So much time is lost to instability. The last couple of months have been bad for this, as I search for new ways to organise things. It's been tempting to move on to something new. But I have come back around to the interactive fiction stuff. I think it can let me do a lot with the limited resources I have. But i'm still looking for more efficiency. chapter 2 of UFO a Dracula had been dragging. I decided part of the problem was over-writing. Creating loads of material that I then have to edit out to fit into the small memory space. the smallness should be an advantage but I haven't been feeling it.
I've created a new tool to allow me to plan out the chapter before I start writing it. This is so I can visualize what's in each entry, and making sure that there are only so many entries in each chapter. Also I can load in the text as I write it to make sure it fits in the space. It's not really for planning paths through the chapter. but sections can be arranged separately and entries added and deleted if they grow too large, without impacting the rest of the chapter.
The red boxes can be added to the new chapter where they turn yellow. There are 100 red boxes as I establish the maximum entries in chapter. Which looks to be 55 to 60. The X's at the bottom of the screen show the space that can be filled with the text for each entry. Also text can also be added below the yellow boxes to give titles for sections of the chapter.
The tool helped me finish chapter 2. I wanted to give the tool a proper test run on a chapter from start to finish. As I already had rough sections of chapter 3 I started on chapter 4. I was able to finish chapter 4 over the course of a week. Which I consider a success. So I have the text of chapters 2 and 4 completed and running on the spectrum, but the art isn't done.
To sum up the month. UFO a Dracula is progressing faster than before. It's slowly getting there. And the increased efficiency increases the possibility of something after UFO a Dracula. Doing multi chapter interactive fiction will still be a multi month project though. So I will have to look at that when the time comes.
