This is a complete rewrite of the first time. You know, the one where I went “bleh” and there were my 500 words (which I copied to copy paste like a lazy person, deleted from Drive and then promptly copied over. Universe telling me to just write something better).

The Forest is and isn’t how I intended it. If I had to focus on one choice I made, (oh wait, I do!) then I’d say that the main thing I was trying for was a text adventure. While I’m not old enough to say I grew up playing Zork and Adventure, I am nerdy enough to say I’ve played them. Failed horribly, but I played them darnit. The idea that a game made when computers were basically giant calculators could track items you have or have not picked up, realize you’ve been in a room or not and all in all create an adventure like a dungeons and dragons tabletop game is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It dungeon masters you through traps and rooms and experiences back when using our imagination was still in vogue.

I did not make Zork.

I did not come close to making Zork.

The Forest is the most basic of basic text adventures. You wake up in a place. You can find items and the game does change based on whether or not you found them, but it is almost impossible to not find them if you know how to click a mouse. (Or tap. These fancy modern times, eh?)  The paths are short and the ending is unimaginative. I would call this a “short experience” and not really a text adventure game. I think I got the structure idea. I am missing important macros to take it to the next level though. I can add items, you can find items, but I can’t have a panel that recognizes you having one item, but not having the other. It will take some research to pull that off and honestly if I did I would just start a new game. Outline it first, map it. Figure out where I’m going so I’m not sitting at my computer staring at it, muttering in the dark of night under my breath like a crazy, frizzy-haired hobgoblin about, “if you don’t bandanna you can’t deer so then you wolf, but if you axe then…..” That would certainly make it easier to create. That and macros. All of the macros. I can’t really code, so CSS is out, but I can totally copy other people’s macro code. I went looking briefly and there are actually a lot of things you can do with your games to change how they play. It all looked interesting and far too complicated for the time I had alotted myself.

All in all, for a first try at a digital story I think it is rather successful. It is not great, it could use pictures (as I lament not having photoshop anymore for the thousandth time) and would probably benefit from more direction, but it is text, it’s kind of an adventure and now I know how the basics work.

-Nichole (user of parentheses)