Well it's been a long time, but after five finished games and six different game engines I've finally made a game I'm proud of! but I'd really value someone else's opinion before it goes live.

It's online and very easy, so won't take much of your valuable time. Please PM or email me if you want the address and a password to see locked content.
http://enterthestory.com/other/new_screenshot.jpg

tl'dr: It's basically a gamebook, but on the screen.

This is nothing like my previous games. Except that you become part of a classic novel. In the past I made five regular adventure games but I was never happy with them. Don't get me wrong, I think they have a lot to offer, and are worth buying, but I have a vision of what I want to do, and that wasn't it. But the new game is!

I am very, VERY happy with the new stuff, and wish I'd done it this way many years ago.

Of course, that is no guarantee that anyone else will like it, so I value your feedback.

BTW, this is REALLY old school. Like text adventures, but easier to play. You've probably seen "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from the 1970s-80s, but I can't use that phrase as it's a trademark. Luckily they cannot copyright the idea, and the fine folks who made those books do not have enough money to buy congressmen. Also, similar gamebooks go back to the 1940s. But none quite like this.

What is different about this game:

1. It's online: no downloads, no platform issues. It works on most browsers and most phones (though if you play on a phone you either need good eyesight or a non-tiny screen).

2. It starts instantly: no plugins, no waiting.
the gameplay is very, very simple: Picture, situation, choice. Picture, situation, choice. Rinse and repeat. I figure that the core reward for playing a game is seeing amazing stuff and making decisions, so I boiled my game down to that and nothing else.

3. Because it is so simple I can add content at an incredible rate: When it launches I will add a new chapter every day, and a new story every week. This is a completely new approach to adventure games. It's like a daily web comic, except you choose what happens.

4. The writing style is simple as well. I want it to be accessible to all ages. But the stories are not dumbed down. I reckon kids can handle big concepts if they're presented in a simple and interesting way.

5. It includes a guide to make your own stories. It's so easy that I hope others will add their own, and I will host them on the site (or they can use their own web sites).

6. As you make decisions you are scored on your bravery, intuition, or romance (depending on the book). You can print off certificates and compare your score with your friends.

The test version has just two stories:

The first is Journey To The Centre of The Earth, which is my nod to the first great interactive fiction adventure, Colossal Cave. Except this is Jules Verne's original.
I also have The Picture Of Dorian Gray. I always choose the odd ones. Again, this is faithful to the book, though I tell the story from the point of view of a very minor character, and start it half way through because that's where the action is.

If there are no major problems then the full version will be online in a week or two, and then more content every day until the end of the world. (Or until they take my computer away, whichever comes first.)

Pricing? It is always free to play the current story, up to the current chapter. So people who come back daily need never pay anything. Also, the first half of all other stories is free. But I hope that people will be impatient, or want their own offline copy, so will pay a small fee. If you are willing to test it then I'll send a code to unlock the other game(s) so you can see if that works.

For more about the game, click on the 'about' and 'get the full game' links. And if you like easter eggs, try clicking places or waving your mouse where you are not supposed to.

In summary, this will not be a "single story, triple A, download once" kind of game. This will be a "never ending, cheap and cheerful high speed adventure" kind of game.

So if anyone has a few minutes to look at it and leave any comments, please let me know!

Thanks for reading.

Good luck! I am sure you will get lots of volunteers.

Ana

Thanks! I hope so. Though it's pretty simple - it's not the kind of game where strange bugs can appear. But obviously I want to make sure that the password system works, that it behaves itself on different systems, and that it's fun.

It sounds very different from the previous Enter the Story games. Intriguing!

Yes indeedy. I liked my earlier games, but was never satisfied with them. I am not a great programmer, and I am not an expert adventure player either. Plus I always bite off more than I can chew, so the result was games that were never quite what I (or anyone else) wanted. So last year I had a major, major re-think.

To cut a long story short, all I ever wanted to do was tell amazing stories, with choices and pictures. So I stripped away everything that was not an amazing story, a picture, or a choice. And it ended up looking just like those Choose Your Own Adventure books. Which I like because now I can add a new story every week, and only concentrate on the fun stuff.

Also, I didn't like how some people could not play my games because they were platform dependent, and I didn't like how people had to wait for a download. So I like how anybody will just be able to go to the site and start playing. And I'm really bad at networking, so I figured that daily updates would let me just announce a new story each week then run back to my hole. Sort of advertising without the advertising.

And that's how it happened.

tl;dr I was never satisfied with my old games for lots of reasons, but I am VERY happy with the new style. Less is more.

Well, I tried it and Chris is right, even a dodo like me can beta test this game. He didn't actually say I was a dodo (I did that) what he said was that he welcomed people who might be bad at beta testing as his ideal audience. It's a very quick read and it's fun. You really can't do anything wrong! So if you haven't gotten in touch with Chris for a password, what are you waiting for? I think you'll enjoy his new concept and you'll be helping him while you're at it.

Gil.

Thanks for helping Chris out, Gil.

Ana