The more I learn about the Formula Parser the more I realize it is exactly what I NEED to do a lot of the things I want to do in [GAME] mode stories! Please put it at the very top of the list of things to roll out in the next major update!
This was one of the first suggestions, I think it didn't get it's fair viewing because this forum was so NEW so I'm going to bump it back into the front page: ONCE.
Honestly, I think game stories are annoying, and I already can't figure out what the fuck the variable shit does.
For what it's worth, variables are also used in stories. They allow you to track decisious without creating a whole new branch. And I personally felt the CHYOA guide explained variables fairly well. Have you read it?
I think targetthyself means he doesn't like reading game stories and doesn't know how to write with variables. However, before I read the Chyoa guide, I thought the reader was supposed to keep track of the variables by hand making them both confusing and annoying.
Not just stuff like this, game stories basically disable the story map, or the use of the back button. Leaving you having to restart the "game" upon reaching the end, and punishes people who just want to read a few chapters at a time. It's very, very annoying and I haven't seen a single game story be worthy of the fuss, thus far. Most writer types are going to go "what the fuck is Boogie2988 Variable(me) and ignore it.
Well, I could add a paragraph to the CHYOA Guide, though that wouldn't help with that issue ^^ Well, depending on implementation, there wouldn't even be a use for the story map as there is only "one" branch. The back button just doesn't work due to a known bug. The reason for that is the structure of the save games. As soon as the structure is changed, the back button should work as expected. You can always continue just at the point where you stopped reading the last time. Your progress will be saved. So you can read two chapters today, one tomorrow and another one in three days. The only thing which isn't possible is to play the game in different ways simultaneously. That said, it would be nice to have more Save Game slots for each story. I rather see the problem of Game Stories being that most authors tick the checkbox and sometimes even advertise their story as Game Mode stories but doesn't use it at all.
Amen to this. A formula parser opens the door to so many options in writing. For instance, I could add a table to my GAME OVER chapter that acts as a scoreboard. It would pull the various variables and add them all up to give you your final score. Right now, that is impossible to do for a number of different reasons.
If you don't need to do calculations with your variables, you could directly use them in the chapter by stating Code: {variable name} Alternatively, you could create the total score variable at the beginning and always add the same value as the other variables get.
