Effortless attention. Complete immersion while pursuing a task. Working at your highest level without even knowing it. Sounds like a superpower, but it’s just psychology. Flow is a state of mind any musician, writer, athlete or programmer can enter. There are a hundred names for it: being in ‘the zone’, ‘wired in’, or just plain ‘absorbed’. You know you’ve been there when you look at the clock and hours have flown by. As I...

Creating a climatic and final resolution to which all readers will be satisfied is an impossible task. But–as luck would have it–the series-writer needn’t truly worry of that until his or her last book. Even so, the reader must be gratified and thrilled for something that teases them for the next one. A cliffhanger is one way, and is how the first book in the Samurai of Hyuga series ended. What does a good,...

Samurai of Hyuga Book 2 There will be a sequel to Samurai of Hyuga! I am pleased to say that it is a much-anticipated one, from all the great replies and reviews SoH has gotten. Thank you for all the kind words, they mean a lot to me! It is great to see so many people get wrapped up into the world of Hyuga, the characters and the drama. I was unsure how interactive-fiction...

We would huddle together, sharing stories around food and drink while tossing bones around. We weren’t cavemen, but what went on every half-hour during our middleschool lunch was decidedly archaic. Instead of gameboys or LAN parties, my group of geeky friends and I would bring out the tomes and character sheets. I knew every stat adjustment for every race in the player’s handbook, what levels fighters would get their bonus feats, and what ‘ambidextrous’...

Have you ever solved a puzzle, a riddle or problem and felt clever for doing so? Imagine that sensation at the end of a suspense-filled narrative, an epic series of mental exercises more enjoyable and page-turning than any logic puzzle. Murders are inherently dramatic—but shroud it in mystery and revenge and misplaced rage and you have something else entirely! Way before interactive fiction was a thing, authors were engaging readers and forcing them to...

The second and final part of the method centers on scripting and testing. By the time I get to this stage the story and branches are written. But the writing—and particularly the editing—will continue a while longer as I finally see the game come to life. It’s always a good feeling to see the result of months of hard work! Scripting Choicescript is a high-level programming language which feels in many ways like a...