@Gaetano

I would suggest that we use the standard FF rules, since it is set in the FF world.

I think all the adventures have to start and end the same way, with you arriving in your own boat. This is the simplest way to join the adventures together.

IotC should remain as the entry point to the archipelago for now. It gives us all something to work from. It might be possible to change this later and turn Goi Han into just another island, but we don't need to think about that at this stage.

D-L-T Sat Nov 30 13:53:13 2013	I'm going to need to get much more familiar with IotC before thinking about this one properly.
	No cold feet now! If you don't feel ready to go for something as ambitious as the others are planning, that's OK : just write a very small one, 20 references perhaps. Reading the original text of Isle Of The Cyclops might also help you get into the right frame of mind.

Gaetano
Sat Nov 30 20:19:35 2013

Here's my outline:

Setting: Papagayo Island. This place is mostly uninhabited and unexplored, although there is a small village. The interior of the island is mostly jungle, separated from the coast by sheer cliffs.

Story: I don't want to give too much away, but it will involve a bird cult, dangerous wildlife, hallucinogenic fruit, haunted caves, and other delightful things.

Special Items: Ulysses, since you stated that In the Baron's treasury I'll include any item that another author needs which is made of precious metals and/or jewels., could you include an emerald studded crown? For item to be used elsewhere, it will be a bamboo flute.

Ulysses
Sat Nov 30 21:44:00 2013

@Gaetano:

Done! An emerald studded crown it is.

Tammy Sun Dec 1 06:07:01 2013	On the small island there is also the dead body of the letter courier at the bottom of the acid pool. Why he is not decomposed or why he is there, no one knows. story can be 30 refs long.
	Do you want to give your island a name at this stage? And is there any object that you would like another author to provide on their island?

Tammy Sun Dec 1 21:17:32 2013	@admin I don't think I need any object extra. If it's ok, the letter is fine. Unless Ulysses wants something else done with it. If any, I could write about a small island that is a waste of the readers time, a place just filled with death, where it's scarce to escape. There's no name at this point. Maybe you can think of one? I'm out of ideas.
	It doesn't have to have a name as far as I am concerned (I didn't mean to suggest that it was compulsory), and yes it can be a small island filled with death if that's what you want to write.

Ulysses
Mon Dec 2 01:55:43 2013

@Tammy

Your island of multiple ways to die could be very interesting. But a time-waster island could be a bit boring to write. The reason why this Bird Islands project is so interesting is that each island is written by a different person, so each has its own characteristics. Hopefully your gamebook would reflect your own personal interests and style, with some quest or task available that you are interested to write about. An island full of danger may be exactly that, but so far your posts seem to be about creating a place for the letter I described to be found; the letter should be just an incidental feature of the island, something that is found there but has no bearing on your own gamebook.
While not compulsory, the purpose of including items like the letter (or the emerald-studded crown, or the stattuette) is to form connections between the otherwise separate gamebooks. So you can ask others to include an item on another island that will unlock new areas or options in your own gamebook, or you could decide to use one of the currently available objects (which are I believe the statuette or the bamboo flute) in your gamebook.

pi4t
Mon Dec 2 09:06:21 2013

I assume that some islands (Ulysses', for instance) would have better items of standard adventuring equipment for sale. Should we take for granted that those apply across books? I don't see why I should leave my helmet behind just because I got on my ship...

On that note, perhaps we should take a line out of IotC in making lanterns reusable, and candles cheap single use light sources.

Yes, in practice it's going to be difficult to make most items local to an island without making the text look ridiculous. But it is important not to get carried away with unnecessary items, and I will deal with each as I see fit. In the example you give, a helmet, what I would do is let that be taken anywhere. If, on the other hand, you decided to add ten different coloured helmets, then I would find some way of losing them before you left the island.

The chances are, if you only add items at the same approximate rate as was done in Isle Of The Cyclops, they will all be allowed off the island. It's items that are clearly introduced for their own sake that are likely to end up restricted or cut.

Ulysses
Mon Dec 2 09:24:29 2013

@ pi4t

Good point. We should put together a list of commonplace items that are the same everywhere and can be transported between islands.
We'll have to agree how different pieces of armour and weapons work. Someone (me later if no one does it sooner) should propose a list then we can all argue about it :)

I would like to keep the total number of weapons down to 16. So far there are 5 : Club, Staff, Sword, Scimitar and Scimitar with +1 to Attack Strength. At the moment whenever you come across a better weapon you discard the one you have, but it might be better to switch to the scheme where you can carry lots of weapons and then switch between them at will.

