Post suggestions here!

Have I said how much I like "Save As Draft"? I think I have. I'll say it again, though. I like "Save As Draft".

 

As a newbie writer here I've come a cross a few things that would help me:

• Sorting Notifications between types - Likes, favorites, bookmarks, comments, etc... I use views, likes, and bookmarks to gage interest in a particular story branch.

• Mobile support for Bold, Italics, and Underline - Unless it's hidden I have no way of knowing if I can do this on my phone/tablet.

 

* A random number generator for variables. (This is critical!)
* The ability to hide some variables from being shown in the "game box."
* The ability to reorder how variables are displayed.
* The ability to show variables in the chapter itself.

 

On the topic of variables, i have the following additional suggestions:

• A variable or other opportunity to set and display the time and day.

I wrote myself a workaround for that, and it ain't pretty ;-)

Code:

Starting the story at 18 PM with "Time elapsed = 0"

{Time elapsed = 0} The time is 18:00 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 1} The time is 18:01 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 2} The time is 18:02 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 3} The time is 18:03 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 4} The time is 18:04 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 5} The time is 18:05 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 6} The time is 18:06 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 7} The time is 18:07 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 8} The time is 18:08 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 9} The time is 18:09 o'clock.
{elseif Time elapsed = 10} The time is 18:10 o'clock.
...

You can imagine how that one turns out after a few hours.

• A variable to save / display strings

That way you could easily do things like

Code:

{if Last Location = the bar}He came home late and was drunk.
{elseif Last Location = the library}He came home late because he studied all night.
...

I'd like to further add to the suggestion with the random numbers:

• It would be a cool nice to have feature to implement a dice roll.

And last but not least,

• It would be really nice to be able to use "AND" and "OR" when setting conditions to view a chapter, to check for a combination of variables.

 

More suggestions:
• Being able to sort My Chapters and My Stories by views, likes, and bookmarks? Similar to my suggestion on notifications, it's for metric data I could use to focus my writing on what people want to see.
• Contests - I noticed the award system, but no monthly contests or other awards. Not necessary but it would be cool. For instance; Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Spring Break, etc...

 

When publishing a new story, it would be nice to have the optional choice of choosing if all existing chapters should be published right away, or if they should remain as a draft.
That way you could hold back those chapters that are not yet finished, while still releasing the working part to the public.

 

You can do this by using numbers for that.
1 - the bar
2 - the library

Code:

{if Last Location = 1}He came home late and was drunk.
{elseif Last Location = 2}He came home late because he studied all night.
...

you can create AND conditions by using more than one condition.

 

I would love to have the ability to use spreadsheet-like formulas as score changes.

With that, several things could be done.

Code:

score changes:
hours = ROUNDDOWN( {Time elapsed} / 60 ; 0 )
minutes = {Time elapsed} - {hours} * 60
and within the chapter (needs variable usage within chapters):
The time is {hours}:{if minutes < 10}0{minutes}{else}{minutes} o'clock.

Code:

roll2dice = DICE(6) + DICE(6)

Code:

chapter_text_option = IF( OR( {VariableA} = 5 ; {VariableB} >24 ) ; 1 ; 2 )

It would be also possible to calculate values from one or more score variables.
calculation of health after applying damage and armor

Code:

dmg = {Weapon base dmg}+ DICE({Weapon dmg random per dice}) - {Armor}
health = {health} - IF( {dmg} > 0 ; {dmg} ; 0 )

another way of calculation time

Code:

minutes = MOD( {Time elapsed} ; 60 )
hours24 = ROUNDDOWN( {Time elapsed} / 60 ; 0 )
hours = IF( hours24 = 0 ; 12 ; hours24)
ampm = IF( hours24 < 12 ; 1 ; 2)

spreadsheetlike syntax used in the examples

Code:

IF( condition ; then ; else )
DICE( number of pip )
OR( condition1 ; condition2 [; condition3 [, ...]] )
AND( condition1 ; condition2 [; condition3 [, ...]] )
ROUNDDOWN( number ; decimal places )
{value of a variable}
MOD( number ; divisor )

 

I fear that we are overloading Friedman with suggestions today ;-)

Still, i got one more:
If Game Mode is enabled, the "Previous Chapter" button can mess up the Score changes under the right circumstances of chapter structure.

• So my suggestion as a quick fix would be to disable this button for the reader with active game mode. Possibly as an option which the Author can set in his story.

 

This should not happen.
I'm not completely sure at the moment, but I think that the score is saved as history and will be restored when going back.

