Just read your response, admin:

I think you've slightly misunderstood what I was talking about. I'm discussing an issue which we could find after the books are written. If, for instance, I were to hide Ulysses' message in my chest (I'm not planning, don't take this as a suggestion!), and then Ulysses wrote the message as an item needed to get the Emerald Studded Crown which Gaetano needed, and then Gaetano hid my directions in a place which needed the crown to access...then it would be impossible to reach any of those. I'm trying to avoid situations like that, or to a lesser extent long chains of 'you must get a before you can get b before you can get c...', as that'll feel a bit too...unrealistic.

No, I think I understood. What I'm trying to avoid is spending too much time worrying about issues that in reality can be resolved very quickly should they occur. The realism aspect of the long chains is a fair point, you of course though have the ability to influence this by not making success in your gamebook depend entirely on an object from somewhere else.

Yaztromo
Tue Dec 3 09:24:53 2013

I think we can superimpose or ret-conn various overarching quests, but rather than collecting objects or abilities, we may want to collect information on how to deliver the quests successfully?
In general, I like the idea of having an open world for free exploration (where each island is a small self-concluding game) that is the sum of plenty of contributions, so I wouldn't make the over-arching quests too visible.
My humble opinion...

Of course you don't have to have any mention of the over-arching quest at all in your gamebook if you don't want to. I don't think Ulysses meant that it should be in your face the whole time anyway. This is one of my concerns, though, that authors are likely to be distracted, and some might be put off altogether by the confusion caused.

Ulysses
Tue Dec 3 11:19:18 2013

Glad we're all having a healthy discussion here.

I think the main thing to remember is that each gamebook is first a complete gamebook that can work on its own, and second part of a network of gamebooks.

Actually writing a gamebook is far more of a task than linking the books together. As long as they all start and end with the boat sailing in and out of each island, everything else is easily manageable.

With that in mind I'll start my first draft soon and see no reason why others can't as well. We can deal with any issues as they arise and keep the discussion going here.

ffproject
Tue Dec 3 13:33:09 2013

Bird Islands Demo

I've put together a demonstration to illustrate how the online version will look. It's not much more than Isle Of The Cyclops so far, but it contains stub versions of the proposed gamebooks to show how they will be linked together initially.

Obviously the actual titles of the gamebooks are up to the authors, but as I don't know what they will be yet I've made some up. Naming rights for the whole thing have to go to Ulysses as it was his idea, but until he comes up with something, the provisional title is Tales From The Bird Islands, which I like because it's constructed a bit like Fabled Lands and reminds me also of Jack London's South Sea Tales.

Gaetano Tue Dec 3 17:46:18 2013	@ Webmaster So that we can more easily access the specific thread for "Tales from the Bird Islands", can you list Tales from the Bird Islands on the main gamebooks menu, or somewhere else on the home page?
	I don't really want to draw too much attention to the presence of the demo by putting it in the menu, at the moment it's only of use to people working on gamebooks. In fact I'm not overly bothered if messages go in the 'wrong' place to be honest, so on balance I have decided to remove the request from the earlier message. Sorry to cause confusion.

Ulysses
Wed Dec 4 11:01:33 2013

So far we have 6 authors who have submitted a outline of an adventure for our Bird Islands project.

Regarding the provision and use of special items between gamebooks we have:

Yaztromo
Needed: Trunk
Provided: Jade stattuette of Courga

Ulysses
Needed: Letter from dead messenger *
Provided: Emerald-studded crown *

Gaetano
Needed: Emeral-studded crown *
Provided: Bamboo Flute *

piAt
Needed: Treasure trap warning note
Provided: ? ( Suggestion: Trunk)

Duffmeister
Needed: ? ( Suggestion: Statuette of Courga)
Provided: ? ( Suggestion: Treasure map warning note)

D-L-T
Needed: Bamboo flute *
provided: Letter from dead messenger *

*Confirmed

As it so happens, the relationships between the special items form two separate triangles of gamebooks. This isn't a problem in the triangle my gamebook is in because the crown can be obtained even if you don't have the letter. For the Yaztromo-pi4t-Duffmeister triangle of gamebooks one or all of you will need to make sure the special item from elsewhere is not required to gain the special item you are offering for another elsewhere.

