How do I use ABML to make a simple adventure?

Its very simple to make a basic gamebook using ABML. Each gamebook page is simply a plain text document, and the links to other pages are simply added like this:

This is my page. I want to have a link to another page
which I have numbered 123 <tt ref="123">here</tt>

Simple isn’t it? The link is started with the ‘opening’ tag tt (think ‘Turn To) and the reference you want to turn to, surrounded by <>, then the text that you want to be the actual link that people see and click on, then the ‘closing’ tag of tt again, except this time there is a / in the <> to denote that its closing it.

And with the in-built editor it is even easier to create a turn to adventure. You will be presented with a box to type your page text much like adding a post to a forum, and whenever you want to link to another page all you will have to do is click a button, and you will be asked for what page you want to link to, and what text you would like for the link, and the editor will put the tags in for you.

Notes on using the editor:

There is only 1 rule when using the editor to make your adventures: You must save your first reference as ‘0’ (zero) without the quote marks. This will be the first page your readers will see when they start playing your adventure. Generally you will just want to write your introduction text for the adventure here, with a Turn To 1 (or whatever you are calling your first text of the adventure) tag at the end

There is one more phrase you will need, and that is for when your hero has either succeeded or failed in their adventure. Same structure as the <tt> tag, an open and close version, but the information you give the tag is a little different. It looks like this:

You have failed in your quest. <bookend adventure="Failed">Click here to close the book</bookend>

…or you can have:

You have overcome all odds and completed your quest. <bookend adventure="Completed">Click here to close the book</bookend>

Note that ‘Failed’ and ‘Completed’ are at the moment the only two values allowed in the quotes at the moment, however this may well change – these sorts of changes will be announced in the ABML forum. Again, the bold text will become the link for the user to click on, this time to actually acknowledge the end of the adventure

Just as with the tt tag, there is an editor button that will ask you for the required information and enter it for you, so don’t feel you have to remember all the details.

I have described how to make a Link and End of Book mark without using the editor buttons, because you may prefer to use your own word processor/text editor program to write the adventure while offline – as long as you just keep it to plain text. All you would then have to do is copy and paste your pages straight into the editor

So now you know how to make an adventure… what are you waiting for?!