Hello,

I'm working hard on an online tool to let people write their own interactive novels. It's still a lot of work in progress, but I prefer to get some user reviews before going to deep in this project.

Are some people willing to give it a try?

Here is the link, please give a review after using it, even if you find my tool awful, it is important to me <3

http://games.anthro.fr (temp. domain name)

Thank you !

• I get a generic error message when submitting the signup form and password recovery form.
• Making people sign up before they're allowed to play existing games is just going to keep them away. Don't ask for information you don't need and don't make people do any more work than is required.
• Never ever make people send their passwords in the clear. (Use HTTPS, please.)
• Even better, don't require passwords at all. Have people log in through a federated service like Facebook Login or OpenID.

Maxpizzle said:

• Even better, don't require passwords at all. Have people log in through a federated service like Facebook Login or OpenID.

Faceborg doesn't need to know about your text porn obsession.

Hello. While I like the idea of you making a system for people to easily make an interactive novel, and would very much like to use the system myself, I must refrain from using said system till you update your site to HTTPS, as you want people to know that their passwords and accounts are secure.

Next as Maxpizzle pointed out you may want to remove the requirement of an account for people who solely want to read the novels. This will allow more traffic to your site, make people want to use your system more, and bring in new people who find an interest in using the system to make their stories.

But kudos starting a framework for some potential great. Just keep at it and be sure to look for the constructive criticism.

I honestly clicked this, then bailed because I couldn't be bothered to register, I might check it out later, but at the moment...

If for some reason the backend requires you to be logged in, couldn't you set up a guest login for people to play around?

Okay so I made a dummy account(You need testers and no one is willing to commit for various reasons) Your inventory demo was interesting and something people will want to mess with. You just need to provide instruction on how to implement it.

And your UI and linking system are very simple, friendly, and intuitive, I couldn't find a problem with it. All in all so far its perhaps the best thing I've ever played around with even for just a simple test.

I'll look forward to making an actually account once you update the site. If there is anything specific you need tested that I somehow missed then please let me know and anyone else who happens to want to help you.

EDIT: I'm sorry I failed to look in documentation. I'll test these out a little later and provide you more feedback

EDIT2: So I'll openly admit I was unable to use variables and scripts as I am long out of practice. So feedback in this regard will be a while or up to someone else. I do apologies for that.

United_Gamers said:
...update your site to HTTPS, as you want people to know that their passwords and accounts are secure.

Done!

Hello, thanks to everybody for your feedback!

> I get a generic error message when submitting the signup form and password recovery form.

Should be fixed by now.

> Making people sign up before they're allowed to play existing games is just going to keep them away. Don't ask for information you don't need and don't make people do any more work than is required.

It is more tricky that it seems. The scripting language allows creators to store variables for each readers and it is important not to store theses values in the user browser. Perhaps I may allow signed-out reading when I do not detect any usage of variable in stories.

> Never ever make people send their passwords in the clear. (Use HTTPS, please.)

Done!

> Even better, don't require passwords at all. Have people log in through a federated service like Facebook Login or OpenID.

I add it to my todolist as a high priority task.

> Faceborg doesn't need to know about your text porn obsession.

I will alway allow simple login/password login.

> But kudos starting a framework for some potential great. Just keep at it and be sure to look for the constructive criticism.

Thank you! I plan to build this tool using user critics – it's alway welcome. For information, I posted this link on several websites (FA, SF...) and try to summerize feedbacks from everybody.

> If for some reason the backend requires you to be logged in, couldn't you set up a guest login for people to play around?

A sandbox is a great idea, a kind of shared account that would reset every day for example. I am not sure how to build this, but I think it may solve the problem of trying reading stories before having to signup.

> Okay so I made a dummy account (You need testers and no one is willing to commit for various reasons)

Zero problem to me :)

> Your inventory demo was interesting and something people will want to mess with. You just need to provide instruction on how to implement it.

Perhaps I could give to everybody a copy of the "inventory project" in order to give them some scripts to look. Would work well with the sandbox, too.

---

Really, a big thank you to everybody. A lot of really good ideas here. I'll give my best on this project :)

The big things at the moment are:
– fix the creator tool for android system
– add some metadata / tags and a search engine (low priority while there are only a few game published)
– make the website more friendly
– Facebook / Google connect
– Sandbox account with some "open source" projects

Other than by sharing my password, Is there a way to privately share an unpublished project for, say, play-testing purposes?

Xioneer said:
Other than by sharing my password, Is there a way to privately share an unpublished project for, say, play-testing purposes?

It is not possible at the moment. But I have some feature requests about collaborative project creation, so it'll probably be possible to share some project permissions to other users, like testing, looking sources and modifying sources.

PrettyBird said:
it is important not to store theses values in the user browser

Why?

Maxpizzle said:
Why?

It may ruin the creator game if someone trick theses values – it would'nt be possible if the value storage is on the server side.

Perhaps it could be authorized through a game setting choosen by the game creator.

PrettyBird said:
It is not possible at the moment.

I didn't suppose so. I am currently planning on issuing the password as needed, but I also don't expect to 'publish' and begin releasing Updates until sometime after the turning of the year, so you certainly may have implemented Private Sharing by then :)

PrettyBird said:
It may ruin the creator game if someone trick theses values...

Which is exactly why I will have a shadow account, to preserve the original content in working order, everything in its place. And I may compartmentalize for security reasons too, dividing the content into Parts and giving out the 'keys' as each player needs. It is obviously not foolproof, as someone determined to wreak havoc can still manage to do so. But localized damage is easier to deal with than total devastation...