Ulysses
Wed Dec 4 11:26:03 2013

Regarding weapons and armour, I would like to suggest the following. I know that it's different to what was done in IotC, but I want to make sure we have a consistent way of handling new weapons. For example a "runemarked broadsword with sharkskin grip" would be called a "sword" and used as described below.

The amount of damage inflicted depends on the weapon type:
Unarmed = 2
Blunt weapon = 3
Spiked or bladed weapon = 4
Heavy spiked or bladed weapon = 5

The bonuses to Attack Strength depend inversely on the difficulty of fighting with the weapon:
Unarmed = -2
Staff, dagger, two-handed axe = -1
Sword, scimitar, hatchet, club, spear = 0
Fine sword, other high quality weapons = +1
Magical weapons = +2

Finally armour reduces the damage inflicted by the following amounts:
Leather = 1
Chainmail = 2
Plate = 3

This does mean with some match-ups that it is impossible to cause any damage, such as attacking an opponent in plate armour with a club. But that seems realistic. Alternatively all of the damages could be increased by one; in which case you could always cause some damage to an opponent unless you are fighting a plate-mail clad opponent unarmed.

Any thoughts?

Regarding other items, I think we should all just write our gamebooks then see what we have. But for now, keep items to a minimum.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this, but just a few points to consider :

How this scheme would work for enemies. If they had weapons and armour then it could all easily be deduced as for the player, but what about animals or monsters?

Rhuncaz Runecaster is in trouble initially if a staff incurs an Attack Strength penalty. It's not a big issue really though because he can get a +1 scimitar very quickly so long as he survives the trip across the island.

The mechanism for armour used in Isle Of The Cyclops as things stand is not a damage reduction but a number of wounds per combat that can be ignored altogether. From my perspective this is equally easy to implement, in fact both effects could be combined if necessary.

If invulnerability due to armour was an issue, we could always say that damage inflicted could never be reduced below 1.

Ulysses
Wed Dec 4 11:46:52 2013

Regarding navigation between islands, which we don't need to think about now but I am anyway, my original thought was that upon leaving an island you have the choice to go to any other available island.
I am now much more in favour of the idea someone implied earlier where each island is joined to a limited number of others, so you have to sail from one island to the next to navigate the archipelago.

I suggest the following:
1. Islands are grouped in clusters of two to four islands.
2. Each cluster has a main island which links to the main island in adjacent clusters.

So for example, using the "item triangles" mentioned in my post above, we have two clusters:
Blackfort Cluster consisting of Blackfort Island, Papagyo Island, and D-L-T's unnamed island.
Goi Han Cluster consisting of Goi Han, Tangata Nui, Hummingbird Island and pi4t's unnamed island.
Within each cluster you have the choice to travel to any of the other islands in the cluster. If you are on Blackfort or Goi Han, you have the additional option to sail between those islands.

(It would be good if pictures could be attached to posts...?)

pi4t
Wed Dec 4 12:08:34 2013

Taking your points in order:

1) The Yaztromo-me-Duffmeister triangle: I can, and probably will, include whatever item I have on the pirate ship, which would mean it wouldn't need the directions to find. However, and I can't stress this enough, due to the structure of my gamebook there will be a significant chance that the player will miss out on any item from my island, if they make the wrong choices (or are unlucky). Thus, it would be best if my book just gave an item which was useful, but not necessary, to access something in another book. I don't know what Yaztromo is planning for the trunk, so I don't know if that would work or not.

