I've been toying with the idea of publishing one of those "Build a Bot" things but with a more detailed background and increased customization, not of the robots ("Cybernetic Companions" in this case.) but of your character. The story would first have an extended questionnaire about who the protagonist is, then after that's over get into the design of the cyborg companion, but unlike the standard Build a Bot story this one would make full use of the standard 12 key keypad. (Answers zero to nine plus # for more options and * for "go back a step".) The story would make full use of both user customization and the variables system, allowing me and anyone else who wants to add to provide a fully interactive entertainment experience: where previous choices change the outcome of the story. However, I'm already encountering problems with the writing and I haven't even gotten into the story itself, nor even the robot customization section, I'm still on the Questionnaire. Is anyone else willing to help with the Debugging of the variables and/or writing up the branches? If not: do you guys think I should hang it up as a bad job, (for now at least,) or keep working on it until it's done?
I don't want to put a knife into your inspiration and dedication. But I would say: Write quite a bit of the story first. Worry about the variables later. Because spending a lot of time on some fancy variable system, without having a story, is not something that you want publish. And it is not much different from other stories, that give you one hundred choices to select from, but with no content whatsoever behind any of them.
Customise your character? Interesting... and something I'd quite like to see. I like the idea of the build-a-companion story, but I don't like how it's "You have endless options for your partner, but your character is a generic male human."
Well, it'll still be humans only, but there's options for Asians, Africans, Pacific Islanders, First Nations people, and both men and women, of any sexual orientation...
The thing to ask yourself is how much would infinite customization of the main character would bring to the story versus how much work it would take. Do you feel ready to write a page long conditional variable for every single one description of a part of her body? I Started a game story, which is in a hiatus for now, having to write 3 to 4 alternatives for each scene of a chapter is already daunting. And more customization means that the reader will have 10 to 15 chapters to go through before anything happens and he can decide if he actually likes the story itself. I Personally find it really frustrating when I read one of those, I rush the selection to get into it and discover that there's no story yet or a two chapters long one and then give up on the thing.
Let it simmer. Take a few days off to think about it. Plan it out and start writing if you believe it is justified, if not after those few days walk away and move onto the next story idea.
It's not something that tickles my immagination, not the way you are putting it down at least. Maybe integrated in a more 'smooth' storyline where the MC is something like the nightguardian of the lab where the bot is builded and helps it escape when he relizes is a sentient being. Later he helps it 'build' its self, leading to that ever-wanted customization selection. And you can go wild with variables and such. You can even make the lab guys come looking for it (her/him a this point), drifting the tone of the story towards action. Just my two cents.
I think I may be the only author on CHYOO who ever brought the "Customization" part of such a story all the way to completion. With five variables of four options each, plus one variable with two options, the resulting "story" had a grand total of a little over two thousand possible customizations... and no actual story whatsoever. It was, in the end, a colossal waste of time. I'm not saying that your story is doomed to turn out the same way, but I think that the CHYOA platform might just be too limited for this sort of thing. Let's say that it were possible to represent the end result in pictures, like a CGI model, perhaps telling the story in comic book form - that would probably work, because the necessary customizations could just be shown and not described. You could tell exactly the same story and just change the model that's shown on the screen, maybe altering one or two text variables if the size of her tits came up in conversation or something. But on CHYOA, text is really all you've got. You have to either have over half your story as conditional text, or write hundreds of individual threads to say essentially the same thing. And you really couldn't avoid the physical, variable-dependent descriptions. Readers would become frustrated if they just went through the steps to describe their 21-year-old blonde Asian woman with C-cup tits and a shaved pussy if they didn't see a reference to those traits in the text, fairly often. I think that other responders here are right on the money - it's most important to have a story first, and if you're going to go with the multi-variable approach, make it a story which can apply to ANY of the hundreds of combinations you end up with, or you'll be writing the story hundreds of times! The most obvious storyline which occurs to me is to have an advanced sex-bot which turns out to be SO advanced that it begins to acquire a degree of self-awareness, with all that implies. Because the robot's "personality" would be independent of its appearance, the story itself need not change; you would only have to have different blocks of text to describe the sex action with large tits vs. small ones, or the glow of her (dark ebony) (deep golden) (lightly freckled) (alabaster) skin. Anyway, that's my two cents!
Yep , but just like in an RPG videogame, after you created your character, hot as you want, curvy as you like, at some point you stop even paying attention to it. So in the end, it's even more pointless. It makes me think that we could use the option to chain some other hidden variables to a customizable one. Ex. skin white tied to ->> pale,fair,alabaster skin coloured tied to ->> dark, black, ebony Still it could become really boring writing like that after a while.
I don't know. There are so many "build a bot" stories on CHYOA, and none of them are really good. 93 chapters of "customization" with one or two sentences per "chapter". Ugh. The whole concept turns me away. Cut that out and get to the story as the core of your writing and I'm on board. Nemo, you've done some pretty good work so far and have been impressed with some of your chapters in a story that's in my favorites list. I can't remember which one. I also like the Miriam Academy. So I'm hoping for the best if you'd decide to do this type of story!
Thanks, but this project has been shelved indefinitely. I might come back to it someday, but for the moment, I've decided to just let the beast lie...
I think the only way for generic *generate a character\protagonist* type of stories to really work is to finish them with one (long) chapter right after generation process is complete. I mean have a static starting situation but dynamic character.
I can't imagine that it would work without using game mode. Only a few options create so many starting points and they would get multiplied on every level of chapter depth.
