I just discovered that this week, and have been enjoying it. In general I think they have a very different approach and way of thinking about CYOA than I do, and it’s nice to hear a different perspective.
Relevant to this discussion, there’s some really interesting stuff in the episodes on Sorcery! games about their transition from a more “pure” branching narrative in the first game to something more location based in the second.
Oh yes, I’ve read some of the theory behind Sorcery! and Ingold’s thoughts on CYOA vs parser. Really good stuff. And thanks for the link, ElliotM. This is one of those cases I like to be proved wrong, because if I am, then it’s good news for everyone.
The TinyTinyAdventure games on Android (I think the author sometimes hangs out here?) are interesting because they use location-based choices that are based on what you see and what is in your inventory (and probably some other state of the game?) so it they play more like parser-based IF, but by tapping on nouns and verbs on the screen instead of ever typing anything, and there is a basic world model for objects and creatures. Something worth exploring more I think.
My own gamebookformat tool is a bit similar to Ink really. There is a simple text-format not unlike Ink (or markdown or similar formats) that is parsed to JSON and then played in a browser (although the version on github still has the older code that creates a mix of HTML and JS instead of JSON to make a playable version). The main thing that makes my tool different from Ink (and other tools, or most of them?) is that I only allow things that could work in a static paper gamebook as well, so you can use it to make RTF versions for Windhammer or to post your own PDF (in addition to a digital version that can be played). That adds some interesting limits on what can be allowed in descriptions. For instance there can never be any code to generate description text, because that would not work at all on paper.
I have thought about experimenting going the completely opposite direction as well, more like TinyTinyAdventure, making some kind of text-language and engine to have a world-model and generate text, like a parser-based game without the parser. Not that I have any game in mind I want to do at the moment, so it is not high on my list of priorities. It would probably be good to borrow some inspiration both from TTA and other engines like Ink to think of clever ways to make the descriptions more alive.
Thanks, all!