There are three kinds of armour at the moment : leather jerkin, chainmail hauberk and platemail. In each case their effect is to allow you to avoid taking damage in a certain number of attack rounds. I really do not want to entertain the possibility of mixing and matching individual bits of armour : I would rather treat each set of armour as one complete entity. Furthermore, I don't intend to let the player have more than one set of armour at once.

The items in Isle Of The Cyclops are :

Jewelled Amulet
Lantern
Candle
Rope
Swiftstinger
Potion Of Healing (multiple)
Hyena Pelt (multiple - this might be changed to simply 'Pelt' to cover different animals)

One point I should also make : when I refer to the number of items, I am not referring to the number of instances of each item. There could be a club on sale in every market place, for example - but you would only ever be able to own one at a time. The exceptions to this are the items marked as 'multiple' above, you can own more than one of these. The addition of more 'multiple' items will be discouraged unless they are very generic (food springs to mind, for example).

pi4t
Mon Dec 2 11:29:02 2013

My adventure concept:

-Setting
A small, uninhabited and treeless island with a pirate ship (about 30-40 references). A pirate fearing capture by the authorities hid his plundered loot on the island some years ago. He was indeed since captured, and spent the rest of his life in prison, leaving the buried treasure to whoever has the luck to find it. There’s no proper landing place, but the island is surrounded by beaches which a longboat can land at.
-Story outline
The player is sailing by the island when he notices another ship at anchor a short distance away, flying the flag of the chaos pirates (the group who originally captured him in IotC, although of course this is a different ship and crew, since the previous one was destroyed in the storm). If he chooses to investigate, it appears that the pirates are digging around for something (guess what?) on the island, as a number of them have come ashore in a longboat. This is a glorious opportunity to strike back at the pirates, either as vengeance for the group’s treatment of you to help protect the seas to some extent from the pirate menace. He has a couple of options: he can lead his crew in an assault on the relatively unmanned pirate ship, and plunder and sink it. Unfortunately, there’s no time to get special supplies for this, like better gear for the rest of the crew, from another island, but it should still be winnable. The other option is to sneak over to the island itself, and sink the longboat, thus marooning the pirates on the island until they are rescued. He can also attack the pirates, or may be discovered, but that will be a difficult fight (several tough battles with no chance to heal between them) and the book will advise against it.
The player can do either or both of the tasks, but if he sinks the ship then the pirates on the land will catch on and return to attack: assuming they have the method of doing so, and are still alive, of course. If the player plunders the ship, they find an explanation of what the pirates were doing (looking for the treasure) in the captain’s journal in addition to some loot. Unfortunately, the captain memorised and destroyed the directions to find the treasure, in case the crew found out where the treasure was and decided to mutiny. Oddly, the captain write, the bottom of the paper with the directions seemed to have been ripped off, but he couldn’t turn around and stop the search because of a ripped piece of paper. If the player has defeated the pirates, he can investigate the island. The pirates have dug up what appears to be a treasure chest. In fact the chest is jammed and unopenable, and a trick for anyone searching for his treasure: if the lock is forced with tools on the ship, it will explode, dealing considerable damage to the player. The chest contains worthless rocks. The real chest is hidden some way beneath the fake, and the ripped off bottom of the sheet of directions can be found in another adventure, revealing this. It would say something like 'the first chest I dig up will be a fake, cunningly disguised to fool those who would steal my treasure. It will not open, and will explode if forced. I must dig below it to find the real treasure'.
If the player leaves the island and returns (eg to dig up the treasure), various different situations will have occurred depending on his actions last time. If he didn’t sink the ship, the pirates will have discovered the genuine treasure and moved on, sending a new longboat to the crew on the land if need be. If the ship is sunk and the pirates all killed, obviously the island is still empty and he can find the treasure in peace. If he left the pirates marooned on the island, then they’ll be weakened by lack of food and by exposure, into a rather more manageable fight. If the player kills them, he’ll find that having assumed the first chest was the real one, and not having the tools to force the lock, they didn’t bother to dig any further for the real chest.
-The special object for others to use
Anything with a piratey theme, which would either be found on the ship or in the real chest.

