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So for this year’s NaNoWriMo attempt, I’m writing a text-based adventure!

Since it’ll be hard to hit 50k with just the story (I’m assuming), I’m also going to include any new code written in case I have to add features and these blog updates as I talk about the game.

(If I manage to get over 50k. I’ll retroactively swap out that word count for prose.)

I have never written a full game before, much less a Zork/Myst themed horror story, so this should be a fun ride. 😅

Basic Gameplay

I’m starting off the month with a very simple setup.

You have actions and rooms. Rooms are the text displayed on the screen and the actions are the buttons displayed below the text.

Right now the only action that exists is MoveRoom, but in the non-web game this one is based on there are a bunch of other possibilities. I figured I’d wait and add those as needed since I’m really not sure where the story is going yet!

There’s no way to save your progress and reloading the page will reset you back to the forest starting point.

This is on purpose!

The game (as it exists in my head) is built around reading the story, figuring out clues, and taking out-of-game notes. The game will be easy to ‘restart’ if you click the wrong thing, have to leave, or someone else changes the world while you’re working on it.

And yes… it’s multiplayer, but you can’t see or interact with other folks. You can see them interact with the environment, but it will be in a way that won’t always be obvious.

Loglines and Summary Sentences!

Zork meets creepypastas!

A person wakes up in the woods with no idea who they are or how they got there. Many explorations, puzzles, and mysteries later (plus lots of waking up in a forest) they figure out what is going on and how to escape.

Things I don’t know yet:

• Why they are there.
• Why things are looping.
• If this is going to be a ‘real’ horror story or just a spooky one.
• How to handle events when a room updates because of an action by another player.
• If I should write all the basic rooms and then keep adding layers of hints to them.

I want it to be fun and challenging and not a pain in the tucas to play because of the limitations I’m putting on it. Figuring out how to make this work is probably going to take all month! 😅

Da Code

Right now I have the MySQL database setup with two dummy rooms and two dummy actions (which move the player back and forth between the rooms). That’s all setup and ready to rumble!

I have the Angular front end setup and ready to talk to the backend… only I’m having a heck of a time getting the Spring Boot backend up and running on AWS.

I think the issue right now is that the backend isn’t allowed to query the database, but I’m not sure. I’ve hit the point where my brain is mush and I need to set it aside and try again tomorrow.

But at least the front end is acting as expected when I can’t find the database! 🤣

Rooms and Actions

I had started writing out a list of all the room and actions that I’d come up with in today’s sprints… but then I realise it would give away too much of the story if anyone wanted to actually play the game.

So I’m just going to be doing things by number and leaving out all of the prose! 😉

Rooms

• 1 – title/description
• 2 – title/description
• 3 – title/description
• 4 – title/description
• 5 – title/description
• 6 – title
• 7 – title

Actions

• 1 – title/command
• 2 – title/command
• 3 – title/command
• 4 – title/command
• 5 – title/command
• 6 – title/command
• 7 – title/command
• ? – Inventory action (need inventory system build first)
• ? – Inventory action (need inventory system build first)

Tomorrow’s To-do List

1. Get the backend talking to the database.
2. Get the frontend talking to the backend.
3. Start to upload some of the rooms and actions that I’ve already created.
4. Write more rooms and actions! 🤣