Name input in a textbox is fine on its own (like a starting point, for flavour), but if it alters the story itself (i.e. branching or variation in text), then it would be considered as a choice. Or if you are going the Parser-in-a-Twine way, then follow the parser rules.
If the ‘quit’ part of the Continue or Quit actually ends the game (like a game over/return to menu end, or a Restart the game way), it’s fine. Otherwise, it’s a choice.
If this is some meta-/non-story-choice (Codex/Settings/Restart), fine. If it actually affects the story, it should follow the one-link-only/multi-choice rule.
When this contest was first announced, my brain went into overdrive trying to figure out some way to circumvent the limitation of only having one choice. I thought, “I’ll find a loophole!”
Many days went by where I was trying to secretly workaround the restriction, but it’s just so ironclad. One choice. Any form of two or more choices affecting the story breaks the rule. I’m more into systems of play so this challenge was hard to come to terms with for me.
I’ve finally accepted the rule… you broke me.
Time to grudgingly put pen to paper. I just hope I haven’t wasted too much time fighting against myself.
It is a challenging contest. I have to let go of all the typical parser wisdom just to try to fulfill the requirements.
I cannot have examinable objects in a room, because examining something is an action, and if there is more than one examinable object in a room, that implies choice. So I have no option but to refuse to examine anything. Okay so on the positive side I can ditch the detailed object descriptions, since the player will never see them anyway (it would be grossly unfair if I did at some point use examine as a command to make progress in the game, while all other attempts were rejected.)
The bigger challenge is LOOK. LOOK is also an action, and LOOKing should result in the player moving to another room. But now I am in a bind. If I just show the room contents (and player inventory, since INVENTORY is yet another action which should result in a room change.) at each and every turn, my tester complains that she cannot see what she tried in the room (since the text scrolls by at each attempt with a full room description + player inventory.) If instead I never repeat the room description and player inventory after the player arrives in the room, after a few attempts my tester loses track on what was in the room or what she was carrying. If I had some kind of split screen with room + inventory contents in a fixed window, and commands in another window, then I think that would work out. But creating such a setup is beyond me right now.
So now I tie the LOOK + INVENTORY as an implicit error response to the player whenever the player just hits ENTER in frustration. May the Jam Gods strike me down if this also violates the rules. Then I have no option but to bow out, salvage what I can, and submit to another comp instead…
One big benefit the jam gives me is the flow of the game. By basically making each action result in a change in location, the game becomes very action driven. With that in mind, I quickly settled upon a certain famous action-oriented character as the protagonist. Although due to copyright restrictions I will have the character be nameless, it gives me great joy to breathe life into his tale of high adventure…
I’ve been working on and off. One entry probably got 75% complete pretty quickly, but I’d like to add some story to it. There’s plenty of time. I have to admit I had some “what if I’m the first and it really sucks.” But I’m not going to be the first any more.
Another feels a bit silly.
But it’s been really good to have the discord channel!
I imagine I’m not the only one that thought of this but the word limit does seem to cause us to write something more quickly than the choice limit. I mean there’s just no way we could say “Oh man I forgot to add this big chunk” with Twiny Jam.
Plus I poked at my probably IFComp entry and git said I hadn’t made any changes for 6 months. This motivated me to do a lot of catchup.
I’ve done a bunch of reading, but I ended up feeling like I’ve put too much time figuring things out for the worldbuilding. That’s why I made a smaller entry for another jam as a warmup. I’m ready to get back once I stop getting sick and tired lol…
The allure of writing moar and moar and adding detail…perhaps this is a good exercise for that.
It’s also why I don’t finish games cuz everything tempts me to create layers and layers… I think it’s natural because “choice” tends to imply “density”. Probably why Choice of Games tend to be several novels in word count-length for one story!
Yeah, this is why I enjoyed the Neo-Twiny Jam. 500 words is a wonderful limitation (and indeed, my latest game uses that limitation because I find 1,000 words and the inclusion of images too overpowering). I can just start writing once I’m done with it.
The Single Choice Jam only limits users with the restriction and I’m still in the prewriting process. I’ll have to stop writing and try doing something in Inform 7 at some point… but it’s surprisingly easy to procrastinate and add more detail…
I think my game is almost finished. Naturally, I’ve spent more time fiddling with animations and fonts than writing content — that always happens — so now it’s a matter of adding enough content that I am happy with replays (which you almost certainly will need/want to do) to feel sufficiently different from each other.
I also think the game would be better with more choice … but that’s the interesting bit, isn’t it
I’m basically finished with my first entry, but nervous to post it because I haven’t gotten any feedback yet. Waiting to see if anyone I’ve shared it with gets back to me. In the meantime, going to figure out what I want my second entry to be and start working on that!
I accidentally wrote most of mine in snippets on my phone while walking around town over the past week or so. Only realized how much was already done when I “started writing” yesterday. It’s kind of just a weird short story, but it’s been really fun to write.
I also had an idea left over from Ectocomp that might be interesting, because the player also makes a choice that’s only in their mind, but I think it needs more than a couple weeks to fully bake. Maybe next year…
It’s really tricky having the choice limitation. I remember something CS Lewis said about writing another Narnia books and he noted there two times to stop writing: too soon or too late. Here the problem is, with just one choice branch, will the work feel too short and trivial or too long and boring?
I think a lot of us, being conscientious writers, are still fighting with it a bit. But I’ve decided I don’t have to resolve that question just now, and I just want to get writing.
I’ve read through the thread, but I still don’t understand the rules for parser. It’s one action per room? Or one action for the whole game? Or multiple rooms with multiple actions in one room and only one action in the other rooms? Brain hurts.
So this one room can have as many actions as an author wants? Or are the allowed actions supposed to be more like standard get-your-bearings actions? How is this different from just writing a one-room escape game text adventure? Is it?
Normal movement, NSEW, etc, counts as an action and ends the game. You can be either cool with that, (game starts in a central hub with many game-ending exits), or you can take advantage of automated “on-rails” movement, or what I’ve mentally named “the Draconis Exploit”.
This means that you’re tapping the enter button to allow the game to continue rather than entering a command. This automated continuation can involve the player moving from room to room without the player directing that movement. Draconis used the example of a player character following a tour group through a museum.
Waiting to see if anyone I’ve shared it with gets back to me. In the meantime, going to figure out what I want my second entry to be and start working on that!