Colored storylet borders seem to have dropped off the roadmap (or am I imagining that they were ever there?)
I think they would go a long way toward making StoryNexus worlds more user-friendly. Like colored lines on the walls of hospitals: follow yellow to Slay Dragon, follow blue to Save Princess, follow red to Steal Throne.
Sorry, if that was already mentioned or answered, but do you plan integrating multiple language option? So that the players can select language before they enter the world?
As I understand it, right now if I want to translate the world storylets, I need to make new world (with new language)
edited by Loin on 4/7/2013
Suggestion - Tweakable option to change a player’s area or setting.
Have you considered making mobile apps from most successful games?
For my own sanity, I’d really like it if the storylets and qualities pages could be better organised/more customizable/have increased navigation efficiency. Specific things I’d like are:
The ability to create a super folder to put my tag drop down menus in. When I finish writing part one of my story, I’d like to be able to shift all the storylets, tags and all, to a super folder called Part I. That way they’ll be out of my way when I write Part II, but still organized the way I remember, allowing me to find a storylet faster if a playtester has an issue with it.
Whenever I go back to the storylet or qualities home screen, the tag that is alphabetically first is expanded and the others collapsed. I would prefer it if the tag drop down I was just working in were left open and/or
Would like the ability to navigate between storylets/qualities without having to return to the home screen. Like a “next storylet” button on one side and a “previous storylet” button on the other allowing me to navigate through all the storylets with the same tag easily. (Because let’s say I have a ten storylet quest and I screwed up the counter so the quest unlocks when a certain quality is 2 instead of 1. This error propagates through the quest, I realize it at the end and have to go back and change that value in every storylet. If I could navigate between storylets the amount of clicking I would have to do would drop dramatically, making the process faster and me less angry at myself.)
Those are just suggestions, really I would be happier with any increased convenience in navigation for the world builder. I think right now it’s a bit clunky and hard to organize a large amount of stuff in a meaningful manner. Overall, I think the StoryNexus engine is great though, thanks for making it public!
+1 this. I’d love to play on my phone without side scrolling.
Either a standalone StoryNexus app or just a “mobile mode” where the text was formatted to the width of the screen with larger go buttons (screen width at bottom of branch) and a grand swipe gesture to switch between storylet and status/inventory.
That also said, a standalone fallen London app would give the game a huge burst of visibility in an app store.
edited by HanonO on 4/24/2013
Editor UI Suggestion: Tabbed storylet view.
Essentially each storylet displays in the editor like it does now with the branches in order that they appear in the game, but each branch also has a named tab you can click over to that just shows that branch. This would save scrolling…scrolling…scrolling…scrolling through fifty-foot storylets, and allow a way to much more precisely flip back and forth between two branches to compare them.
I mentioned this in a post about an update to the storylet page, but I wanted to mention it here because it’s becoming more relevant for me as my world grows larger. It would be great to get storylets and qualities sorted first by using tag as a folding category (as they do now) and then alphabetically by note. For example, I have a fairly long tutorial sequence. Right now, I used tags like Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2, etc. to make sure the stories sort in order (so I can keep track of the chain). That means I have 24 tag tabs on my stories page, just for those storylets. If it sorted by tag and then note, I could use "Tutorial" for the tag and get them all under one header, then "Step 1," "Step 2," etc. to sort within the tag.[li]
The new layout looks great, BTW! :-)
I would find it absolutely splendid if we could order items around like we do now with slots, without having to the the slot run-around bit, if only for the erroneous "equability" that happening. However I’m kind of hoping that the journal part of the Appetite update(My most looked forward to update on the roadmap) might have something I can use for the purpose. Right now I currently have done a run-around to make a "character description" list in the inventory, so that every time you meet a new person of note in my world it is added (As an item with a description) and you can check back later and mouse-over their icon if you’ve completely forgotten who they are. I’m just sure that right now it’s rather confusing for some that you can "equip" said person(Even if it’s kind of amusing) XD[li]
The other suggestion I have is more of a question. Could a "Modern World" genre of StoryNexus games become available some time in the future? I guess depending on how many games get to a playable state that could be categorized as that… StoryNexus definitely lends itself to fantastic world building, so it’s not surprising that most games fit into a scifi/post-apocaliptic/fantasy category, but it was amusing to realize that my game’s setting being modern day is completely an odd one out. Of course once mine gets written and fixed up to a playable point, it wouldn’t be so bad to be a "You Can’t Label Me World".
That aside, being as this is my first post I shall also thank FBG for the awesomeness of StoryNexus. It’s been a lot of fun to work with so far, it’s also really different for me since I’m coming from Visual Novel engines. Very similar ideas(the choose your own adventure/stats aspects), but very different things work in each one. In general though, I haven’t been inspired to write or game-make in a long time and the idea of this really lit a fire in me with the possibilities.
Suggestion: "invert condition" option for requirements on branches.
Say I have a storylet that allows me to switch a value for some quality. I want an option to switch to "what is now" to be invisible. It can be currently done by having one branch that requires "less than now" and another requiring "greater than now" but that seems a bit broken (nd for a quality having 5 different values it turns a storylet from 5-branch storylet to 8-branch storylet).
[li]
Suggestion - a way to empty an entire mailbox. I sometimes would like to get rid of old messages from Fallen London. Perhaps a “select all” checkbox? Or is there a way to do this already that I am missing?
