limits for ease of writing interactive stories

Another strategy to tame the rhizome is to define limits.

We all want our games to be deep, and to give the player the ability to do whatever they want.

Perhaps soon we will be able to do this with LLMs, but for now the results are not so good.

For now, we have to accept that our ability to create variety is limited.

Defining the limits of variety from the beginning can help us write better stories.

How long do we want the story to last?
How many words should it have?
How many possible arcs will each player character have?
- And the NPCs?
How many locations does our game have?
- In how many ways can they be modified based on the player’s choices?
How many main or secondary conflicts will be addressed?

In turn, to prevent our games from getting out of control, I suggest minimizing all these numbers, setting low limits.

We can create a version with these minimized quantities, and only when the game fails, we can try to increase them.

For me, defining the limits even helps me maintain momentum and not lose motivation so much.

Thinking about writing a 200,000-word game is overwhelming, but knowing the main limits helps to tackle the necessary work.