebook?

Creature of Havoc or Moonrunner, can't decide which.
Captif d'Yvoire (T&T) and Warbringer (Way of the Tiger) also stand out, but they suffer from belonging to mundane series, IMHO.

What gamebooks/interactive fiction would you recommend to a newcomer to the genre?

Midnight Rogue, Vault of the Vampire, Creature of Havoc. In exactly that order.

Summarise what a gamebook is to a newcomer in 100 characters or fewer.

A novel in which the decisions of the reader or random events have an impact on the plot.

Why are gamebooks great compared to games or books?

Please define the terms "game" and "book".

Where did you come up with your ideas for gamebook game systems (in this case additional rules for FF)?

Actually, I don't think I would add additional rules if I ever wrote one. Additional rules deviate from standard rules, and could be stressful for the player to implement if they are either too complicated or are implemented too frequently. They could also be difficult to implement for a computer-coded version, thus limiting their development (I converted Lair of the Troglodytes as a C programming exercise, but stopped at converting ones with more complicated rules, since those rules were incompatible with my central subroutines dealing with stats and combat).

When it comes to writing a gamebook, what's the most important thing that you do?

Make sure it would be worth reading. Not necessarily fun - educative or inspirational would do too.

Stuart Lloyd
Thu Apr 26 05:48:26 2012

Bcyy - I'll put you on my blog for Saturday. Many thanks for answering the questions.

Robert Douglas
Thu Apr 26 22:05:40 2012

Just listened to 'Turn of a Friendly Card' suite by The Alan Parsons Project. There might be an idea for a gamebook there. Discovered this on local radio one sunny day in March. Just thought I'd share that with everyone.

The lyrics in TOAFC part 1 reminds me of Fallout: New Vegas...

Robert Douglas Fri Apr 27 16:34:46 2012	Hi Andy, Just noticed that my name isn't on the 'Featured Gamebooks' as listed on the homepage. Since there were a few changes to TCOD, is that the reason? The Downloads section of my gamebooks, however, should be in their original format.
	No, it's because I forgot. It's there now.

Robert Douglas
Sat Apr 28 20:51:52 2012

Hi Gaetano,

Just had a great read of your Soul Tracker - a sort of cross-between Blade and Van Helsing worlds. Some brilliant writing, and I loved the dialogue between characters. Sadly I had to end

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Wish there was a way players could save their progress when they need to regenerate their Life Points, and go to bed!

You can save progress as a bookmark/favourite.

Duncanthrax
Thu May 3 09:12:02 2012

I love this site.
A site for fans of gamebooks is project aon where you can read the original lonewolf gamebooks.
Lloyd of gamebooks is another one.
but anyways I love this site.

Geffenrand
Mon May 21 14:08:57 2012

can anybody tell me how to pass my work here?

duffmeister
Mon May 21 14:22:27 2012

Hi Geffenrand, to get your gamebooks put up here you need to e-mail Andy using the 'contact' option above.

Geffenrand
Mon May 21 20:34:10 2012

how do i use that?
shud i just copy then paste it there?
that simple? no technical stuff?

Ulysses
Tue May 22 03:37:53 2012

@Geffenrand

If by 'pass your work here' you mean to have your gamebook as playable online, there are certain criteria to be met (see the FAQ page). Alternatively, your gamebook can be put on the Downloads page.
Regardless, the first step in all cases is to send in your gamebook as an attachment to the email supplied as Contact from the menu.

Geffenrand
Tue May 22 12:09:19 2012

What? I dont get it. Technical stuff...
My game is written in MSWord 2010, so I guess it will only be for the downloads. Ive only seen this site for less than a week ago so I dont know the rules...

Phil Sadler
Tue May 22 15:49:05 2012

Post your book to the webmaster:

info@ffproject.com

And he may put it on the download page and maybe even make it into an interactive adventure as well. However, he normally only does this books in the FF style.

Geffenrand
Wed May 23 02:59:17 2012

So ill just copy then paste it on that link? That simple?

Geffenrand
Wed May 23 03:00:52 2012

FF style? Final Fantasy? hehe

Phil Sadler
Wed May 23 16:15:40 2012

Just send it in document form or zipped up or win-rarred and that's that.

john
Wed May 23 18:14:15 2012

My two cents on the question of how to turn in the gamebook: if your in word 2010 (or 2007 for that matter) you may want to save your file as a word 2003 document or earlier, as there are a lot of people who use the older versions of word. I can't speak for the webmaster, but it might be an extra step worth taking.

Robert Douglas
Fri Jun 22 13:47:14 2012

Hi Phil,

Sometimes, when I need to check something I've written but can't remember the particular reference, I use the 'Find' box. The words you type in might be 'wounded soldier', a name, or something else unique to that scenario. It could result in several or a dozen instances - but I've found the 'find' option quite handy when checking and/or correcting work in my gamebooks.

Phil Sadler
Sat Jun 23 15:48:31 2012

I actually did try the find option but I still couldn't discover the correct location :(

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