By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. You can find out more by following this link. I Accept
navi icon
/image/default.jpg
Bush like presidental style
2014-06-01 18:42:12 It's now 14 days ago, when I started with a complete rewrite
of my tool drafter. Drafter was and is a html5, javascript
based tool for writing story based games. A mixture between
twine and articy draft. The first versions had been written
in java continuously public available since 2004. It changed
it's name and some features. With the previous version of
drafter you were able to work cooperative after you logged
in via internet, import images, sounds and script javascript
based plugins for specific notes. But no one used all these
great features of drafter.
If anyone used drafter, they only created some notes.
(In twine notes are named passages.)

This last version is stripping off features. It seems like
twine.
The difference is small. Twine's HTML5 version may look
better, but you can not change the game-engine with enhanced
features or the editor like changing the look and feel of
the resulting game, importing, editing images, composing
music or whatever you like. With twine you can change each
passage with plugin, in drafter you could change everything.

But why I did this?
Why it took just some spare time of 14 days?

Last question is easy to answer. I have a lot of experience,
indeed, especially in the topic of game tools programming
for stories. The tool is simple and simple to use. It
follows the KISS paradigm.

The first question is complicated.
What did you want to know?
Why I did the rewrite or why made it similar but not the
same like twine?

The rewrite happened, because I accepted the challenge.
I was asked about drafter at the 2014 GDC. What happened to
the tool?
Later I joined following twitter conversation:
the twitter challenge
What to say? Challenge accepted, challenge accomplished!

These are the features of the current version of 'drafter':

- save and load to the browser's local storage
- add, edit and delete notes
- add and delete connections to/from notes
- visualization of notes and connections
- toggle between note- and script editor
- test game and stop the test
- zoom note editor overview
- ex- and import to/from your local hard-drive
- build the complete game as a HTML-file
- help complete with a mini tutorial
- install 'drafter' to your computer with the Firefox browser

I build a Windows8 version, which I may publish to windows
store later. Also I may build a google webstore version, if
you really want.

But to be honest the story of how and why I made the tool is
not finished.

Why the story has to be continued.


Share the article: 




SMARTER CONTRACTS - Tokenomics: A New Economy of Art

SMARTER CONTRACTS - Tokenomics: A New Economy of Art

How can we move towards a creator-centric blockchain economy? with Kevin McCoy, Rhea Myers and Primavera de Filippi, chaired by Mark Waugh

Preparing for GDC 2015

Preparing for GDC 2015

GDC 2015 will start soon. For the first time I will be an IGDA volunteering minion.