Suggestion - If, in addition to the if at least and if no more than requirements on storylets, you could make slots for a different quality controlling a different quality’s enhancement. For instance:
[table][tr]Quality Affected Change by/Set to If >= If <= Advanced Remove [tr] [td] 
Invigorating Foodstuffs url=http://berlintheraggedandthemighty.storynexus.com/qualitying/Edit?&qualityId=20891[/url] [td] Change by: 1 [td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[tr] [td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[tr] [td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[td]
[/table]
The only way you could get the quality Invigorating Foodstuffs, was if you had at least 3 of the quality Fatigue.
That would be cool.
[quote=Alessandre]Suggestion - If, in addition to the if at least and if no more than requirements on storylets, you could make slots for a different quality controlling a different quality’s enhancement. For instance:
The only way you could get the quality Invigorating Foodstuffs, was if you had at least 3 of the quality Fatigue.
That would be cool.[/quote]
You can kind of do that with hidden branches. Have one branch visible when Fatigue is less than 3, have another visible when Fatigue is more than three, then twiddle the appropriate quality in each branch.
[li]
[quote=Gordon Levine]Colored storylet borders seem to have dropped off the roadmap (or am I imagining that they were ever there?)
[/quote]
Yeah, I could go for some colored borders too. I recently (re)discovered the category section at the side of the root event thing, where they have titles like ‘seasonal’, and ‘gold’. However, these specifications do nothing. It’d be cool if they did something.
Request/Editor Behavior Change: If I click one save box in a branch, it should save all the branches with changes.
Is there any scenario imaginable where we would only want to save one branch and not changes on the whole page? If I noticed and corrected a comma on the way down to the branch I was actually intending to work on, it is a bit frustrating if I forgot to hit the save on that branch.
I like having save buttons on every branch. That is a definite time saver.
Alternately if that’s not feasible for whatever reason, perhaps the very top root section of the storylet could have an additional “save all” button? It can be frustrating scrolling through an entire storylet before backing out of it to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Suggestion: automatic progress bars for pyramid qualities, or at least for basic abilities which are pyramidded. Or a check box to put in a progress bar. You do get a “strength is increasing” message, or whatever, but no visual representation of progress. But at higher levels it takes a LONG time for pyramid qualities to increase and player feedback is very important. Fallen London has these, moving that functionality over to the general storynexus system would be great.
[/li][li]I like that idea - perhaps the genre could be called "Contemporary" or "Contemporary Tales" to distinguish it more as present-day from "modern" or sci-fi futurism.
[/li][li]
This might actually already be possible, but thought there might be an easier way to do it.
Essentially I’d like to add a bit of code into the description of a Storylet or a Branch which would be a hyperlink that adds a quality.
For example a description might be …
You walk into the dimly barn and survey the area. Up against one wall is an old beat up looking shovel.
Now the word shovel would be underlined or something and when the player clicked on the hyperlink he would gain a shovel object.
I think this could make finding objects more organic and ensures the players read through the descriptions carefully so they don’t miss anything.
edited by ferguson4848 on 8/23/2013
[quote=ferguson4848]This might actually already be possible, but thought there might be an easier way to do it.
Essentially I’d like to add a bit of code into the description of a Storylet or a Branch which would be a hyperlink that adds a quality.
For example a description might be …
You walk into the dimly barn and survey the area. Up against one wall is an old beat up looking shovel.
Now the word shovel would be underlined or something and when the player clicked on the hyperlink he would gain a shovel object.
I think this could make finding objects more organic and ensures the players read through the descriptions carefully so they don’t miss anything.
edited by ferguson4848 on 8/23/2013[/quote]
[li]
Technically you don’t create qualities on the fly - they exist at 0 (effectively hidden) until increased which is when the player sees them. I know that wasn’t your question.[/li][li]
[/li][li]
Create your root branch as the description of the location without the shovel:[/li][li]
[/li][li]You are in an old Barn[/li][li]The barn is pretty standard as barns go. It’s full of standard things that are found in barns.[/li][li]
[/li][li]
[/li][li]Then add a branch requiring shovel quality <=0: [/li][li]
[/li][li]Hey, what’s this?[/li][li]There’s a shovel against the wall you can pick up if you want.[/li][li]
[/li][li]Following it sets Shovel (a thing quality) = 1 and gives result [/li][li]
[/li][li]You take the shovel![/li][li]You grab the shovel and take it with you feeling a confident sense of ownership.[/li][li]
[/li][li]Think of this as an additional paragraph about the shovel, mentioning its existence.
The trick is you learn to write your "prose" in chunks that work out with the cards. Don’t mention the shovel in your root text - that way after the character takes it, that "take the shovel" branch describing it in the barn goes away completely.
The "thing" qualities are useful in that you can create an item-use storylet for them so they can be "used" within the inventory at any time.
You also must plan ahead - if the character will ever get the shovel taken away and you reset the shovel quality = 0 it will reappear in the barn. If you don’t want this, you need to figure out a way to make this happen. If the evil witch steals my shovel, I’d set the shovel quality to 2 which changes the quality name to "Stolen shovel!" and using it only shows a branch saying "Your shovel was stolen, so using it is pretty pointless here."[/li][li]
edited by HanonO on 8/24/2013
Alternatively you could give this a story requirement like Unlocked with the witch has stolen your shovel no more than 0. Then you wouldn’t be able to use the shovel in the first place, I think.