1 (edited by Terranvoid 2017-03-31 04:00)

Topic: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

I have an artist contributing drawing to my writing.com story and I have discovered that they put photo use in a higher tier category that costs more.

At this point, I am going to seriously look into the possibility of having my own site. The reason I use writing.com is to have editorial control of the story. Mainly to be able to fix up posts with serious formatting and spelling errors as well as remove junk or malicious chapters.

To this end, I'm going to need some not very expensive help from a web developer and my contacts on that front are very limited.

If anyone can help me out, or suggest someone that can I would love to hear.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

2

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

I can try to host it, if you like. www.emlia.org www.f3.to/mbap/ I used to host Demon-Man's site, but had to take it down because the drupal install was colonized by russian spammers.

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Thank you. Hosting might be pretty nice. If things get far enough. I certainly appreciate the offer.

After all, vetting hosting services is a pain. Mind, I have some pie-in-the-sky ideas at the moment. I have a hard time conceptualizing CYOA functionality as terribly complex in the modern world. >.>

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

4

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

I'm happy to help you code a site. I've been trying to get the Fiction branches guys let me rewrite their horribly obsolete code for the last several years and it's gone nowhere.

I'm fluent in PHP and SQL., but  haven't built sites in nearly a decade, so I'm not up on CSS and HTML.

5

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Dang, really? That would be pretty sweet.

I'm pretty sure HTML isn't a very complicated language. Although my coding experience is pretty limited. ^.^ I know virtually nothing about PHP, SQL, and CSS. I'll PM you and see what we can see.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

6

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

A little update. I'm going to be creating a design document, which I'll post in here. I have feature rich ideas rattling around in my skull and it's going to be best to have a detailed document as a starting point.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

7

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

You have my support, also the last few chapters of Changing Remote control you added have made me want to continue writing again. It's been a while. (im Pillas BTW)

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Sweetness and light! Is excellent to hear. And I, of course, would love to see more additions to the story.

I currently actually seem to be getting along with a few more additions too.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

9

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

If it helps, I have a list of features that were to be built onto FB when I eventually go the go ahead, they may be of use to you. Can post them here if I find the design document somewhere.

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Don't forget that tentacles have feral bliss!

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Alright. I'm having some troubles focusing at the moment. I've just started getting some R.E.M. sleep again, but I have put together some of the design document. It's Haphazard at the moment, but I'm going to put it up for now.

Nothing here should be considered finalized and the launch version can be feature lite, with features planned to be added as things go along.


The Interactive Fiction Project

It's time to dream! This is the initial design document of my, Terranvoid, proposed Interactive Fiction(IF) site. Largely listing features that I think should be well possible to have in such an online site.

I suspect that trying to include all these features up front is too work intensive for an initial site, given the scale of resources I anticipate on having, but future design goals in place will hopefully make building towards a more robust IF over time all the easier.


Basic Design

Format:
The sites that have the format I prefer the best are Choose your Own Change(CyOC) and Fiction Branches(), although the Breast Expansion Archive's BEAddventure (BEA) has a nice, clean look.

Ad space is not planned.
One feature I would like to have is accounts and to be able to turn on and off the ability for unregistered viewers to be able to add chapters. This can be vital when faced with certain spam attacks.
As is detailed further into the document, I do want some functionality to be built into the accounts.


The IF's Body

The basic page of the IF should be a short page header with the site name, a standard account bar at the top of the page, followed by the main body of the chapter, with a clearly separate section below for the choices to be added.


Chapter Features

Each chapter page should have several features, including easy click location to see the choices, in a yet to be determined format, as well as a clickable branch outline.
Page tags should be included and usable by other features of the IF.
The BEA's current use of a comments link for individual pages is a tempting idea as well.

A rating system for each chapter sounds like a useful feature to include.
Admin ability of being able to flag a chapter with a state of “Non-Continuation” for certain site functionality that may be implemented early or late in the sites feature development.

The added choices should eventually be sortable from the chapter view.
Sorting including by number of sub-chapters, depth of branches, rating of next chapter, and possible average weighting of further branches.
A togglable “Depth” display next to the chapter option may also be a good user-friendly move to include.
Picture frames should be a feature easily implemented in the future. Planned is for only site approved pictures to display.
A frame at the top of the chapter for Popout/Tooltip style rollover. Largely to allow notes to be postable in the frame. Such as a characters current form.



Site Features

Site features should include:
Account based favorites of chapters
The creation of “Books” out of a particular set of chapters, to be displayed on a library shelf style page. With both official books and user-created books, the display of them to be toggleable between either official, user, or both.
User accounts will have their own library page where they can put their favorite “Books” on the page. Books should have a display option of showing the story in a linear fashion, or showing the chapter choices in each chapter.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

12

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

one bit of advice re: ratings. Don't make it a number system, too easy to game. Make it a system of "likes" or "dislikes" and then lock it to registered users only.

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Alright. Just a little heads up. I may have someone to start setting up. However if they do pick this up, they're not only going to need to brush up on languages, but fit the work into a busy schedule. So things won't happen quickly in this case.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

14

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

I have finally decided to look into professional web development to get my own Interactive Fiction site created.

The costs are lower than I had thought, although not so low as to let me do this at the drop of hat, but I'm pretty sure be able to swing it.
I'm thinking I should create a full mock-up of the site design before I start looking for a developer. I have a writing project I'm going to finish before getting to that, so the ETA is unknown. Hopefully I'll have a mock-up done and find a web developer within two to four months.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control

15

Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

Good news! Tell me what kind of framework you plan to use. I really need some buttkick to do the same.

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Re: It may be time for my own Interactive Fiction site!

I know nothing!

>.> Whatever it is, it's going to need heavy user-account functionality, though. I also plan to have a forum alongside.

However I plan it to be the closest to CYOC and the BEAddventure. So... sumffin.

Twitter! Occasional images & chatter when I write.
Now Inactive F-list Profile: https://www.f-list.net/c/terra%20blackwell/
Play my Legends of Belial Text Adventure: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13966557/
Read my Interactive Fiction: http://www.writing.com/main/interact/it … te-Control