Also, again, my username is pi4t, not piAt :P

2) If we're going to do that, then it should be possible to switch weapons in combat so that if you discover the weapon you happen to have equipped can't injure an enemy you can switch to a higher damage - but harder to use - weapon instead. I don't know if that's possible with the software, so that would determine whether we could do it or not. Even if it is possible, it would require the player clicking 'attack' each round like on IotC (in case they want to switch weapons), which can get a bit tiresome and the admin has got rid of on the demo version. I feel that due to the nature of the automation we shouldn't make different weapons better suited to different battles, or at least should make it clear at the beginning which is better, and let people choose then. Perhaps when you click to start the battle, you're asked which weapon you want to use out of the ones you have?

3) It's a possibility, but perhaps a bit convoluted. It might be more intuitive - not to mention less 'gamey' - if we simply drew a map and let people travel between nearby islands. It's not like you're travelling by public transport between major population centres, after all. If you were travelling by ferry (or we implement proper ferries into the game, using Andrew's obvious concept from IotC) then I'd agree that having larger ferries between major islands in different areas, and smaller trips between nearby minor islands, would be a good idea. I wouldn't be averse to the idea of ferries letter you travel in that way without a ship, either: though we'd obviously have to keep track of where your ship is docked if you went without it for some reason, and it should probably be possible to buy ships elsewhere if we went that route as it will be possible to leave Goi-Han without a ship. Given the 'travel around on your own ship, plotting your own course' concept we're using, though, I think the ability to travel between islands which are visually nearby without having to go back and travel between major islands would be preferable.

You can always upload the picture to somewhere like Imageshack, and link it.

2) There was some technical issue regarding using items in combat, which is why I prohibited it, but I can't remember what it was. If enemies had an ARMOUR rating, like in The Diamond Key then that would let the player know that they should choose a weapon that was up to the task.

3) I like this. I would still lean towards waiting for Andrew Wright to show his face before drawing a map, as he might have something better or more canonical worked out already. That being said, whatever we do can always be reconciled later. I have assumed that ultimately we would be working towards a scheme where there would be a sea adventure and you would navigate around in that, but obviously start with the simplest arrangement of just picking a destination.

As you've noticed, Andrew Wright clearly had the intention that there could be multiple ships and other means of transport and you could even have cargoes. There's nothing to stop you including this kind of thing in the text version, but the software is still quite a way from being able to deal with it unfortunately, so it would be cut out of the online version.

Yaztromo
Wed Dec 4 12:37:23 2013

Hem... reading previous comments I just realized that I didn't explain me very well...
With "trunk" I intended an elephant trunk growing in the middle of your face (I'm pretty sure that you visited Mamang kitchen in your past life, so you know what I mean...). This could be the result of a curse or whatever else you want...

pi4t
Wed Dec 4 12:41:28 2013

Given that you can't leave that on the ship for other adventures, shouldn't other characters in other setting remark on such a curse, though?

Yaztromo
Wed Dec 4 15:32:57 2013

I almost have a small trick in mind about it... give me a few days, so I can finalize it.

Ulysses
Wed Dec 4 22:23:45 2013

If people think the way armour works in IotC is ok, then we can forget my suggestion. It's not my favourite way of doing things obviously, but I am more concerned with the stories themselves rather than how battle are fought.
But one last gasp: animal and monster hides could be easily associated with one of the armour types: most would have none, some would have a hide that is the equivalent of leather armour, and some rare animals would have a hide like chainmail.

Regarding weapons, I can't imagine why anyone would enter a battle with anything less than their best weapon. There may be some variation in what people consider the best weapon, but that's where weapon choice becomes interesting.
The reason I mention any of this is that IotC for example had lots of battles, and I suspect the other islands will as well (I'm assuming here that unpopulated islands are going to be filled with monsters and wild animals). Being able to stategise a little with equipment choices makes the combat more interesting. The alternative (and a valid one to be sure) is just to let everyone feature weapons in their gamebook however they want and sort it all out later when it comes time to put them all together.

