Hi everyone. I've just started using itch.io and I wanted to get some feedback and suggestions on a 'choose your own adventure' game I'm making. The game is called Sleeping Stones, and it's about a family that has gone missing from a village over winter. The setting of the game is in a large forest that the villagers have never left, so they don't know if it ever ends. The village is called Traveller's Rest rather ironically, as no travellers have come through since the locals can remember. There are only five houses in the central clearing, and one house isolated in another clearing. This is the house from which the Johnson family goes missing, and you, as the chief's son, are sent to find out what happened.

I am currently scripting Sleeping Stones (which will be a free game), and the story still has some flexibility. So at this point, I'm putting my basic idea out there for some feedback or ideas.

- Do you have any narrative, characters, or mechanics that you have always wanted to see in a 'choose your own adventure' game? So far I am planning to integrate some fun mechanics like text size changes, background sprites/artwork changes, screen shakes, and a few other effects which will deepen the player's immersion during game events. 

- What do you think of the story so far?

- Any suggestions for art in this game? I have some limited pixel art skills, so I've planned to do very basic backgrounds, mostly ambient colours and a few tree roots or dark skies around text to give some atmosphere. I aim to make a few states of art for each story stage, based on the scene 'caused' by the player's choices.

I will be updating this post with screenshots, story snippets, and of course replying to comments.

Thanks a lot for reading, and I hope to see your feedback!

EDIT: I changed the name to Winter Growth because it suits the final story much better. It's now available here: https://www.sharemygame.com/share/08926340-10b5-4a16-877a-9e758d8b0979 and will be available on itch.io too, let me know before I post it here if you would like another feature!

Hey all,

I'm in the less creative part of the process, but looking for creative ways to do it.

 I'm writing the code for different 'room' game states as the mechanic to move through the story. At the moment the mechanic is simply pressing 1, 2, etc. on the keyboard to make story choices. This isn't engaging enough however, and I'll be trying out different things over the next few days. I'm planning to make some clickable UI that gives the player feedback (red when mousing over a violent option, some quiet bass drone music when mousing over scary options, etc). 

Let me know if you like the sound of that, or if there are any notable mechanics in other 'choose your own adventure' games that really stood out to you!

I've been writing the story over the last few days. It's coming together as a definite horror adventure- hopefully you like gnarly imagery!

It took me a while to find a good story-boarding tool for making mind maps and story flow that suits a choose your own adventure. I've been using draw.io and I've been quite happy with it! It just has a simple interface but it's strong enough if you're just writing and organising text to then copy and paste into a game engine.

I can get back to the coding and developing very soon, just need to tie up a few loose ends in the story. Currently it's a bit too linear so it needs to have more branches and interesting alternate paths to take.

The story is now completely written and planned.

Tomorrow I can get back into the development and implementation of what I've written. I'm excited to share some of my freaky horror writing! I aim to have a working demo uploaded in the next week or so. After that is uploaded with the completed story script, I can then focus on adding the finishing touches like sound effects and background artwork. 

Right now I'm planning to make the narrative choice mechanic work by having the player walk in the direction of their choice. The world will be extremely low detail and mostly hidden behind the text, but it should give some vague sense of movement so the player has an interesting mechanic to interact with. I will have to test this mechanic before I'm certain however because it could end up getting in the way of the story if it takes too much time or it doesn't look very good. On paper it seems interesting enough!

The game is now available! It is a basic but complete choose your own adventure. I'm hosting it right now on ShareMyGame.com for a month, and before the month's end I will also host it here.

https://www.sharemygame.com/share/08926340-10b5-4a16-877a-9e758d8b0979

Let me know what you think 

<3

I made a project page for the game, you can find it here:

https://max-wilson.itch.io/winter-growth