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Post by misomiso on Oct 5, 2023 12:35:43 GMT
Hello all!
Myself and a friend have written a 400 entry FF style gamebook and we would like to try and get it published or selfpublished, and were wondering if anybody here can offer any help or advice?
The book was written for the 'Skill - Stam - Fan - Jam' gamejam, but unfortunately we did read it closely enough - the jam is more for supplements for RPGs done in the FF game system rather than completely new books - and so now we have a book but no jam!
Any help would be appreciated. The gamebook scene is very niche I know, but there a lot of people who do publish or self publish books and it would be great to get some advice or direction of what to do.
Many thanks guys
Mm
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 5, 2023 13:15:13 GMT
There is a Gamebook Authors Guild group on Facebook - you can probably get advice there.
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Post by tyrion on Oct 5, 2023 20:48:40 GMT
You can publish whatever you want on amazon and drivethrurpg yourself. Both are pod so it's not like you would have stock issues. It's the route I'm going down when I eventually get my non-dragon warriors book written. Things to consider:
Playtesting. Get it thoroughly playtested by people who know what they are doing. Somebody will manage to break the rules and have an invincible pc. Some members on here have playtested books (including myself) and it's amazing what things they pick up on that you thought worked fine. Similar to that:
Proofreading. Your favourite word processing app won't necessarily pick up on grammar and spelling mistakes, and will have a fit over colloquialisms.
Art. Are you having any art? If so, who is doing it and how much are they charging? Will you need a kickstarter to fund the art?
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Post by misomiso on Oct 6, 2023 6:14:18 GMT
Yes these are the main things I'm looking to get sorted: -
1) Layout - Laying out the book in the style of Classic Fighting Fantasy. I have no idea how to do this.
2) Art - Art seems to be the most expensive part but I'm prepared to pay a little and there do seem to be good line artists onoline you can hire. I have 20 full page illustrations and 5 'Insert images', as well as the cover art that I need.
3) Playtesting. As you've said. It's going through final checking at the moment but when it's done and all the numbers are allocated I may ask people on this forum for help.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Oct 9, 2023 12:25:42 GMT
Yes these are the main things I'm looking to get sorted: - 1) Layout - Laying out the book in the style of Classic Fighting Fantasy. I have no idea how to do this. 2) Art - Art seems to be the most expensive part but I'm prepared to pay a little and there do seem to be good line artists onoline you can hire. I have 20 full page illustrations and 5 'Insert images', as well as the cover art that I need. 3) Playtesting. As you've said. It's going through final checking at the moment but when it's done and all the numbers are allocated I may ask people on this forum for help. For me, at any rate, 1) is easily the simplest, and I'd say it is no longer even necessary to have a proper DTP package. All you need to do is learn the basic DTP skills, which consist mainly of using styles. For your font, you probably have Palatino Linotype already installed on your computer (I had to buy an AST TurboLaser back in the late 80s to get access to the font). If you want to be really authentic you can find a way to use old style figures. My ancient version of Word pretends to give access to them, but doesn't seem to. How 'in the style of Classic Fighting Fantasy' do you you want to go? Same page size and layout? Or just simple stuff like the centred bold number for paragraphs etc? |
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Post by misomiso on Oct 9, 2023 15:13:00 GMT
It would need to be in the ballpark of Fighting Fantasy, but no need to be 100% accurate.
For example a similar font but larger font size for ease of reading, larger pages as those old books were quite small, but definitely the centered bold numbers for paragraphs!
The rules and introduction part will be laid out similarly as well, but for example 'Luck' has changed a bit to make it more effective in combat (4 damage for successful use).
We are going to go for 20 pieces of full art and maybe 5 repeating inserts to space out the paragraphs.
It's really about making it look nice on the page and having the general arrangment be quite aesthetic, so spacing the art out relatively evenly through the book, having an Art piece for Paragraph 1 etc etc.
We've actually had a little meeting on the book and once the text is 'finalised' as much as it can be we're going to arrange the numbers and then format it, and THEN do the art, as we think that makes more sense.
What is a 'DTP' package? Can you recommend a programe to use to sort some of this stuff out?
Ty for your time Sleepy scholar!
