Build Your First Gamebook

1. What a gamebook project contains

A gamebook is made from passages connected by choices.

AccessiIf adds a small game engine around those basics. Your book can also remember variables, display statistics, maintain inventory, hide or reveal choices, roll dice, choose random destinations, create checkpoints and save progress in the reader's browser.

2. Create the project

Open Creator and choose New parser or gamebook project, or use Ctrl+N.

The New Project dialog asks for:

3. Understand the gamebook workspace

The gamebook editor has three important working areas:

• Passages — the list of all passages in the book.
• Passage editor — the title and text of the currently selected passage.
• Choices — the choices belonging to the selected passage.

Both Passages and Choices have context menus. Press the Applications key, or Shift+F10, while focused on the list.

The Passage context menu includes Add, Edit, Duplicate, Show passages linking here, Delete, and Make this the beginning.

The Choice context menu adapts to what is selected. It can offer Edit choice or Edit random choice, Delete choice, Add choice, and Add random choice.

4. Build the first passage

Use Add → Passage or Ctrl+Shift+P.

A passage has a title and body text, plus optional logic.

Title:
The Dodgy Vending Machine

Text:
At the end of the corridor stands a vending machine humming with unnecessary menace.

Its display says:

SNACKS £2
MYSTERY BUTTON FREE

One passage is the beginning passage. The Passage context menu can make any selected passage the beginning.

5. Add normal choices

Use Add → Choice or Ctrl+Shift+C. You can also open the Choices context menu and choose Add choice.

A normal choice has visible text and a routing mode:

• Single destination — go to one specific passage.
• Return to previous passage — go back to the passage the reader came from.
• Random destinations — advanced routing; for ordinary authoring, the dedicated Random Choice command is clearer.

Choice text:
Buy the crisps

Destination:
The Crisps

6. Add random choices

Random choices are deliberately separate from ordinary choices because they represent a different sort of route.

Use Add → Random choice, or open the Choices context menu with Applications / Shift+F10 and choose Add random choice.

First enter the text the reader will see. Then choose Edit random destinations.

Each random destination has:

• Destination passage — where that outcome goes.
• Percentage — how likely it is.

The total must equal 100 percent.

Kick the vending machine

60% -> Free Snack
30% -> Machine Eats Your Money
10% -> Security Arrives

The reader sees one choice: Kick the vending machine. AccessiIf rolls the destination after that choice is selected.

7. Passage types

A passage can be:

Automatic passages are useful for calculation, transition scenes and logic that should happen invisibly between decisions.

8. Win, loss and other endings

A passage can be marked as not an ending, a normal story end, a player win, or a player loss.

Endings should generally not need outgoing choices unless you intentionally want a post-ending continuation.

You leave with three chocolate bars and your dignity intact.

You win.

9. Variables and visible statistics

A variable is a named piece of information remembered by the gamebook.

Use Add → Variable / statistic or Ctrl+Shift+V.

Variables can be:

• Number — Health, Money, Suspicion, score, etc.
• Yes or no — whether something has happened.
• Text — a stored piece of text.

Number variables can have optional minimum and maximum values.

If Show this variable in the reader's stats panel is enabled, the exported gamebook displays it to the reader.

Money
Type: Number
Starting value: 10
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 50
Show in stats: Yes

Use Edit → Manage variables and stats to review, edit or delete variables. The manager uses Applications / Shift+F10 for its context menu.

10. Conditions

A condition answers the question: is this passage or choice available right now?

Conditions can check:

• A variable comparison, such as Money greater than or equal to 2.
• Whether the player has an inventory item.
• Whether a passage has been visited.
• Whether a passage has not been visited.
• A dice roll.

Choice:
Buy the crisps

Condition:
Money greater than or equal to 2

If the condition is false, the choice is not available.

11. Effects

An effect changes the game state when a choice is used or a passage is entered.

Variable effects can:

• Set a value.
• Increase a value.
• Decrease a value.
• Toggle a yes/no variable.

Inventory effects can give or remove an item.

Buy the crisps

Effects:
Decrease Money by 2
Increase Health by 1
Give item: Suspicious Crisps

You can add several effects to the same choice.

12. Inventory items

Inventory represents objects the reader's character possesses.

Use Add → Inventory item or Edit → Manage inventory items.

An item has a name, optional description, and an option for whether the player starts with it.

