I've got a discussion going over on the Quest forum about experimenting with the traditional parser text adventure. My idea is largely influenced and inspired by another member, but I'm now wondering if it's doable in Twine.
In a nutshell all the exits and interactive elements would be included in the description, and at the foot of the screen would be a fixed list of links. For the exits the player simply clicks them, but for objects and such, they first click it (to select it) and then use the menu to interact. One element that would be quite important, would be that the screen doesn't clear on each turn, as per the default functionality, and instead scrolls indefinitely (unless I call a clear screen).
I've knocked up this screenshot to better illustrate my vision.
Comments
For what it's worth the links could go in one of the sidebar-set passages. In fact this would make more sense in terms of positioning, especially if they needed to spill onto another line when in the footer as per my image.
The clever stuff would come when an object in the description is selected and then the 'action' in the sidebar knows which object to apply it to.
Also doable, though the contextual menu, which is what you're describing, would need to be written from scratch—could be simple or complicated, depending on what you want it to look like. I'll also note that the latest version of Quest has a similar feature—again, just an observation.
That's a problem, as SugarCube doesn't support that at all. Infinite scroll pretty much requires dedicated support within the story format's core.
There are ways to fake it to a degree—though doing so requires decent knowledge of SugarCube, the DOM, and JavaScript—however, that would only work within a singular play session and you'd have to give up the ability to navigate the story history. In particular, if the player's browser reloaded for any reason or they loaded a save, then they'd lose all of their accumulated "history"—meaning the onscreen infinite scroll bit.
If by contextual menu you mean the links across the footer, then I'd like them to look pretty much as per my screenshot. They could just as well go in the sidebar as previously mentioned.
I haven't given up on doing this in Quest - just widening my opportunities.
Mmm, shame. Maybe a rethink in gameplay is required then. Just for the record my reason for wanting to prevent the clear screen is because the player will very often want to do perform more than one action per room (such as examining an object before taking it, or take an object before moving on). I suppose the answer is to have 'take' and 'examine' passages which return them to the room after the action, but as I say a re-think is now required.
Thank you.
You want those action links to be aware of what item/person link on the page had been clicked on previously, this requires a custom system to be written.
eg. if the player clicks on an item like chest before clicking on the open action the code behind that action link needs to know if the selected item can be opened and what happens when it is.