Hi Guys,
So what did you think of Ward 32? Do you have any unresolved questions or anything? This would be the place to post what you thought and suggestions you have for next time.
First I just want to spend a little bit talking about what I was trying to accomplish with Ward 32. The main purpose of it (beyond entertaining all of you) was to attempt to get myself writing something on a schedule, which succeeded, give or take a few days in some cases… heh.
Secondary purposes included:
- Learning how to discern meaningful from non-meaningful choices (fairly successful in the middle)
- Attempting to polish up and test out new elements of my writing style (action scenes, dialogue, horror, etc)
My main criticism of this particular story was that it comes across as a first draft, mainly because I was going week to week and reacting rather than doing a whole lot of planning ahead (which essentially means that it WAS a first draft). That was part of the whole plan, though — so I was expecting it.
Also, a number of early polls were done using a broken system that some people exploited to ruin the polls. Shame on you people. Fortunately, the system I replaced it with is much better and seems to be solid.
I think it also suffered from a small reader-base. I don’t know what I can do about that problem. If anyone has any suggestions for how I can bring more people to the site, please let me know.
As far as what’s next: Like last time I’m going to post a poll about what story we’ll pursue next. This time it’ll be using the new non-cheat poll, so that should help keep it honest. We’ll use the remaining ones from last time (edited slightly to meet my goals for the next story), and I might have a new one in there, as well.
~Dodger
Wow, another one?! I thought you’d drop dead after finishing Ward 32! 😀
I never felt like we suffered from having a small user base, but I’d like to increase it. Have you spread Ward 32 links around your work? Do people at Insomniac know about it? I guess each of your fans can put the word out as best they can.
As for comments: I liked the way you managed which choices to make yourself and which to present. You stuck to big or important choices, and handled little stuff like turning on lights yourself. However, I’d like a bit more balance between tactical choices and storyline choices. Ward 32 wasn’t far off, but more story choices would be nice. Also, try to make clear what sort of thing would have happened if we’d chosen differently, when possible. I really appreciate you shooting for meaningful choices, but it’s something that’s harder for the players to see/feel than it is for the author.
Any ideas of what you’d do to avoid the first draft feeling or is that just a fact of the medium?
Any ideas of what you’d do to avoid the first draft feeling or is that just a fact of the medium?
Well that’s the million dollar question, yeah. It’s also the thing which is most relevant to video games — how can you write a story that feels like the players’ choices dictate the outcome and still have it feel tight and coherent?
It’s an easier solution for this medium, though — it’s similar to solutions that I’ve seen used in pen-and-paper RPGs, like the ones Robin Laws mentions in his excellent “Robin’s Laws of Good GMing.”
What I’m intending to do is come up with a string of pearls design for the next one. I’ll plan out each pearl as a set-piece, very vaguely — “what do I want the readers/players to feel, what do I want to accomplish in the story, what cool things do I want to have happen, what plot points do I want to include” and then let the episode-by-episode results of the choices fill in the strings between the pearls.
I wonder, though, if there’s another practical way of approaching it that might be a better test for usefulness in video games… something to think about basically.
Yeah that does sound like an improvement. You don’t think that the “String of pearls” technique is applicable to video games, though? Seems like lots of video games have set pieces that come up, but with lots of freedom between. Cutscenes are one example.
No it’s applicable and people do it, but there’s a lot more pearls and a lot less string in video game implementations. When the only asset creation required is text (like in Ward32), you can afford a lot more string.
I just wonder if there isn’t another way to do it that gives more string for less cost.
A couple of things:
1) Dice Rolling seemed to stop after we passed from the starting location through the Ward 32 door. Did you feel the mechanic was no longer necessary based on the player’s choices and comments, or did it just introduce too much randomness?
2)
Things Unresolved:
a) What was the powder in the bag we picked up
b) Where did Carl go when he took the powder
c) Was the book we read Chapters 1 & 3, the same one the bad guy was carrying around?
d) Where any of the choices we could have made differently resulted in a premature/bad ending for Vlad?
e) XYZZY
3) Thank You
Thanks for writing this wonderful story and incorporating some of my meager suggestions into it.
I really enjoyed Ward 32. Your writing is consistently solid and descriptive, and on the whole it feels very genuine. As a matter of personal preference, I think I’d prefer a bit more character development on the next go ’round, although I realize that’s difficult to do within the scope and length of a format like this and may require more planning than you can safely put into it. I wonder if you could just make it longer and hope your audience has the attention span for it.
As far as avoiding the first draft feel, I don’t know if there’s much you can do. I think that’s just inherent to the format. Those closest thing I can compare to would be those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure dudes and dudettes, and they had the luxury of revision. Not so here. If it really bothers you that your stuff feels unpolished and you’re not happy with it, I for one would be perfectly content waiting a couple extra days while you apply tweakage. It’s your story, run with it. Ain’ nobody gonna mess with you for doing the best job you can.
Advertising needs to be going down, all around. I will tell my literary-minded friends about this and I encourage others to do the same. Everything is small in the beginning, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Grass-roots movement and all that.
Ultimately, I really dig this. It’s an interesting idea and executed very well. I’m really interested to see what’s coming up next, and I applaud you for putting in the time and effort to create something so damn cool.
I liked it. 😀
that’s really all I have to say >.>
For avoiding that “first draft feel” maybe you could update less often, maybe only every Monday and close the poll on Thursday so you have more time to revise the episode.
I think we just need people to go out and talk about Ward 32 and your website to get people to comment and vote, Get you family and friends to read it or post about it in the “Off-Topic” section of your favorite forum. I also think It would be nice to have all the Ward 32 episodes in one downloadable document (maybe a .pdf or word document) so that people can sample your writing and see if they like it. You could even add a bonus “Episode Zero” explaining more about Vlad and how he got placed in the insanity ward.
I can’t wait to see what you have up your creative sleeve next!
@5
1)Dice Rolling seemed to stop after we passed from the starting location through the Ward 32 door. Did you feel the mechanic was no longer necessary based on the player’s choices and comments, or did it just introduce too much randomness?
I started talking less and less about the dice rolling as we went along. For a lot of things that I thought Vlad would good at, I let him succeed automatically. For the rest of the rolling, I left that out unless it had some kind of a profound effect on the outcome (like getting injured or something)
2)a) What was the powder in the bag we picked up
It was a magical powder Carl was using as a drug. Very VERY addictive, both chemically, psychologically, and magically. If you use the drug too much you turn into those soul-leeching ghost-things from the beginning of the story.
b) Where did Carl go when he took the powder
Invisible / Etheral. He walked out through the wall.
c) Was the book we read Chapters 1 & 3, the same one the bad guy was carrying around?
Essentially, yeah. If you’d beaten Benziah to that library you could have gotten that book first and known a little more about what was going on.
d) Where any of the choices we could have made differently resulted in a premature/bad ending for Vlad?
It WAS possible for Vlad to die in certain circumstances, but I didn’t present any choices that by themselves would have killed Vlad or ended the story. There weren’t any Wrong answers, it was more like you were all telling me what parts of the story or environment you were most interested in and then I’d focus on those.
e) XYZZY
ZYZZYX
3) Thank You
=)