Corporate Treachery Meets Otherworldly Forces in MetaHuman, Inc.

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Damn. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.

It’s been a while since I posted anything on Lloyd of Gamebooks. The last few posts I wrote were back in the 2015 Summer of Gamebook Kickstarters (remember those heady days?), and each one of them was to promote various interactive fiction books or apps. Oh, they were all in earnest – I really was excited about those projects. But they all came down to selling something, nonetheless.

And yet, what has always most appealed to me about this excellent blog that Stuart Lloyd has created is its, and his, honest adoration of gamebooks – the geeky fanboy element, if you will, a category under which I would also class myself. When Stuart first asked if I’d be interested in contributing to this blog, I wanted to respect that honesty – I intended my posts on Lloyd of Gamebooks to be first and foremost about discussing the gamebooks that I loved, old and new, and not merely a means of hawking my own wares. And yet, by the end of Summer 2015, I’d used this blog to do a lot of promo. It was about time I returned to my starry-eyed fanboy roots, and got back to talking about apps and gamebooks that I loved on their own merits, rather than because I had a dog in that particular race.

With that proviso in mind, I’m about to tell you how amazing my newest gamebook app is, and then I’m going to tell you where you can buy it.

It helps that I can be sincerely effusive – that I am enormously invested in this app I’ve been working on for about two years, which is probably the best thing I’ve ever written. Is it distasteful, even vulgar, for a writer to so brazenly market his or her own work? It shouldn’t be. Particularly in this growing climate of ebookery and self-publishing. Particularly too in the interactive fiction sphere, which is still a niche domain, peopled by indie publishers and even indie-er writers. Oh, you can find a few giants who are still republishing Fighting Fantasy books, if you step outside the English language. But even they show no interest in breaking new ground. If we, as emerging writers, aren’t prepared to market our own work, who will?

Dave Morris addressed this point in detail in an article he wrote for The Bookseller in February. Take a look. For gamebook writers especially, there are far worse people to consult for advice.

Bref, as the French say when they want to change the subject. Let’s talk about MetaHuman, Inc.

MetaHuman, Inc. is an interactive fiction story in which you play as CEO of a nebulous corporation that specialises in creating Enhancements – superhuman abilities, for sale to the highest bidder. You must navigate the tribulations of the business world – recruiting and managing staff, say; prioritising Enhancement projects and building the resources necessary to handle them – while striving to raise your company’s share price as high as possible. Because, should it fall too low by the end of the year, MetaHuman’s shareholders won’t be pleased. And they aren’t the kind of preternatural beings that you want to have displeased with you.

Yes, MetaHuman, Inc. is a tale of corporate dealings and treachery. But it is also a tale of sorcerous powers and bleeding-edge technologies – and the consequences and responsibilities of integrating such modern-day miracles into your own body. As you govern the fortunes of MetaHuman Incorporated, you’ll face mercenary psychics, and fiery creatures out of Arabian myth. Worst of all, when the extraterrestrial parasites known as the Surgeons attempt to gain dominion over the planet Earth, you must decide what role MetaHuman will play in repelling this incursion – or whether you wish to help the aliens, in the hope of gaining immense power.

In terms of game mechanics, Choice of Games, this app’s publisher, has a track record of steering away from the clean-cut ‘skills’ that you would find in RPGs – ‘You’re good at this skill, you aren’t so good at this…’ – and preferring variables that reflect a degree of nuance on the player’s part. And so, here you can play as a CEO displaying Ruthlessness or Compassion, one who shows a great deal of Candor or Guile. Publicly misbehave, and your company’s Image will suffer, unless you can put a good spin on things. You can try to keep morale high amongst your staff – or you can bully and intimidate them into good behaviour. As mentioned, your company’s Share Price is paramount, and it’s a good idea to build up the Resources necessary to develop the really high-level Enhancements.

Ah yes, the Enhancements, the bread and butter of MetaHuman Incorporated. These are, essentially, superpowers-for-sale, and the key to building up a good company profile. You can direct your company towards focusing on magical or hi-tech research, Witchery or Superscience; most Enhancements fall within one domain or the other, though a few walk the line between the two extremes. In writing this game, I wanted to shy away from including ‘classic’ superpowers – and so you won’t find super-strength, or the ability to fly listed amongst MetaHuman’s potential projects. Instead, you may be able to develop Heightened Legerity, Hex of the Arc Savant, Technopathy, Psi-activator, Probability Filter, and a bunch of others. And, yes, if your company develops these abilities, you, as CEO, get first taste of the finished product.

And the game is big. It’s about 260,000 words long, in total. Word count in apps can be a bit misleading – maybe 15% of that word count is coding rather than content. Plus, when comparing an app and a dead-tree book, in an app it’s far easier to copy and paste a chunk of text, editing for continuity; do that, and that’s a big brick of words that you have to count twice. Still, you’ve got maybe the equivalent of three Fighting Fantasy books crammed into this app. When you buy MetaHuman, Inc. you get your money’s worth, any way you look at it.

