Idle Thought's Choose Your Own Adventure Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Well, if I recall how these things work (it’s my goal to have a complete CYOA series in the next 6 months, and the last ones I read were the “Escape from Tenopia …” series {by the by those are not CYOA books but similar concept} a few years ago. Before that I last read these things back in the mid 80s) is that you start with a first page, then if you were to draw a tree like I did earlier the possibilities keep getting wider and wider. But, because you don’t want people to be doomed to a bad ending from their first choice you begin to merge them back together again. Having a few generic bad endings and maybe one good endings and one great ending. That’s why we don’t pick where it came from. Even though it does make it more of a challenge as now you have to make sure if Jim learns something he has to have learned that thing in all possible paths that lead up to that point.

For instance post #6. It’s the Jim did something wrong and got caught by Peter ending. Bang on the door, fall through the roof or do something else stupid and it’s off to 6 and death for you. #20 is the Jim did something stupid in the shed ending. So it wont be just 44 (by the way, nice pick-up on the shed choice, it’s getting really hard to keep track of all the story lines) by other places too. For instance after Jim leaves the cabin in 33 he might decide to hide in the shed.

We do have one problem though. All the lines from 1 lead into the Parker place. Yet at 9 he’s in the potion store. It looks like 30 will have to lead to 9 either directly or through choices. Or maybe someone else has another idea on how to work it. Free form authorism is fun!

If people want to add to the tree I made just click quote on that post. Copy the whole thing into Wordpad and edit it with Courier or another fixed width font. Then paste that into a post and surround it with {code] {/code} but with these instead of these {}

22

I wouldn’t worry to much. I’m sure they are pretty busy and I guess they don’t want to set precedent. Plus people reading that story should be reading this one and know where to go.

Plus I hope we get to do this again. I think we’re really learning a lot about how to do this sort of thing.

23

I tried. I don’t know why but I find that hard to do. Weird.

24

No worries - we can imagine the extra line until it happens, or indeed indefinitely!

Fern Forest - good point about the lead-in post numbers, I’d forgotten there may be more than one and/or they get added to later. I kind of brought it up because I was a bit lazy with my ending, so it now relies on Jim doing something in the shed that would semi-plausibly cause what I described! Oh well, we’re learning, as you say!

Probably because we’re writing in the third person instead of the second person (of course I meant “second” when I said “first” just now). IIRC, most of these stories say: “YOU are doing etc. etc. …”

25

Arghh! Beaten to post 23 by Regallag_The_Axe! Damn you :)! I spent so long doing it, I’m posting it here anyway. Maybe it would be a good rule to say you must do a quick post here stating your intention of adding to the other thread before you start, because posts tend to take a long time to compose. This should avoid simulposts and wasted effort. To that effect, I’m now beginning work on #24. In the meantime, here’s my version of post 23:

Climbing up the broom handle proved to be harder than it looked. Jim had only got halfway, wishing he had risked the string, when he heard Mr Myglipik coming back. “Just one moment - I have it in the back room,” Jim heard him say to what he assumed was a customer, before footsteps - lighter than Jim expected for a big man - approached the room where Jim was still stranded 2 feet from the shelf. Thinking quickly, and not wanting to be rediscovered by the apparently homicidal potion seller, Jim swung round to the far side of the broom handle and kept still, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted.

Mr Myglipik was muttering to himself as he entered, gathering up bottles from shelves: “Dirty old witch, thinks she knows more about the business than I do, asking for supplies at a discount, well she knows nothing of the Cilla’s arrangement, and she lives in that shabby cabin right next door! I’ll show her, when I get my gold, she’ll be cackling on the other side of her crooked nose…”. With that the shopkeeper returned to the front counter, affecting what he presumably thought was a polite and businesslike manner, which actually managed to sound smarmy and brusque at the same time.

Jim breathed a sigh of relief and continued climbing; his arms were really aching but he didn’t have much choice. He was just thanking his lucky stars that the Regrowth Serum was not one of the items required by the “witch”, and that Myglipik hadn’t approached the shelf it was on too closely. Even so, Jim had almost given himself away with a large sneeze which, with both arms wrapped around the broom handle, he was powerless to prevent, but luckily Myglipik had coughed at the same time and not noticed anything untoward.

Jim reached the fifth shelf without further incident, and grabbed the Regrowth Serum with both hands. Fortunately it did not have a childproof cap, so despite the bottle being almost as tall as he was Jim was able to open it. Just before taking a hearty swig, Jim noticed some instructions on the side. They read: “Take eight drops per cubit increase desired. NOT FOR BOTANICAL USE.” Hell, thought Jim, what’s a cubit? He wished he’s paid more attention in maths lessons, but somehow he doubted that would have helped anyway. He’d just have to take a wild guess.

If you think Jim should drink half the bottle, go to post 31 of this thread.

If you think Jim should drink the whole bottle, go to post 32 of this thread.

26

Holy cow, talk about a jigsaw puzzle! It’s getting complicated trying to keep up with what fits in where. The post tree is invaluable, Fern Forest; thanks! I’ll leave post 24 up to you or someone else to fill in that gap going back to 19…

I agree that this is a good trial run; if we get all the kinks worked out here and finish it successfully, we can start another one. Fun project.

27

Hehe, there were three of us working on that post then – I had to delete my version too! :smiley: I like the idea of people stating their intent to write here first – first come first serve basis sound fair? But only say it if you’re actually going to write it!! :eek:

28

One thing I noticed yesterday when Dead Cat introduced possibly having the Red and Blue potions by the time he gets to the cabin is that while he’s “shrunk” right now, he’d have to (to make it make sense that way) go back to explore the Parker place after he grows again (and gets the regrowth serum). :stuck_out_tongue:

It is like a huge jigsaw puzzle, but it’s fun trying to make it all fit and work out. :slight_smile:

29

What do you think of my solution? I don’t know if it’s cannon with CYOA but who cares, we dopers are a breed apart.

Man, I don’t want to make another tree. Maybe if I drew one out and scanned it it wouldn’t be so bad.