I hope that keeping track of what state the player left the island in last is possible to track, or I may have to rethink the ending.

Sounds good. Keeping track of the state of the island after you've left is fine, this works exactly the same way as for items. The sheet of directions would presumably have to be placed somewhere associated with the pirates, such as in the wreckage of the ship in Isle Of The Cyclops.

For anyone else : it's not mandatory to go into such depth with the plot outline, the amount of detail Ulysses and Gaetano have given for theirs is sufficient.

pi4t
Mon Dec 2 12:53:03 2013

I know, but I began writing it and started coming up with ideas and didn't want to stop. :) It helped me detail out how I was planning to do it, and helped me spot a few issues in my planned plot and also express what I wanted to do and check the software could do it.

I was thinking that we should have some sort of consistent geographical map, so that we know which islands are near to which, and so which you can travel to from where. Perhaps someone (the admin, for instance?) should draw a 'map' of differently sized blobs representing the different islands in the area? Obviously the largest of the islands should correspond with those visible in the canon map of Titan, as much as possible. One of the islands, preferably one nearish to the edge, should be the setting of IotC. Then we could 'claim' islands for our books to be on, and we'd have a much better idea of what routes between books should and shouldn't be possible, and as an added bonus we'll have a map of the setting to include. If IotC is fairly near to one side, then we could put some of the more difficult books, which would need a more advanced and powerful character, near the other side, so you're likely to have gained a number of powerful items by then.

Obviously we should have some way to identify the islands, like numbering each one. I wouldn't worry too much about running out of islands: we can always add more around the edge, if necessary.

This is why I was hoping to get hold of Andrew Wright, because if anyone knows what the Bird Islands should be like, it's him. However he has yet to answer my email.

The best map I've found is this one from here. This shows only three islands, all unnamed, and going by the scale even the smallest of them is too big to be Goi-Han (which, I agree, should be a tiny outlying island). I suspect that there isn't really any canon in this area at all.

For now, I don't think the positioning of the islands is an issue. Initially, there isn't going to be any navigation going on, there's just going to be a choice of destinations whenever you leave an island. I suggest that you state your preference for the size and position of your island when you write your gamebook, and that can be factored in when we finally come to drawing up a map.

duffmeister
Mon Dec 2 15:09:04 2013

Ooh, island outlines. Okay.
Setting: Tangata Nui is a heavily forested mountainous island with a tiny village on the southern edge. Its original inhabitants, the 'Tangata' people, are gone, leaving no trace except huge stone heads found on a couple of islands and a crumbling ruined temple complex in the depths of the rainforest. There is a volcano on the island's east side.

The player is given free reign wandering the island. Due to the prevalence of mountains and trees there are many occasions involving skill tests to climb up to places. However there are various encounters on the island which can give a bonus in these skill tests, improving the player's climbing ability (I understand that carrying a host of new abilities around between islands will be a nuisance to design, so this feature only applies to areas on THIS island). There are a tribe of ape-men living in the jungle.

Plot: There is a seemingly supernatural pirate ship (though since it seems that lots of other people have had the same pirate theme I had, they could be changed to something else if absolutely neccessary) in a stormy region near the island who attack ships nearby. Several of their number occupy the ruined temple.

Items that can be gained from this island: Possibly some magical item that protects the players from storms when sailing between islands if that's okay for whoever eventually ends up writing the sailing adventure. Possibly also an encounter in the sea adventure in which the islands pirates either do or don't attack you depending on whether you've stopped their mysterious activities on the island. Anyone else can include mysterious Moai style stone heads built by the Tangata people on their islands if they wish. Any items which other players want me to have on the island may be being held by the pirates.

Also, the volcano can be climbed, but requires lots of the climbing improvements available on the island to do so. Any item which is difficult to destroy can be thrown into the volcano if you reach the top, so if any player wants to include a nigh-indestructible item that is worth destroying I can include an entry for throwing it into the volcano.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the climbing ability idea - I would certainly rather see any 'advancement' taking the form of learned abilities like this, rather than stat increases or adding powerful weapons, which only serve to cause issues with balancing difficulty.

C-Star
Mon Dec 2 16:03:13 2013

This is getting interesting. We're slowly building up an open world, exploration-focused gamebook!

Ulysses
Mon Dec 2 21:05:27 2013

Hello everyone.