It’s an added bonus that I love, love, love the game’s cover art, by Paul Guinan. My one-line brief for that was along the lines of, ‘I think the app’s cover should be MetaHuman’s company logo – something suitably sinister.’ The final cover, up at the top of this page, is really fantastic. Thanks for that, CoG, and Paul Guinan in particular.

So, I’m really proud of this game, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you take a look at it. You can play the first three chapters of the game for free right now, on the Choice of Games website. If you want to buy the game now, it’s currently on sale until 4^thJanuary 2016. You’ll get 40% off the regular price.

I hope you enjoy it. And, once again, please excuse me for using this space to sell my stuff.

(Post by Paul Gresty)

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Blog posts I read to improve my gamebook writing

Hello gamebookers! I hope you are well and gamebooking along quite nicely. Here is a list of five links that I have found myself going back to when I want to remind myself if the gamebook I a writing is a good one.

The Brewin’s Guide to Writing Better Gamebooks – This is full of tips and things to avoid when writing a gamebook. I reminded myself of them when writing Asuria Awakens and realised that I had included all the items that you need to avoid instant death at the beginning, so I added an extra item towards the end to avoid the death section.

Game Design Principles by Ashton Saylor – I go back to this one normally for rule 1. I have put some things in gamebooks that I thought were funny or clever, but they turned out to not work because they annoyed the player.

A Bestiary of Player Agency on These Heterogeneous Tasks blog – this is an important blog post to read if you want to get the most out of your options in gamebooks. There is a lot more to options than just offering sections to turn to and this post allows you to think about more options that you could use.

Standard Patterns in Choice Based Games on These Heterogeneous Tasks blog and also Classifying and Rating Linearity on Jake Care’s blog. I like these posts as they let me classify the gamebook I am making and then let me think about whether it is panning out in the way I want it to. Now that I am using the Gamebook Authoring Tool which provides flow diagrams, I compare general shapes of the diagrams.

So there you go. These 5  posts are all quite long, so there is plenty to get your teeth into there, but if you read them, digest them and follow the principles, you won’t do much wrong with your gamebooks. Unless you don’t proofread them.

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Legend of the Wayfarer – new abilites

Hello all,

As I expected, I had to change the rules to Legend of the Wayfarer as I wrote more books. The main change came with the abilities. I knew when I started that I was going to add more abilities, but I just wasn’t sure what they were. For a moment, I increased the number of abilities from 6 to 18, but now I have it down to 12. The abilities are:

Combat:  This ability covers the act of fighting, whether unarmed, or with weapons.  It also covers ranged combat and grappling.

Roguery:  This ability covers the talents of larceny – picking pockets, picking locks, sneaking around, looking for a weak spot to enter etc. 

Athletics:  This ability covers physical activities – running, climbing, swimming and many other things.

Insight:  This measures your level of knowledge of the world and also how good you are at perceiving things.

Psychic:  This ability is a measure of your intuition and your sensitivity to the supernatural and spiritual goings on in this world.  With training, you can harness your psychic talent to influence the world around you.

Social:  This ability covers anything that involves working with other people, whether it is selling goods, bribing them, intimidating them or making an impassioned speech.

Magick:  The ability to bend the tides of fate to your will and to better understand arcane language and to cast magical spells and rituals. If you have the magick ability, you may spend 3 will points to reroll any fate die.

Survival:  The ability to find food and shelter in most terrains and the knowledge of the animals that live there. A character with the survival ability is also able to identify healing plants and use them. If you have the survival ability, you are able to use plants to make healing preparations. This means you may spend 3 will points to restore 3 vitality points. Survival does not cover perception outside (covered by insight) or the ability to get across tough terrain (covered by athletics).

Alchemy:  The ability to use various minerals to make different substances. If you have the alchemy ability, you are able to use minerals to make dangerous substances such as acid and firepowder. If you have the alchemy ability, you may spend 3 will points to inflict 3 damage to an opponent as a ranged attack. This attack ignores armour.

Mysticism:  This ability gives the character a better sense of the energies holding beings together. It allows characters to have some limited power over the fae and spirits of the world when warding them.  If you have the mystic ability and you win a round in a contest of will, your opponent loses 1 extra will point (usually 3 points instead of 2).

Tactics:  The ability to excel in situations that involve the character to read opponents, exploit their weaknesses and organise allies. If you have the tactics ability, if you are wearing no armour, your armour score is 1. Also, you damage score is 1 higher than normal.

Pathfinding: The ability to navigate and use vehicles and animals for travelling. A character with the pathfinding is able to work on ships and ride most common mounts and use carts and carriages. They are also less likely to get lost.

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