OK. So you are interested in writing your own gamebook? And you expect any comprehensive manual how to write a successful one? That's cool! But, unfortunately, there is no general answer to the question, 'How to?'. Please, take the following guidelines just as the friendly advises that might help you write your own gamebook. If you want to share with other people your experiences, please contact us at gamebooks@mantikora.com.

First, you have to make up an idea what's the gamebook going to be about. Forget about 'The young beautiful princess being kidnapped by the insidious wizzard and held captive in his horror castle, and you, the hero, standing in front of the main gate on the quest to save her', unless you are going to write the story in a really funny way. Slow down for a minute and think what the ordinary novels are about. The ordinary novels tell the story. Would you be interested in a 200 pages long detail description of the hero's stumble throughout the single dungeon? Certainly not, unless you are a kind of masochist! The heroes (I should not forget about the heroines:o) travel throughout various foreign countries and regions, explore the ruins of fallen civilizations, talk to many people, uncover the secrets of the enemies and many more. They don't fall into the trap on every second page and don't fight thousands of enemies on every third page.

You've got the point? Do you already have an idea? No? Try this? Read the newspapers, watch TV. The best stories are written by the life itself. Always have a pencil and a piece of paper close to your hand. Listen to the people talking about their sorrows, difficulties, good fortune and victories. Try to use, what is called a 'brainstorming'. You just sit by the table and write down every idea that comes to your mind. Soon, you will find yourself cultivating some of your thoughts to the flourishing garden of the great ideas.

An example: You have read in the newspapers that the price of the oil is going to step rise once again. But we are in the world of fantasy, so let's substitute the oil with some kind of exotic spice, diamonds, gold, furs, whatever you have. Or even better, keep the oil as a mystical and very rare substance used by the alchemists in their laboratories. Why the step rise of the price? Did something happen in the regions, where the oil is derived from the hard and mean soil? Some kind of disease struck the population or some strange foreigners never seen before attacked these regions? Why did they attack just the oil mining regions? And we may continue...

OK. I've got the background story. What else do I need?

Draw a map. Draw a map as big as possible, with the greatest detail in mind. You can even draw several maps, a general one (of the whole kingdom, continent, planet), and, where applicable, several local maps (like detailed plans of the towns, castles, dungeons). Use different colors to mark the spots of hostile creatures, traps, encounters with other characters, items and artifacts, special place of notice etc. You don't have to draw the map by your hand! Use special software like Corel Draw, TGif, Kontour or similar one to do the job. Ability of these computer programs to enhance to the biggest detail or erase and replace the reconstructed part of the map is splendid.

Now try to guess the number of points (sections) you will need to describe the adventures of your hero. 200 points is generally considered to be a short adventure while 600 sections already start to be beyond the expectations (or even your possibilities and will). You will need some kind of spreadsheet to keep track about your adventure, points already spent and points to which a link from other section is already assigned to. Stop! You don't have to go and buy Microsoft Office. Even some freeware spreadsheets would do the job. Try Star Office or KOffice.

Open a new list. Enter the numbers from 1 to the desired number of sections into the first column. Keep the background of the cells white. Each time you finish writing a section, change the background color of corresponding cell to red. Each time you assign a link to any unused point, make the background of target cell green. After you finish writing of the targeted section, change the color from green to red. Write a short description about 'what's going on' in this section into the second column, just next to the section number. The third column is reserved for the list of sections the current section links to. Keep this database up to date, save and back-up regularly.

Now think about the character and also about the rules that shall govern the combat, searches or usage of some special abilities your hero may posses. If you are used to play role-playing games like Advanced Dungeons&Dragons (AD&D), you won't have problems to invent your own set of rules. If you don't have such experiences, try to find an inspiration in other gamebooks. No, you've got a hero, rules, story, map and section database. You are ready to get down writing!

Is there anything left?

Yeh. One last thing. You have to decide whether you will write your gamebook in a plain-text (or PDF), i.e. suitable for printing on a computer printer, or you get the full use of the HTML format and create an interactive adventure gamebook suited for the on-line computer gaming. The best option would be to make your gamebook available in both plain-text and interactive HTML version. But that’s too easy for me. I’ll better try to explain all the benefits and drawbacks of both types of gamebooks.

Plain-text

By the term plain-text, I don’t mean only a true plain text. I mean a web-page where all the sections are included in a single HTML file. You may still use most of the benefits of the HTML format, i.e. images, links, whatever you have. But the prior purpose of such a gamebook is to be printed on a computer printer. Though inexpensive quality monitors with high refresh rate are available on the market, still many users prefer to read from the old-fashioned paper.

However, serious limitations arouse like impossibility of using imagemaps and composing of the background music is just a waste of time. If this is your choice, why not use PDF. You get better graphic options and that’s what you should concentrate on. Have a look at the Ring of Thieves for such an excelent example. Don’t make your gamebook in a MS Word format. Not everybody is willing to steal or buy a copy of MS Word just because of your gamebook.

On-line interactive HTML gamebooks

In the on-line interactive gamebooks, every section is included in a separate file and each time the reader follows a link, new page is loaded into his web-browser. HTML offers really astounding graphic options. For an example of a well made interactive gamebook have a look at Windhammer, written by Wayne Densley. Great interactivity with the user is an ultimate key to success. Wayne’s idea with the hints hidden behind the Ather’Lorell is really great. Use image maps, like ‘find your enemy in the picture of the forest’. Don’t forget about the gackground music and sounds. You may have different background music associated with every unique section (town, black smith, combat, dungeon...).

I personally believe (and not only me) that the future of the gamebooks is in the on-line interactive gamebooks. Consider this. Palmtops become very popular. Within several years, palmtops will eventually become as widespread as the mobile phones. On-line interactive gamebooks are ideally suited for the palmtops. Every palmtop is supplied with an built-in web-browser and most of the palmtops can even play the sounds and music. It’s not very difficult to imagine all people all around you playing your gamebook in the public transport on their way to and back from the work:o)