Hallooo Failbetter!

StoryNexus
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I’m positive you guys are exceedingly busy and wrapped up in Sunless Sea, but any chance we could get a status update on some StoryNexus stuff? There is an IFComp coming up in a month, and I’m hoping to enter a SN game. (Yes, really, Alexis. Not that one.)[li]

Roadmap: Some of the stuff is way behind. We all sympathize that the roadmap is challenging and takes forever, but we enjoy updates!

Art: Last we heard (earlier this year?), the game UI themes were becoming easier to make due to templates of some sort and a whole raft of intriguingly titled themes were discussed. We love the dusk theme, but any updates on these? I know I’m probably unaware of some special FailBetter secret sauce, but this would seem like the easiest thing to crank out on a fairly regular basis, even just slight color or font variations of the existing themes.

Art: We still have a lot of placeholder card art. I know this will be moot once we can upload our own (see above,) but I’ve been hoping for a suit of male clothing to go with the female clothing since I started writing games. I have to use the cross to represent the King in my game because that’s the closest thing to appropriate, and I’ve used every silhouette, sometimes multiple times, for other characters.

Suggestions Thread: I notice that often a new thread will get answered, but items brought up in the suggestions thread won’t get an official one. The community is great about directing newbies about stuff that’s already been discussed and asked for and I myself have gotten some good suggestions from the others. But nothing makes my day better than when Alexis pipes in harrumphingly to tell us how impossible and crazy our requests are. Perhaps it’s just the sense of validation.

These are not complaints; this is just feedback because I love using StoryNexus and always hope for more! Thank you for all the work you all do on a consistent regular basis!

(retreats humbly to his corner, hoping Alexis is happy that he hasn’t irreparably broken a world this month)[/li][li]
edited by HanonO on 9/1/2013

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I suggest waiting till 4th September? ;-)

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[color=009900]Hi Hanon

I’m afraid Fallen London is the priority for the foreseeable future. This means any updates to SN will happen

  • when we have resource with no FL tasks, or
  • when it brings something new to FL that we need.

Right now, we don’t have any spare resource - whether SS succeeds or fails, we won’t before Christmas at the earliest (and probably much later than that). I certainly wouldn’t make IFComp plans based on new features being available.

I know that’s not what you want to hear! But it’s been lean times this year, and we need to focus on work that keeps us eating.

[/color]
edited by Alexis on 9/1/2013

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[quote=Hanon]There is an IFComp coming up in a month, and I’m hoping to enter a SN game. [/quote]Have you checked that Storynexus games are eligible? If I remember rightly, the rules require that all entries be downloadable from the competition website.

On Storynexus development: this is something I care about as well, because there’s a text-based game I really want to make which would be a better fit for Storynexus than the obvious alternatives. It certainly wouldn’t suit parser IF, but I could maybe just about make it work with something like ChoiceScript.

The problem: there are features I really want (arguably, need) which, at the current pace of development, won’t make it in any time vaguely soon. I was planning on holding off on any feature requests/questions about development timetables until Failbetter know where they stand with Sunless Sea (which I really hope succeeds, even though it’ll probably mean fewer resources for Storynexus, Failbetter being a small team).

Right now I’m on the fence. But before I can get started, I still have a lot of London Labour and the London Poor and bad Regency/Victorian poetry to read.

Edit: ah, that clarifies things.
edited by Flyte on 9/1/2013

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[quote=Alexis Kennedy][color=009900]Hi Hanon

I’m afraid Fallen London is the priority for the foreseeable future. This means any updates to SN will happen

  • when we have resource with no FL tasks, or
  • when it brings something new to FL that we need.[/color]
    [color=#009900][/quote][/color]
    [color=#009900]
    [/color]
    [color=#009900]
    [/color]Thanks so much, that’s what I figured was going on, but it’s nice to hear it officially! I look forward to all the Fallen London goodies and eventual rolldown to StoryNexus :)[li]
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From everything I understand, StoryNexus should be eligible. When you enter a game, here’s what it says:

[table][tr][td]Online play:[td]Online play of this game is hosted on the competition site
Hosted at this url:
Online play of this game is disabled[/table]
[li]
I believe they’re making everything online for ease of people who don’t mess with multiple interpreters, and because if people play online, they can capture transcripts for the authors. I don’t know for sure, but I heard about the authors getting transcripts. StoryNexus games have a url that is hosted and private when you select for the world to be unpublished (unless someone guesses the url, which is unlikely.)

The tricky part is this:

[color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]All entries must be previously unreleased at the opening of voting. This includes beta versions. The author must know who has had access to copies of their games before the competition. The game may not have been freely accessible: if you place a version of your game on a web site, the URL cannot be publicly handed out. If an entry has previously been circulated, it will be disqualified. [/color]

So essentially, you must make sure a StoryNexus game is unpublished and will not accidentally show up when you hit 25/30 storylets to qualify for the world directory. You would need to control who gets access to your game via key of dreams, or possibly by using your own beta tester key quality, and perhaps carefully control a link to give your testers access.

You would need to keep your game non-monetized (at least for the competition, I assume) and unpublished, so the only people who get into your game are the ones who follow the direct link that you give the IFComp. After the comp, I would assume the game can be made freely playable and visible on StoryNexus…and I would assume monetized if that is possible or appropriate.

I know people have entered Twine games, and I think &quotChoice of&quot games, and I believe Ian from VaryTale was suggesting for people to enter games, which are very similar to SN.

The only thing that I imagine might put people off would be needing to sign up for an account. I am going to email the organizer just to make sure I’m in line with this thinking.

(Sorry about the weird cut/paste formatting.)

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When you say FL is the main resource priority; does that include the Fallen London -> Storynexus port, or is that something which is going to be postponed for the foreseeable future?

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[color=#009900]That’s still on the list - but we need to get a lot of pieces in place first.[/color][li]