My help guide is SHIT. SHIT SHIT SHITTY SHIT.
It's shit.
Back in the distant past of Chom Isis 2, Pete wrote a super monolith of a help guide. It was excellent and provided everyone with a solid standpoint for playing Chom Isis.
Chom Isis 3 promises to be bigger than 2. Not only in features and complexity but in the number of ways you can play the game. Furthermore, the game is ever shifting as I improve rules, add features and update screens. So, I need a better help guide than the one I've written. It needs (I think) to do the following:
- Help new players get started
- Explain all the features
- Discuss tactics
Anything else it needs to do?
So, what's the best way of doing this?
The main ways I've been considering are:
- Static HTML pages, all linked together - like Google Earth
- Wiki, either Dokuwiki or PMWiki - Mediawiki is too heavy. Good Wiki comparison here.
- YouTube video
- Inline help
I think I might do the YouTube video as an intro to new people, the list is not really exclusive or complete.
I like the idea of inline help but it's going to take a while to finish and there are other pieces of the system that are more pressing - such as the location engine, more jobs and sorting out the fugly screens.
With Wikis - one person is not stumped with the job of keeping it fresh. Most of the content will be generate by me - that's ok. However, I don't really have a mind for the tactics that occur (bar BUY AS MANY PAWNS AS YOU CAN) because the only view of the game I have is a global one. It would be a managed wiki - altering the wiki to throw people off during the game will not be allowed. The wiki, like the game engine needs to be agnostic of the game running.
All thoughts on this understandably dry subject are welcome!
Only just seen this, stupid
Only just seen this, stupid page scrolling...
I would probably go for a combination of Wiki and Inline.
Set up a basic Wiki with the info you have now, chunked into Info per page, and then link to the wiki page from each Chom Page. This would then allow exapnsion by other agents with direct linkage to the pages in question, as well as expansion out into other areas, and more levels of detail.
Periodically review the wiki and add in links between Chom and the Wiki as useful...
as an alternate base, you could use the Google Code system. Here is a half-arsed thing I have in there (I may never complete it...I kep changing my mind about random number generators...)
http://code.google.com/p/zombie-survival-board-game/
An excellent idea, one I
An excellent idea, one I came to at the weekend! I shall be linking the inline help to the Wiki and have received enough really good feedback about the wiki to warrant using one. I'll get some basic content on there, find some willing moderators to keep the content clean from game-related bullshit and then do some linking. It'll be a v3.3 feature, I imagine.
P.S I think you should blog about the L4D boardgame, it's a sodding brilliant idea.
P.P.S Perhaps it's time for a L-O reorganisation to better fit the tools we use the most?
re: L4D boardgame. My brain
re: L4D boardgame. My brain went off on a different angle after a solo playtest. Volume killing in a boardgame does not work, it's just too slow to manage. I shall bolt my musings into something this afternoon while it's fresh.