* Star *

of the

* Stars *

Short (?) introduction.

It started several years ago. (And no, I haven't been working on it for all that time!) Before everyone got on the net, one kind of game that was at least moderately popular was the interactive novel. Basically it was a book with short mixed up chapters, each ending with a more or less crucial decision. The point was that you, the reader, had to make a decision on behalf of the hero and then you were directed to turn to some other page where the plot would either continue unfolding or grind to a halt depending on the wisdom of your choice and how organized the writer was. The purpose was of course to find the happy ending lurking somewhere. (The charm of it to many was that it was so easy to cheat! The hero died? No prob, just turn back to the page you came from and make a different choice!)

Flying Buffalo used to sell books like that (mostly fantasy adventures based on an RPG game of theirs I think). They also run PBM (Play By Mail) games, and one fine day the two departments got together and released one such book game as a PBM game. Signing up for this game would get you a sheet of paper with a description of the entrance room of some kind of building complex and a number of choices at the bottom. You would then write the number of your choice (or a whole new choice if you felt adventurous) on a card with some information to identify yourself and the character you were playing, and mail it to the buffaloes. Then someone would look up your choice and the page you were on in a table, and send you another sheet of paper describing a new situation. And, of course, giving you a new set of choices allowing you to continue your exploration.
I not only got involved in the game for a while, I also got involved in some discussions with the page shuffler, who at one point claimed that it would be impossible to computerize this kind of game! I set out to prove her wrong, and that was the modest beginning of *Star of the Stars*

It's still rather modest actually. What I did back then was to write the first chapter and a little introduction, do some coding (in Basic!) to register a player and print out the text neatly, and start working on the text for the different versions of Chapter Two. Recently (spring 99) I lost my net connection for a while, and looking through some old stuff for something to fill the big hole in my spare time I found the disk with the old SotS files on, and started working on the game again.
What I have done so far (before I started on this page, check below for more recent updates) is convert the old code to a more modern (?) language (Amos!), generate some new code and add a bit or new text here and there. Oh, and correct some old typos. I plan to continue working on it on and off, and maybe it will actually become presentable one day!

The format is kind of old fashioned. Remember I started working on this before I got on the net, so the different programs are set up to produce printed output. You know, on paper. So even though I may accept input by email (or perhaps by phone, but if you read this you're already on the net, so why bother?), output will still be by snail mail. If this takes off I may change the whole thing to produce HTML code instead of printed output (which is coded specially for my printer, so it's a bit limited...), in which case there may even be graphics and stuff. But for now it's a (projected) PB(E)M game.

Progress report

The intro and versions of chapter two work, and I have done a bit more coding here and there, but recently decided to give up the programming part for now and just add new bits and pieces to the web version. (Yes, there is kind of a web version of the game but it doesn't do automatic branches or data shuffling and stuff, so it's just a draft really. Read the last part of "The future" below for some idea of what it's all (?)about.

To see how the whole thing starts, check out the two links in this paragraph to see how Chapter One and the intro would look if your name was John Doe. If you want to see more, drop me a line to get the URL for the "secret" corner (see below) where you can find everything I've done so far. Well, everything I have come as far as converting to HTML anyway.

The future

This is where the game is set (maybe except for one branch... Play the game and (maybe) find out!), and I hope the future of the project is bright as well. I can already see the plot branching in several directions (and occasionally converging) and a lot of work coming up. If you like what you've seen so far (You clicked the links didn't you?) it would be great to get some help. I need (?) people to plot, write in my style (!) and do some pretty trivial coding (it's simple but there's a lot of it!). If you think you can do either of these, drop me a note. (Oh, and there's no money in it (at least at this point). I'm just doing it for fun (?), so unless you think it's fun too, stay out!)
(There's a "secret" corner on this site that should contain a kind of map and all (?) that has been written so far, to give would-be developers an idea of what is wanted and expected. You have to ask nicely (and preferably send some samples of your own work) to get the address.)

Oh, and I've more or less decided to give up the paper version (both because it's kind of oldfashioned and because it takes so much paper to test the programs...!) and just make a HTML version. Actually at the time being some of the branches exist only as HTML documents...