Gamebook: Wandering Monsters Problem

I have a quandry in authoring a gamebook that I’m working on.

I’ve gotten to the point where i pounded out formats and presentations of certain issues that previously pleagued me.
Then I go into it and run into the one unaddressed problem on the first location.

Currently most monsters are attached to a specific location. This is not a problem.

My problem is where there is a single monster attached to multiple locations. It could be seen as being a ‘wandering’ monster.

In single location monsters you ‘return to page X’ once you defeated the monster. This page X is the location where you encounter the monster.

This is not true with a single monster who ‘wanders’ to multiple locations.

Without rewriteing up to 12 additional almost identicle monsters I am at a loss as how to address this issue.

So far the only thing that I’ve thought of is a single ‘Monster’ line where you use Initials to keep track of where you are. Much like a code word. and Each time you encounter the monster you write the location initial down so that when your done with the monster you know which location to go back to. Realisticly you’ll only encounter this creature 6 times at the most. So Word+letters tends to make sense.

If anyone has a better idea of how to address the ‘wandering monster’ concept please enlighten me.

Corgi singing off.

If the locations are easy to travel between, you can drag the player to a central fight location and leave them there. Let them get back to the encounter site on their own after the monster is defeated. (Cheesy, but it works.)

Otherwise, I can’t think of anything better than the solution you’ve already got. I don’t know how common the “gosub/return” model (writing down a return location) is in the gamebook world. If it’s not familiar, maybe it needs to be.

I agree that your code-word solution seems optimal. To be clear, I recommend giving the user a code word and then presenting the user with a table of pages to turn to.

Monster X: Turn to 24
Monster Y: Turn to 48
Monster Z: Turn to 56

Maybe toss in some fakes for fun.

That works great! thanks guys! I’ll be sure to let you guys know when I get it in a playable (through not grammer checked) form!

Corgi (or anyone who understands), could you give a small example in full of how this would work? E.g. post a small example “book,” like:

1 You are standing in a field. To lie down, turn to 2. To jump into the clouds, turn to 3. To become a Panda, turn to 4. 2 You fall asleep. 3 You find a castle in the clouds! 4 Try as you might, you stay the same.
But with your “wandering monster” functionality incorporated of course. Or otherwise could you make it clear how your functionality would work? I understand the idea but not the implementation.

1 Start. To go to the woods, turn to 2. To go to the swamp, turn to 3. To go to the dungeon, turn to 4.

2 Woods. Write down the code word XYZZY, and flip a coin. Heads, turn to 5. Tails, turn to 6.
3 Swamp. Write down the code word PLUGH, and flip a coin. Heads, turn to 6, Tails, turn to 7.
4 Dungeon. Write down the code word PLOVER, and flip a coin. Heads, turn to 7. Tails, turn to 5.

5 Thief. You encounter a wandering thief. Flip a coin. Heads, you die. Tails, you win. If your code word is XYZZY, turn to 8. If your code word is PLUGH, turn to 9. If your code word is PLOVER, turn to 10. If your code word is TEAHC, turn to 11.

6 Troll. You encounter a wandering troll. Flip a coin. Heads, you die. Tails, you win. If your code word is XYZZY, turn to 8. If your code word is PLUGH, turn to 9. If your code word is PLOVER, turn to 10. If your code word is TEAHC, turn to 11.

7 Dragon. You encounter a wandering dragon. Flip a coin. Heads, you die. Tails, you win. If your code word is XYZZY, turn to 8. If your code word is PLUGH, turn to 9. If your code word is PLOVER, turn to 10. If your code word is TEAHC, turn to 11.

8 Woods victory. You find a treasure map.
9 Swamp victory. You find a magic sword embedded in the rock.
10 Dungeon victory. You find a mysterious chalice on a basalt altar.
11 Cheater. There is no TEAHC code word.

Cool. Thanks so much. :slight_smile:

I have since realized how much combat plays so little in IF and GameBooks alike. Many of the wandering monsters have turned into simple ‘dodge’ encounters.

A monster pops out.

Perform test W to dodge.
If you dodge successfully then ignore the monster and Skip to “Choices” below.
If you fail take X dammage.
If you DIE due to the dammage above then turn to Y

“Choices”
Your standard choices such as move north, go south, etc etc.

By doing this I advoid a lot of uncessary combat.
Monsters/encounters are striped into two primary classes.
A. Full description encounters.
. Necessary for the introduction of new detailed monsters/events or for full blown combat sequences. Of which there shouldn’t be many.
B. Drive by minimal text encounters.
. Monsters/obstacles previously described or are a part of the ‘environment/location’ script don’t need a full description. Here they are provided in a minimalistic plain text format for the gameplay purposes only. Such as the above dodge example.

For those encounters that require their own description often they often allow either a ‘dodge/escape’ test first. The failure to do so results in full combat and turning to said combat page. This cuts down on uncessary combat text in commonly accessed location paragraphs/sections. Use codewords as “Ignore” codes and the test can be in the common location description but completely ignored if you, for example, defeated the bad guy.

This method streamlines many enocunters into simple tests if there necessary at all.
I’ve since created a layout format for these types of encounters to be uniform already and implemented them into my game book.

At which point is his thread dead?