Okay, so I wanted to do something with Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, you know, those two big historical figures. I thought it would be cool to maybe make a little game or interactive story or something.
I started by just, like, reading a bunch of stuff online. Wikipedia, some history websites, you know, the usual. Just trying to get a good feel for who these guys were, what they did, and the whole situation with the Crusades. It’s actually pretty wild stuff.
Then, I started messing around with some ideas. At first, I thought maybe I could make a simple text adventure. You know, “You are Saladin. Do you attack Jerusalem (press 1) or negotiate (press 2)?” Kind of thing.
Brainstorming phase
- Text adventure – seemed too basic.
- Maybe a strategy game? But that felt too complicated to make.
- Settled on interactive story/info
I played around with some online tools for making interactive fiction. I looked at some basic coding tutorials. It was a little overwhelming at first, but I just took it one step at a time. I just focus how to create the choice, then how to create a respond to those choice, it is actually quite interesting, I like it.
I kinda got bogged down in the details, though. Like, I was spending hours trying to figure out the perfect wording for one choice. It’s easy to get lost in that stuff.
After I make the selection, and the relative respond, I tried to make a simple image to make it looks better, so I used google to search images, and use my simple photoshop skill to adjust them, I added some shadow to make them pop out, and change the background color of my story, it all good now!
Eventually, I got a super basic version working. It’s not much, just a few choices about the Battle of Arsuf, but it’s something! I learned a lot just by doing it, even if it’s not perfect. It’s definitely more fun to make this stuff than I thought it would be.
