Thanks for the report, I found the bug and it has been fixed for the next release which should come out pretty soon.
Awesome, glad to hear it! Thanks for getting back to me so quickly on this, Juhanna.
On the topic of features, what is the planned support for html tags? I’ve noticed that when I write html tags directly it doesn’t work but that I can copy and paste them from other web pages and those will work just fine, though I have no way to control/change them.
This does mean, however, that with how it is now in the alpha, you should be able to move nouns around by copy and paste? This could also be used for a work around for getting multi word nouns in the currently published alpha. Type directly after the one word noun and if the formatting carries you can go back and add the space.
Text formatting as it is in the alpha is a side effect. It’s a feature of the default editable web content that just hasn’t been disabled. The plan is to add bold/italics/underline etc buttons to the IDE directly for actual text formatting. Not sure if that’s going to make it for the next release, though. Multi-word nouns are already in, though.
I’m really liking the verb interface style for Texture because it looks like it can more easily explore choices of approach. Consider a scenario where the player has to pick someone to trust. In traditional choice-based fiction you might be asked who you trust in a straight either/or question at the end of the section or page:
Texture, however, can make this choice a bit more interesting because it can also explore a choice of approach. Highlight the characters as the noun targets and provide some verbs that suggest a spectrum of responses: Ally, Placate, Betray.
Now instead of a binary choice, you have a more nuanced choice. While the noun overlap between the verbs doesn’t have to be the exact same, I think this illustrates one of the advantages of Texture’s interface for such a situation because the equivalent choice block in a traditional choice-based narrative would look rather long in comparison:
When you compare the above to the equivalent using Texture’s verb system you can see that a lot of choices were expressed in a compact way. However, this implementation need not lead to combinatorial explosion for the author. Perhaps some of these options are refused by the protagonist for one reason or another and only output an additional paragraph. For example, an attempt at placating the King (and thus sitting on the fence) might be described as ineffective, only escalating the situation and forcing the protagonist to make a more dramatic choice instead. While the plot outcome of some of these choices might lead to the same page, for the reader they will be characterized differently because of the additional text printed from their choice(s).
A similar design spectrum can be seen in the meta-conversation verbs of Adam Cadre’s Varicella: You can adopt a hostile, cordial, or servile tone when you address other characters, thus changing what other characters think of you. Depending on who you were talking to, one or more of these meta-conversation verbs might lead to the same outcome, but the choice of approach is left up to the player.
In short, I think considering spectrums of action, in situations that call for it, will lead to interesting possibilities when authoring stories in Texture.
I’ve encountered a new bug in the current alpha where the settings and text for a verb’s second noun target are being erased/not saved.
I was trying to implement a mockup of the three-verb-two-noun scenario I created in the previous post but the verbs are only remembering the first noun-target I give them. If I create the verb interactions for ‘King’ first, it fails to save or remember the ones I make for ‘Queen’, likewise if I define the verb interactions for ‘Queen’ first, the ones I make next for ‘King’ aren’t saved or remembered.
Any news on Texture?
Yes! We’re hard at work with the beta version that has a lot of cool new features. We have flags, text formatting, story preview and web publishing among other things. The estimated release date is in June.
Cool, sounds good.
Looking forward to it!
Texture looks pretty good, great work on this guys. While I find myself wanting to nest interaction words in paragraphs revealed by other actions on the same page or being able to repeat an interaction on the same interaction word with new effects using flags on the same page, I can understand that from a design stand point that is considering the mobile user experience why it is better to use multiple pages instead.