Looks like our archipelago is growing rapidly. One final thing to consider: do we want to lay the foundations for an ultimate or overarching quest?

For example:
The seas nearby could be plagued by a kraken, which regularly preys upon shipping. The King of Analand has offered a reward for anyone who kills the kraken. Though many have tried, none have succeeded. The kraken, the reward and the peril it presents to sailing out of the Bird Islands could all be part of the news and gossip the character overhears or hears as they talk to people, particularly in taverns, or on the docks.
Some time in the future we can write the gamebook where the character goes off to kill the kraken, but to do this successfully they must have already acquired certain abilities such as 'Climbing' in Duffmeister's outline. Other learned abilities could be things like: holding breath for a long time (gained through pearl diving or similar), kraken anatomy (acquired by eating a certain number of octopuses), spearfishing, and anything else that could be useful in killing a kraken.

That's just an example, although I must say being able to gain the special ability of Anatomy by eating octopus many times across different islands is an amusing prospect.

Anyway, so the suggestion is an overarching quest that we plant the seeds for now by referring to some subject in the text of our stories; and some gamebooks can feature the learning of special abilities which should be useful in that adventure (and MAYBE used later in the overarching quest).

Thoughts?

D-L-T
Mon Dec 2 22:48:48 2013

@Admin: you wrote
No cold feet now!

nope, no cold feet :) I've just been short of time lately. I've now re-read IoTC and had an idea for my gamebook.

------------------------

I had thought to make it a small, un-named island surrounded by rocks (this is an archipelago -> volcanic islands...) on which a ship has been wrecked. The ship may have been carrying something of importance - I had thought perhaps it could have been Ulysses' messenger (with his letter), but it seems that Tammy has taken that particular item (?).

Alternatively the wrecked ship might be a pirate ship, containing a pirate artifact - perhaps p4it's 'true' treasure map?

Of course, it won't be as simple as searching the shipwreck - the pirates, after being marooned, will have salvaged what they could from the wreck, before starving to death on the nearby island. Their treasures have been collected and scattered by the various native semi-intelligent inhabitants on the island - Birds (obviously) and I'm thinking perhaps some apes of some description.

As a motivation for searching the island, the hero may have damaged their own boat on the rocks. They'll need to find some ships' tools to repair the hole.

So as far as my book goes...

The item for someone elses' gamebook will either be p4it's pirate map, or Ulysses' letter.
The item(s) needed from someone elses' gamebook will be the lantern, and perhaps Gaetano's bamboo flute could be used in my book to avoid a difficult combat or two (that's not to suggest that it can't be used in someone else's book for a different purpose!).

------------------------

@Ulysses: Yes, I think an overarching / final adventure is a good idea. it would make sense for this to be launched from a large, "final" island at the "far end" of the archipelago.

No idea who would write it...

------------------------

@p4it: what if the 'special item' in your treasure chest were something to assist the adventurers fighting the Kraken in the series' "ultimate" adventure? It would make sense to me that pirates would treasure some object that gave them power over a terror of the seas... Just an idea...

Tammy
Mon Dec 2 23:08:49 2013

@D-L-T,
Do take it :) you can have the letter for your island. I don't know what I'm doing to be honest.

D-L-T
Mon Dec 2 23:46:11 2013

@Tammy

thanks :-)

Honestly, from a practical point of view I don't think it really matters which object is in my book. The narrative I've outlined is flexible enough that any object being carried on a boat could be the one used in another story.

Of course it does make a difference as to how the story gets written, whether it was a pirate ship or Ulysses' baron's messenger that was shipwrecked, but the differences are going to be cosmetic.

So... if someone else wants to 'volunteer' to write around either item, that would be good...

pi4t
Tue Dec 3 00:02:14 2013

D-L-T

I was sort of imagining the directions being found in a slightly more civilised area, like a town, where it was ripped apart previously. I could certainly redesign it to explain it being found on another wreck, though, if that would be preferable.

Also, by the way, please note the order of the i and the 4 in my username. Otherwise I may have to start referring to you as D-T-L :P

Either way, I don't see why we shouldn't have multiple needed items being found occasionally on the same island. I'm concerned with a 'one item needed, one item given per island' system we may end up being rather formulaic and predictable. You know: 'ok, I haven't got the item from this island yet, I'll keep looking'. Some people should also give items which actually have uses beyond getting more items, like bonuses in combat and suchlike.