pi4t
Thu Dec 5 09:43:21 2013

The reason a player may change their weapon is because different enemies may be weaker against different weapons, using the combat system you proposed. For instance, if I have the choice of a magical club giving +2 attack strength and 3 damage, and an ordinary scimitar giving no attack strength but 4 damage, then my choice will be different against different enemies. If I'm fighting an island hyena, the club will deal almost as much damage and hit much more often, so it makes sense to choose that. If I'm subsequently attacked by a guard with chain mail, the scimitar will deal 2 damage compared to the club's 1, so I'll only need to do half as many hits to kill the enemy, and may well choose the scimitar. If I'm fighting a knight wearing plate mail, the club will be completely useless and I'll have to choose the scimitar.

The trouble is, while we can select a weapon at the start of combat, a player may wish to change weapons mid combat if one isn't working out as well as they'd hoped. In a normal playthrough of a gamebook, this would be no trouble: just change your attack strength and damage before rolling the dice for the next round. Using the systems on the site, it causes a few more issues. Since battles are automatically resolved, it's impossible to look at the results from previous rounds and decide to switch mid battle, as in most cases clicking 'fight' will roll through the entire fight. We could have the books use the 'clicking fight does one attack round' used when there are other options, like escaping, available, but frankly I got quite bored clicking through all those battles when getting all the achievements on IotC, and if we did that then the repetitive clicking would probably outweigh the increased enjoyability from more tactical selection of weapons. I suspect that was part of the reason that using luck in combat has never been implemented. On the other hand, I'm not opposed to the idea in theory, if we can work out a way to implement it well.

Hmm. I don't suppose it's possible to have two buttons when fighting: 'fight', which would do one round, and 'autoresolve', which would go through the whole fight (insofar as that's possible without needing more player input)?

Ulysses
Fri Dec 6 02:19:26 2013

I started writing my 'Tales from the Bird Islands' gamebook last night.

Gaetano
Fri Dec 6 06:13:30 2013

@ Ulysses

I'm about 15 sections into mine, although I tend to write in spurts.

pi4t
Fri Dec 6 11:55:57 2013

I've started my gamebook, too. It's turned out to be relatively short: only 20 references, though I've been quite compact with my usage, having multiple fights on one section, etc. Otherwise it would have been more like 30.

Yaztromo
Fri Dec 6 16:47:31 2013

I almost finished my short gamebook. It will be a quick and easy one.
Last few checks and then I'll send it to FFProject (and Ulysses) for (hopefully) approval or maybe they'll ask me to change something. Then pi4t will be able to get it rom FFProject, just to make sure that we are all on the same wavelength.
Enjoy!

D-L-T
Sat Dec 7 01:48:49 2013

I'm mapping my gamebook now. I think I will probably use all 50 references, although I'm puzzling over two things...

1. what to do with the main character's ship crew while he/she is running around on the island

2. if the rationale is that the main character gets shipwrecked on my island, well, it's not really somewhere that you would be setting out to sail to.

anyway... mapping continues. I'm confident I can fix up the narrative elements.

Good to hear that you're making progress. My suggestions are :

1) What the crew do is up to you. The simplest thing is that they sit there and wait for you to return. In Isle Of The Cyclops it's just kept vague : all you know is that when you want to sail, they are ready. You could have them come ashore and join in with the adventure - though this would probably mean having to pin down the actual nature of the ship and its crew, something we haven't addressed so far.

2) You can have as many entry/exit points as you like, and one way in could be a shipwreck. However there should also be a way in and out with an intact ship. The method of navigating between the islands will possibly become more sophisticated over time, but initially there is only the Wavedancer.

It doesn't matter if it's not a destination that you would set out for, you could for example have seen it while on the way to somewhere else, or as the result of a forced detour, and decided to investigate. In your gamebook you don't have to explain why you have arrived at the island.

D-L-T
Sun Dec 8 23:10:16 2013

re: having an "intact ship" entry and exit point to my island - that's one of the things you will "discover" in finishing it, so that you can return to the island safely later, if you desire/need.

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