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Post by linflas on Oct 10, 2023 7:15:40 GMT
DTP = desktop publishing (software suite). As sleepyscholar says, the most important is to know how to use styles. No need to buy complicated and expensive software such as InDesign for gamebooks. I use LibreOffice, which is free. I made my own special templates with styles defined for the gamebook genre : body text, section number (based on title), combat, multi-combat, list with tabbed choices, "turn to's" numbers style, etc. I have two of them, depending on the page size : A5 or pocket. - A bit off topic, but... I also wrote a python script that inserts internal hyperlinks in a LibreOffice document, so that you can Ctrl-click instead of scrolling to travel between sections. Hyperlinks are still working on a generated a PDF you would share to people. The program also shuffles sections and updates "turn to" numbers according to the new order, and it keeps special sections you don't want to move. There's also a (still experimental) script that generates a graph chart of your gamebook. You can check everything here github.com/linflas-art/hyperAVH |
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Post by paperexplorer on Oct 11, 2023 7:14:31 GMT
I was going to suggest using AI to create your artwork after seeing a lot of amazing samples. I decided to give it a go first and create an alternative FF gamebook cover with AI. So here it is. Your alternative cover to Citadel of Chaos. The rhinoman that guards the gates....  On second thoughts, maybe AI isn't the answer here... |
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Post by paperexplorer on Oct 11, 2023 7:17:37 GMT
Oh, and in case you were wondering about my new avatar, that's an AI interpretation of the Iron Cyclops from WoFM
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Post by misomiso on Oct 11, 2023 7:57:47 GMT
I won't be using AI.
Human's all the way.
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Post by someone on Oct 14, 2023 9:43:07 GMT
It would need to be in the ballpark of Fighting Fantasy, but no need to be 100% accurate. For example a similar font but larger font size for ease of reading, larger pages as those old books were quite small, but definitely the centered bold numbers for paragraphs! The rules and introduction part will be laid out similarly as well, but for example 'Luck' has changed a bit to make it more effective in combat (4 damage for successful use). We are going to go for 20 pieces of full art and maybe 5 repeating inserts to space out the paragraphs. It's really about making it look nice on the page and having the general arrangment be quite aesthetic, so spacing the art out relatively evenly through the book, having an Art piece for Paragraph 1 etc etc. We've actually had a little meeting on the book and once the text is 'finalised' as much as it can be we're going to arrange the numbers and then format it, and THEN do the art, as we think that makes more sense. What is a 'DTP' package? Can you recommend a programe to use to sort some of this stuff out? Ty for your time Sleepy scholar! You can use LaTeX ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX) if you want complete control on what you are doing. I attach an example of what a .tex input file can be and the resulting .pdf output file. LaTeX even has a built-in gamebook package ( www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/gamebook) developed by Professor André Miede of Saarland University of Applied Sciences, Germany. |
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Post by misomiso on Oct 17, 2023 9:44:54 GMT
It would need to be in the ballpark of Fighting Fantasy, but no need to be 100% accurate. For example a similar font but larger font size for ease of reading, larger pages as those old books were quite small, but definitely the centered bold numbers for paragraphs! The rules and introduction part will be laid out similarly as well, but for example 'Luck' has changed a bit to make it more effective in combat (4 damage for successful use). We are going to go for 20 pieces of full art and maybe 5 repeating inserts to space out the paragraphs. It's really about making it look nice on the page and having the general arrangment be quite aesthetic, so spacing the art out relatively evenly through the book, having an Art piece for Paragraph 1 etc etc. We've actually had a little meeting on the book and once the text is 'finalised' as much as it can be we're going to arrange the numbers and then format it, and THEN do the art, as we think that makes more sense. What is a 'DTP' package? Can you recommend a programe to use to sort some of this stuff out? Ty for your time Sleepy scholar! You can use LaTeX ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX) if you want complete control on what you are doing. I attach an example of what a .tex input file can be and the resulting .pdf output file. LaTeX even has a built-in gamebook package ( www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/gamebook) developed by Professor André Miede of Saarland University of Applied Sciences, Germany. This looks amazing.
Very difficult to use but could be what we are looking for.
I might msg at some other time if that's ok for some guidance on how to use!
Many thanks
Ollie
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Post by someone on Oct 21, 2023 8:57:48 GMT
This looks amazing.
Very difficult to use but could be what we are looking for.
I might msg at some other time if that's ok for some guidance on how to use!
Many thanks
Ollie
I will help if I can, although I'm not a LaTeX expert myself. A very active forum, where you can find answers and get help from specialists, is this one: tex.stackexchange.com/ |
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