One of the many projects I’m currently working on is an electronic “Choose Your Own Adventure”. It’s kind of a cross between the old paperback CYOA books I used to read as a kid, combined with the old computer text adventures I grew up playing. The freeware software I’m using (Adventure Book) allows you to create different options for players depending on items you have in your inventory, so the adventure will be slightly more robust than the simple paperback ones.
After working on it for a few days, I went to compile the adventure and got a bunch of errors. The documentation included with the program isn’t very thorough. I tracked down the author’s website and found that it hasn’t been updated in almost 5 years. Uh oh. The page still had the author’s e-mail address listed, so out of desperation I went and ahead and e-mailed him. A few days later, he answered!
Turns out I had done a few things in my game the program didn’t like. In my defense, nothing in the instructions said you couldn’t do them, and nothing in the errors hinted to me as to where the errors were! But not only did the author of the software point out my errors, but he took the time to REWRITE MY PROGRAM for me, error-free! It’s not every day that you run across authors of freeware who are that friendly and helpful.
So thanks to Jon Ingold, author of Adventure Book, my project is back on track!