This year for our JayIsGames April Fool’s “prank”, we decided to do something a little different. Instead of reviewing tic-tac-toe or gushing on about a joke RPG, we created our very own Choose Your Own Adventure text game: JayIsPonies! It was a great experience for everyone involved, and we managed to pull it off on short notice without too many epic problems. Here’s a little behind the scenes look at how the game came together.
Our Plan
The initial plan was to create a game that took place in a world full of ponies. Somehow, that morphed into collecting pizza slices (something of a running in-joke with the JIG crew). More than half a dozen writers wanted to contribute, with myself organizing, coding, and writing miscellaneous scenes in-between.
Because we were pressed for time, we decided to structure the game very loosely. Each writer was tasked with writing a short, 3,000 word adventure, the only requirement being a slice of pizza had to be discovered somewhere at the end. This allowed each person to create whatever they wanted to without having to be concerned about consistency. This is an April Fool’s joke, it doesn’t have to have continuity or anything, right?
Platform
For JayIsPonies, I decided to use Inform 7 with the Adventure Book extension by Edward Griffiths. I was already familiar with Inform 7, and our in-house browser interpreter supported z5/z8 files, so it seemed a natural fit. I compiled a website-formatted version of the game using the I7 IDE and uploaded it to my own server to allow writers to play new versions as I updated it, both to check for typos and to hunt for bugs.
Preparation
Because not all of the writers knew what kind of game we would end up having with the I7 Adventure Book, I had to write my world first to serve as an example. I also had to write it quickly. Over the course of two or three hours, I wrote, coded, and tested the Zombie Pony world you see in the final game. It’s pretty straightforward with no real puzzles or mazes to navigate, but I was going for crazy writing instead of difficult gaming. Given the time constraint, I was happy with how it turned out.
Process
Because the coding for this I7 CYOA was so simple, I decided to get the writers to code their own sections, with me fixing errors and adding any additional bits later on. All this required people to do was set up a structure for each page, labeling it as such and outlining the choices players could make for each screen. It took some detailed explanations to make sure everyone did it correctly, but my hope was it would be faster than hand coding it myself. Time was a severely limiting factor. It didn’t work quite as smoothly as I had hoped, but it was more effective than I had thought, so it was a good gamble to make.
Not everyone who signed up to contribute chapters ended up doing so. Fortunately, the loose design of the game meant that didn’t cause any problems. I set a firm deadline for submissions, cutting off writer edits and additions so I could focus on stitching everything together. Most of the story details were up to me, as was the task of making five disparate miniature games feel like sections of a larger game, so I had to have time to write that and make sure it all worked together.
After the deadline, my only other task was to finish writing the hub scenes, the ending scenes, code the inventory items and password keys, and make sure everything connected seamlessly. That went quite well, and when April 1 rolled around, we hosted the game on Leaflet and unleashed it to the world.
The end!
The JIG writers did a great job with their portions of the game, and I think everyone who played it at least got a kick out of it. Could there be another game in the future? Most likely, yes! We’ll see what we can make given more time!