One other thing we should be careful of is creating infinite loops. I know my 'real' chest will require the second piece of the directions to get to. If whoever includes those directions requires another item to find them, and so forth, we may end up with me accidentally putting an item required to get to the directions inside the chest! For that reason I'd suggest we should try to place any items which are needed for other islands outside areas which are opened by items from other adventures, and/or make the areas possible, though harder, to access without items from other adventures. If that's not possible, we should definitely say that's what we're planning to do, to avoid problems later. Doubly so if it's possible to permanently miss out on that item: if that will ruin another adventure, it may be better to include a different item, or no item at all.

In my case, I'll probably put any item for other islands I include in the pirate ship, rather than the chest, and leave something nice but not vital in the chest.

Regarding the final boss fight: we can do that, and should decide it now, and preferably ensure the player is acquainted with it before they leave Goi-Han (which would of course require a slight edit to that book). Then we could assume the player is familiar with the kraken being present, and can refer to it in our own writing.

I like the idea of a Kraken for another reason: it gives a justification for the player being unable to leave. Perhaps it's responsible for the storm that sank the pirate ship you arrived on, and has been sinking any other ships attempting to enter or leave the archipelago? That would give a good time to introduce it as an enemy, right at the start when the villagers explain how they found you.

What we shouldn't do is 'require' lots of items and achievements to be able to fight the kraken. Instead, lots of things should be beneficial to winning, but any items (probably only 2-3 max) which are required should be clearly signposted and not possible to miss out on permanently while staying alive. There should also be clues leading to which island the item can be found on at least, as well. They needn't be direct: 'I've heard rumours that a sage on the island of x has heard of the location of item y' would be ok. When the player does kill the kraken, we should make it possible for them to return to the islands if they want to, if they haven't done everything there is to do yet, and then let them sail away back to the mainland when they want to do so. Rather like the end of IotC, but in a larger scale: you can still wander around the island, and there are still a couple of things to do (get coins from the wreck if you haven't looted it fully, for instance).

If dependencies on objects cause trouble - and there are certain to be some because the gamebooks will obviously not all be implemented simultaneously - I will just temporarily place the objects required somewhere else.

Ulysses
Tue Dec 3 04:01:20 2013

I believe it will be wise to make sure each gamebook is complete within itself. My original suggestion was for items from elsewhere to unlock additional areas or bonuses, but would not be critical to completing the main quest on an island. For example, the letter I described previously is intended either to be shown to the Baron to get you into his good graces, or to be returned to the sender to place him in your debt; both of which would make different paths in the story easier to achieve. Of course others are free to write their own gamebooks any way they wish and make an object from elsewhere critical to success if they want to; but it does mean you are writing a gamebook that in and of itself cannot be completed.

Having these objects unlocking new areas also gives a reason for revisits to an island, making the experience of sailing around these islands less like a chain of adventures and more like a world that offers different opportunities at different times.

The objects that are used elsewhere also don't need to be identified as special. Certainly if the choice of taking the object or not isn't offered, then a reason for taking it should be provided; but this does not have to be related to its later use. For example, you could find a bamboo flute on the ground at an abandoned campsite on one island and decide to take it since as a a child you always wanted to learn a musical instrument, but never had time due to all the sword-fighting lessons you were forced to go to. Later on another island you hear apes whistling to each other and try to communicate with them using your flute. This allows you to befriend them and they show you to a tree where you find the best bananas ever!
The point here is that discovering where and how an item can be used, if at all, is part of the exploration.

Regarding the overarching quest, I actually think it would be better if it was put across more subtly, something that is present in the background, and not distracting from the main adventure on each island. Personally, for something like this I also much prefer gaining abilities that would help you rather than items, and for whatever you gain to be useful in general rather than specifically for killing a kraken (or whatever the final quest is). Obviously here I am suggesting that the reason for exploring all these islands is not to then be able to go and do the ultimate quest, but rather for the sake of exploration, with the ultimate quest (or the capability to undertake it) being something you grow into.

Just my thoughts. Feel free to contribute your own opinions everyone.

The kraken is a good idea, but be careful not to overcomplicate things at this stage, the most important thing at the moment is that the gamebooks get written at all. It will be easy to insert things in the gamebooks retrospectively, for example I will put something about the kraken at the end of Isle Of The Cyclops.

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