The inventory manager uses Applications / Shift+F10 to add, edit or delete items.

Choices can require an item, give an item, or remove an item.

13. Visited-state logic

AccessiIf automatically remembers which passages have been visited. You do not need to create a separate variable just to remember that.

A condition can require that a particular passage has been visited or has not been visited.

Choice:
Tell Brenda what happened

Condition:
Passage "Machine Eats Your Money" has been visited

14. Dice checks

A condition can roll dice using expressions such as:

1d6
2d8+1

A dice condition compares the roll with a target. For example:

1d6 greater than or equal to 4

Dice are rolled when the reader selects the choice.

15. Once-only and replacement choices

A once-only choice can only be used once.

You may also provide replacement text and an optional replacement destination. This lets a choice change after use.

First time:
Ask Gary politely

After use:
Ask Gary considerably less politely

16. Return choices

A return choice uses the reader's route history rather than a fixed destination.

Choice text:
Go back

Destination type:
Return to previous passage

This is useful for side rooms, information screens, shops and optional conversations.

17. Incoming links and duplication

Open the Passage context menu with Applications / Shift+F10.

Duplicate passage copies the selected passage and its logic under a new title.

Show passages linking here tells you which choices currently lead to the selected passage. This becomes extremely useful once your story stops fitting comfortably inside your head.

18. Story and reader settings

Use Edit → Story and reader settings.

You can configure:

• A header shown on every passage.
• A footer shown on every passage.
• An optional external CSS stylesheet.
• Whether Save appears.
• Whether Load appears.
• Whether Restart appears.
• Whether Undo appears.
• Whether inventory is shown.
• Whether visible statistics are shown.
• Whether reader display controls are shown.

An external stylesheet is loaded after AccessiIf's built-in styling so it can override the defaults.

19. Story Health

Use Build → Check Story Health or Ctrl+F8.

Story Health checks for problems such as:

• No passages.
• Missing beginning passage.
• No ending passages.
• Passages with no text.
• Non-ending passages with no choices.
• Automatic passages with missing destinations.
• Choices with missing destinations.
• Random destinations pointing nowhere.
• Random percentages which do not total 100.
• References to missing variables or inventory items.
• Invalid dice expressions.
• Unreachable passages.

It also reports incoming and outgoing pathway counts, including random destinations.

20. Preview and release

• F9 — Preview in browser.
• Ctrl+F11 — Build HTML release.
• Ctrl+S — Save the project.

Preview often. Do not wait until the end to discover that your glorious branching epic consists of one button leading directly into the void.

21. Gamebook Creator keystrokes

22. Worked project: The Dodgy Vending Machine

Money = 10, visible, minimum 0, maximum 50
Health = 10, visible, minimum 0, maximum 10

Corridor
Free Snack
Security Arrives

Buy crisps -> Free Snack
Condition: Money >= 2
Effect: Money decreases by 2

Kick the vending machine
70% -> Free Snack
30% -> Security Arrives

23. Design advice

• Give every choice meaningful consequences or information.
• Keep passage titles descriptive for your own sanity; readers need not see them as internal planning notes.
• Avoid creating variables when visited-state or inventory already expresses the idea.
• Use automatic passages for logic, not for giant chains the reader never sees.
• Randomness should create interesting variation, not arbitrarily punish the reader without warning.
• Finish a small book before designing a hundred-passage one.

24. Troubleshooting

A choice does not appear

Check its conditions. If it requires Money ≥ 10 and Money is 2, disappearing is its job.

A random choice does not work

Use Add Random Choice or edit the choice's random destinations. Make sure at least one destination exists and percentages total 100.

A passage is unreachable

Use Story Health and Show passages linking here. An unreachable passage has no path from the beginning.

I cannot delete a passage

It may still be the destination of another choice. Change those links first.

My stat never changes

Check whether the effect is attached to the intended choice or passage and whether the variable name is correct.

25. Gamebook glossary

Passage

A unit of story text.

Choice

A reader-selectable action or decision.

Destination

The passage reached after a choice.

Condition

A rule which decides whether something is available.

Effect

A rule which changes variables or inventory.

Variable

A named stored value.

Visible statistic

A variable shown to the reader.

Checkpoint

A passage whose state can be returned to.

Automatic passage

A passage which redirects without waiting for a choice.

Random destination

One of several possible destinations chosen by percentage.

Incoming link

A choice elsewhere which can reach this passage.