The Challenge of Prose: Realism vs. Plot

Often times while writing "The Storm Upon Us (Working title)" I've had difficulty in balancing how  I want the story to play out with the necessity of keeping the story slightly believable. I've tried to stay far away from anything that might cause my story to dissolve into a Walking Dead knockoff,  but sometimes that's difficult.

Example: The player is transporting ammunition from checkpoint to checkpoint driving a truck when he comes across a small horde of Limblex (Zombies missing limbs that can are fast-moving due to a high virus concentration in their bloodstream). The horde chases him off the trail and he runs into a tree. At this point the player is forced to choose between attacking the horde and fleeing the vehicle. Now arguably, hitting a large tree while traveling at an extremely fast speed in a small vehicle is probably enough force to kill someone at the very least, but because I need the plot to move along, they are completely unharmed. If they player tries to fight, the vehicle explodes and they die. If they flee, they are rescued by a fellow militia member who has been holed up in the woods for several months.

Current Family Plans

So I did some brainstorming on how I could incorporate my family into my project and I decided there were some creative ways they could assist me.

1) I will be interviewing each member of my family about how they would feel in different situations in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse and using their responses as story ideas

2) My mom is a Music Ed Teacher for K-8 students in District 15 and specializes in bringing music technology into her classroom. One of the programs she uses most to compose is Finale Notepad. I'm going to ask her to compose a short theme piece on what a zombie apocalypse might sound like if put into music.

3) My family will serve as my lab rats for this story and I will see which paths they take most often while playing through it in it's beta stages.

More Clarity on CYOCYOA

"Choose Your Own Choose Your Adventure" is the website I have chosen to write my story with as it requires the least amount of HTML coding to use. I simply add "branches" for each different choice and then type up the paragraphs for it. Right now the plot takes two different directions depending on the player's choices. You either are part of a "last stand" against a large horde on the roof of a warehouse, or you and your militia members help survivors escape to a boat that will take them to a safe zone. Sidequests include trying to find members of your estranged family and trying to find the missing scientist who has developed a cure. Right now most of the endings are negative, usually involving the player being eaten because of a dumb choice.

Update: A lot of progress on the story

The reason that this blog has been inactive is because the majority of my work has been put into editing and rewriting the "pathways" for my zombie apocalypse adventure on CYOCYA.com. Unfortunately, CYOCYA does not allow me to edit my work after it has been made available to the public so it's impossible for me to actually display my progress. Currently the story is at about 50% with one of the two pathways for the first story choice complete. I currently have about 12 endings and my goal is 24 so as long as I keep my current pace of writing sections I should be done by mid-May

Current Adventure on CYOCYOA.com

http://www.cyocyoa.com/view.php?id=492

This is the adventure as of now. It is obviously incomplete but I have gotten some solid work done for it.

Um, Well this is awkward.

Nate here, and I'm the only left. That's right! Jasmine, Lily, and Andy all quit leaving me here all alone with this zombie-apocalypse project. I will continue working on the "choose your own adventure" project solo and post as I go

NEW!!

Nate and I have begun the drawing of the map of events for the choose your own adventure book. We will post pictures of our progress with it and eventually finalize it by typing it up all fancy-like. Mrs. Sheehan has advised us to make a website instead so it is easier to follow and Ryan can help set it up with his technological genius. Keep in mind, Grocery Store or Gun Store?

Ending No. 1: You die alone

As the zombie swarm approaches, you pathetically try to shoot at them, only drawing them closer. As they tear apart your flesh you slowly realize you will never get to see how Breaking Bad ends, and you scream even louder as you become dinner for the monsters that have overtaken the planet

Stats:

Zombies Killled- 3
Karma Level- Neutral
Ending- Super Sad
Zombie to Human Ratio- 1,000,000:1

Our Project and How it will Work

The major concept of our book is to highlight how the choices you make mean something. If you have ever played those Interactive Videos on Youtube or read those books that say flip to page 12 if you become friends with Bobby. Also some great video games like Skyrim and Mass Effect have a world that reacts to what you do. We plan to map out how the first setting(see previous post) can span out to a tree of possibilities that reveal fates of your doings. There may be hidden paths that you can only get to by making several significant choices. Death will happen a lot, but it encourages readers to want to go back and make new choices for a brand new adventure. By the time we put this book together, we will probably want to have the class read the book and figure out the fates they all get. We want to know who is the smartest to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Beginning of the Book: Setting

Scenario: You begin as the zombie invasion is just beginning, and you are you in your house deciding whether you should stay and fight or go. You have your Colt 45 pistol legally of course and a significant amount of ammunition. You have enough food and water for a week and the basic necessities for living. You live in a medium sized city with various points around you that could be helpful and you are not the only survivor around. You must make the choice of how long you stay there, if you go out for supplies in the city, if you return to your home or not, and who you choose to make an alliance with.

Ideas for the book

1. All paths lead to death, but it's the journey that matters.
2. You will have the choice to fight the zombies, join them, save yourself, etc.
3. All choices that you make lead to a new fate that you decide.
4. Thought-provoking ethical choices will effect the way your story ends
5.The book will be written so that anyone can read it
6. Cannibalism is totally an option.

Nate's Greeting

New Project!

One of our ideas for a new project is to create a "make-your own adventure" book with zombies/apocalypse related events occurring. for example we could have several occurrences such as how you make a zombie influenza spread, how you deal with them, how you save the world, end it, etc. We hope to make several adventures such that people will constantly want to make a new adventure by their choices.

Lily has left

Lily has left our critical thinking gifted class, so it will now just be Nate and I. We plan to first, see if we can find a duo project between our two individual projects, and if we cannot find a solution, we will being joining and helping other groups in the class.

Brainstorming for the game

1. We think that a 3D board would be  too confusing so we will stick with a 2D board.
2. The basis for the game will revolve around finding out the identity of your character, who is an amnesiac.
3.The game board will be divided into areas in a format similar to CLUE
4.The player will collect cards that are similar to CHANCE cards in Monopoly
5.The player cannot die in the game, but the game can set their progression back and make it difficult to procede (Such as Epidemic cards in Pandemic)

Plan for Second Semester

  This semester, we definitely need to play more games and enrich our knowledge. We should diagram out what the board will look like and try to finalize a gameplay idea that's actually good. We will mainly be focusing on the school improvement project, but will keep this in mind so we can have a format finished by third quarter.

Interesting Link

I was searching up for some horror board games for inspiration and I came across this website containing a top ten scary board games. I think that 7 and 8 on the list could be similar to our future game because it has really random catastrophes occuring that just makes the game more fun! Go check it out!