Adventure Cow: Make a Choose Your Own Adventure-style novel for NaNoWriMo!
October 31, 2010 11:42 AM Subscribe
Adventure Cow: Make a Choose Your Own Adventure-style novel for NaNoWriMo!
Adventure Cow is a site that lets you play stories where you choose which page to go to next (kind of like those CYOAs you used to read when you were younger). If you're thinking of writing something for NaNoWriMo, why not go interactive?
About two months ago, a friend and I were talking online about doing a CYOA-type story by email. I set up a little site where I'd email my friends with a choice every week, and they could click to decide where to go next. (You can play that story, The Brownsville Detective Service, here.)
For National Novel Writing Month, you can write your own choice-ful Adventure Cow story! My friend is making a roguelike, Dungeons of Doom. It starts with a grue.
(I drew from the originals for inspiration - it's easy to figure out how to start if you look at an example. :)
Adventure Cow is a site that lets you play stories where you choose which page to go to next (kind of like those CYOAs you used to read when you were younger). If you're thinking of writing something for NaNoWriMo, why not go interactive?
About two months ago, a friend and I were talking online about doing a CYOA-type story by email. I set up a little site where I'd email my friends with a choice every week, and they could click to decide where to go next. (You can play that story, The Brownsville Detective Service, here.)
For National Novel Writing Month, you can write your own choice-ful Adventure Cow story! My friend is making a roguelike, Dungeons of Doom. It starts with a grue.
(I drew from the originals for inspiration - it's easy to figure out how to start if you look at an example. :)
Oops! The tour is screenshots and such. I'll have it up in a jiffy. The rest of the stuff should be live.
posted by Make Way for Ducklings! at 9:08 PM on October 31, 2010
posted by Make Way for Ducklings! at 9:08 PM on October 31, 2010
It's really neat, but it's a little buggy/awkward.
A couple of things:
1. The instructions say: "You can create a new page just by type Page 2." (Or something similar, I'm going from memory.) So what seemed natural to me as a programmer was to just write my entire story in the first page window, like so: "Page 1. You are in a house. To leave the house, go to page 2. To burn down the house go to page 3. Page 2. You are outside the house. A meteor hits you. The End. Page 3. You burn to death. The End."
Of course, that doesn't work, and then you have to copy paste everything around. There's certainly no need to support writing stories like that, but the instructions could be clearer.
2. I made an account and wasn't given nor asked for a password. And yet, when I go to change my password in the preferences menu, I am asked to enter my current password. Makes me suspect that if I ever log out, I'll never get back in.
3. There was a delay of several page loads before my saved story turned up in "Your adventures." That might have just been a caching issue though.
4. There's no way to delete pages?
All that said: Neat toy!
posted by 256 at 6:46 AM on November 1, 2010
A couple of things:
1. The instructions say: "You can create a new page just by type Page 2." (Or something similar, I'm going from memory.) So what seemed natural to me as a programmer was to just write my entire story in the first page window, like so: "Page 1. You are in a house. To leave the house, go to page 2. To burn down the house go to page 3. Page 2. You are outside the house. A meteor hits you. The End. Page 3. You burn to death. The End."
Of course, that doesn't work, and then you have to copy paste everything around. There's certainly no need to support writing stories like that, but the instructions could be clearer.
2. I made an account and wasn't given nor asked for a password. And yet, when I go to change my password in the preferences menu, I am asked to enter my current password. Makes me suspect that if I ever log out, I'll never get back in.
3. There was a delay of several page loads before my saved story turned up in "Your adventures." That might have just been a caching issue though.
4. There's no way to delete pages?
All that said: Neat toy!
posted by 256 at 6:46 AM on November 1, 2010
Thanks for the catches! I've started tweaking the UI to weed those things out a little more.
posted by Make Way for Ducklings! at 12:14 AM on November 2, 2010
posted by Make Way for Ducklings! at 12:14 AM on November 2, 2010
« Older Science Limericks... | AE - The Canadian Science Fict... Newer »
:(
posted by 256 at 6:39 PM on October 31, 2010