 

I can give you an example:
https://chyoa.com/chapter/Introduction.266930

Start the game mode, go to the 2nd chapter "Begin Character Creation", click "Add +1 Charisma".
Now the score will show:

Code:

Character Creation Points    4
Strength    1
Intelligence    1
Charisma    2

Now hit the "Previous Chapter" button, and the score will look like this

Code:

Character Creation Points    3
Strength    1
Intelligence    1
Charisma    3

Now in this case due to the right conditions set in the Add Attribute chapters, the player can not use this to actually "cheat" the game and spent more points than he has.
But if you do this kind of navigating in a structure without loop, without "failsave"-conditions in the choices, it might get ugly.

 

I just tested this with navigating back without loops. The former values got restored like expected.
So the problem seems to be the linking chapters. (I got the same behaviour)
It isn't possible to reach the chapter before a link, so every click on "previous chapter" calls the linking chapter.

In general, I would prefer, if the "previous chapter" button wouldn't exist for games. I think, it would feel much more like a game.



btw. I would suggest providing the source of the chapters as copyable text (this won't be possible within the same story)

 

I want to interject something into the conversation here. The way choya has been designed is so that people with zero coding knowledge can go out and make a story. Choya is being split to a degree, older content isn't getting updated and is being left behind by new innovation. Many don't have thumb nails something all new stories do and readers seem to of shown great interest in the game system. Of chyoa users writers are a small percentage, of those writers the numbers who use the forums is even smaller, and those asking or showing interest in more complex conditional branching, time of day variable tracking, API calls, and other stuff is tiny.

Do not get me wrong, I love the idea of these new additions. However I think we need to look beyond just ourselves when thinking about it. New systems have been bolted onto chyoa already and in many areas it shows. The play game button is in a strange dead zone and isn't very obvious(my option I didn't kidnap prostitutes for user studies yet), multi another story management has gotten better but still has issues (In line notes for writers only please). Linking stories is starting to show issues it seams in some areas around variable tracking too(maybe haven't tested). I would still love for variables to be able to be printed in text like user entered names are right now for minor detail stuff (Like time of day).

I really believe chyoa would benefit from a overhauled story creation and management interface. Use a wire frame system that lets you link items together like UE4 and Unity do to help those without much scripting experience. This would allow much easier linking, and story reorganization while being about to see a global view of condition branches. Drawing up a list of launch items or functions would not be too long and building such a framework would allow for new features to be added with ease as they will already fit into the UI. This system should be designed so if you wanted to you wouldn't have to use it to still create a basic story.

The core issue is that as nice as that dream is it would be a huge amount of work for no pay. I believe it would eventually pay for itself due to higher traffic from higher quality content but I have nothing to base it on. I would be interested to hear a comment from Friedmen on weather condition game style stories have been getting more traffic. If we keep asking for new things to be bolted onto something that wasn't designed for it the interface and back end will become a real clusterfuck.

Even in the short time I have been using this site on and off it has seen good growth and I hope that continues but having a plan is important


PS I like the idea of a safe for work chyoa alternative although any plan to do so would face some big roadblocks

 

I like your idea about the "grand design"

I assume we all know that time is limited and that every wish cannot be implemented ;-)
And i agree that the design and default options should make it as easy as possible for a user without much experience to work on and to publish stories.

But i guess that doesn't prevent us from wishing for "advanced options" and improvements on problems we encounter for our self, even if only a minority of users would actually use these features. And if these issues take too much time, and / or would only be used by a minority of users, i think everybody can understand if the wish cannot be fulfilled.

 

It would be nice if the story headlines had a better way to gauge "depth" than just the longest branch. A story that goes thirty chapters but only has a single branch isn't really "deeper" than a story that only goes ten chapters before concluding but has fifty branches.

 

This feature is in testing stage and should be released soon.
It will be possible to use the value of a Conditional Branch variable (numerical, progress, boolean) inside the chapter text.

I think, that "advanced options" are no problem if the writer can slowly go over from basic to more advanced functionality. No need to use it, but if you need something special, you have the chance to implement it.
A good documentation for all available features should exist, to give inexperienced writers the chance to take that step.

 

Right now everything is nested inside some very helpful stories, we might consider just getting a wiki of some kind that links back to specific example stories on the site

Just have a plan, I love the steady addition of features but I just want it to be sustainable

has science gone too far?
No but really this will be really cool, now just let us hide some of the variables and we will be in a awesome place

 

I thought of the CHYOA guide as documentation (I'm still working on it).
I think, the other stories are more from a practical viewpoint (examples, workarounds, ...).
I would also suggest to merge that stories to two (one with the working examples, one with the source code of the examples)

This feature is also in testing stage and should be released soon.

 

Man I am reading things out of order today, but hey awesome

All for it, but I still think a dedicated help page might not go wrong, the story interface is built for stories not documentation but it ain't broke so.... up to you

 

Award for adding chapter to someone's story that isn't your own.

Maybe have a Top Contributor of the Month/Week/Day that is based on the number of chapters added as well.