Robert Bryan

April 2018 PhillyJUG Door Prize Winner

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Two changes today:

  • Fixed a bug that made it hard to select stories from the library on small screens.

  • Added a "Start this story over" button after all story ending scenes.

Also added a new item to the roadmap: "Use myweft.com stories to make audiobooks and podcasts that branch."

Percival the Botanist Pirate has 27 views, and fewer than half of those are from me testing it.

There are still a few endings that nobody has reached.

Every choice gets near 50-50 traffic except that on "Shoreline", people choose "Temple of the Tides" over "Pearl Caves" 2:1.

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This just in... myweft.com has an "Authoring System" page on the interactive fiction wiki: https://www.ifwiki.org/Myweft.com
[Starts selling specialized insurance with language requiring my supervisory presence on any insured vessel and establishing my lifestyle requirements. Roughly similar to "tagging along for luck", but with financial guarantees.]
I wonder what would happen if "readers" were able to do exactly what you've done here: Reject the available choices and write their own next choice, which then becomes available to future readers.
 

There's a new version of myweft.com available now.
It has these changes from the previous version:
* Includes my new interactive story, "Percival the Botanist Pirate."
* Shows stats on how often readers choose each scene exit.
* Separates the published story library from the reading view.
* Adds search and filtering to the library.
* Changes the landing page from the editor to the library.
* Adds the ability to copy a story link and share it.
* Adds the author name, scene count, and view count to the library.
* Allows authors to publish anonymously.
* Allows authors to drag scenes to custom locations on the map.
* Saves and persists custom scene arrangements on the map.
* Adds a map reset button that clears custom arrangements.
* Adds story import. Currently supports myweft exports; other formats to follow.
* Adds dark mode for signed-in users.
* Adds an Author's Note text field for every scene to help writers track thoughts outside story text.
* Adds Command+Return and Ctrl+Enter hotkeys to save and close expanded text boxes.
* Adds a preview mode to let authors experience their stories as readers without publishing.
* Adds bold, italic, and underline text formatting.
* Adds an immutable audit trail.
* Gives authors the ability to set any scene as the landing scene.
* Adds user-experience micro-improvements, such as showing the password length requirement during account creation.
* Fixes defect where the anonymous-publish checkbox text didn't display in dark mode.
* Left-aligns text in the reader view.

# Future
* add "About" link in header to myweft.com documentation
* send email for password resets
* stop authors from saving the "Welcome to MyWeft" template as their own
* improve performance, keyboard latency
* add optional autosave with clear instructions for authors
* context-sensitive help system
* collaborative authoring
* grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage checker
* optionally allow story flow loops
* resurrect stories from historical formats
* accept imports from competitors
* publish to itch.io
* lock systems, prevent paths unless conditions are met
* persistent objects, possessions, inventory
* optional scoring
* support graphics
* optional sounds
* more advanced statistics on read behavior, like time per scene

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I love the wind library. I want to build a book nook of the wind library.
It's fun writing with the constraint that you have to show the scene, set up the choice, and exit in, like 100 words.

Percival the Botanist Pirate has 2,493 words across 33 scenes, so about 75 words per scene.

I remember thinking "WTF is a 'wind library'?", and then, "I don't know, but it's economical."
I think I know exactly what it looks like.
These are some very useful improvements. I’m intrigued by “Shows stats on how often readers choose each scene exit.”
Authors see one block per scene in their published stories.
 

If you're a fan of interactive fiction, consider www.myweft.com.

It's a free authoring tool and publishing platform for stories that branch.

Although it's currently bare-bones, it does include:

  • A visual, map-based editor to help manage authoring complexity
  • User accounts to save works-in-progress
  • One-click publishing
  • Export, so you can take your story with you
  • A 60-second demo story that illustrates the principle of restricted choice

I'm actively working on it, so feedback is gold to me. Thank you.



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Ah, but I only have a 66% chance if I know that the host always _must_ choose another door to open.
I love you.

It makes me deliriously happy that you point this out.

You're absolutely right, of course.
 

25 years ago, I was in a fantasy football league that had a live auction.

Each team had a $100 budget.
Bidding competition for great players drove prices up over $65 in some cases, so the guys who won those stars had to scrape together the rest of their rosters with players nobody else wanted.
It was a lot of fun because the tempatation to bid on players I really wanted on my team was strong, but the impulse to save money for the rest of the team was also strong.

The league fell apart because of drama, but the idea of a fantasy sports auction stayed with me.

Then I played fantasy baseball online, but I stopped because I would always have players on my fantasy team that played against the Phillies. Do I root for my guys? Do I root for the Phillies? Plus the statistics and scoring got too complicated, so I didn't play for a long time.

Much later, I was in a fantasy football league at work. The draft was lame, not an auction. The players on my team played against the Eagles all the time, which confused me, and my team was so bad, I was out of the running by week 3 and had no reason to follow it anymore.

January 7, 2026, while eating a Wawa hoagie, I had the idea for a website to host a free fantasy baseball service with:

  • A live auction
  • Phillies players only
  • Scores tallied weekly

So I built it.

The rules and scoring are as simple as I could make them. There are four players on each team, one statistic for pitchers, and one statistic for hitters. That's it.

I made the "One Post Wonder Baseball League", which you can join here.

If you would like to play, click that link, then:

  1. Enter your email address and a password.
  2. Click "Create Account".
  3. Give your team a name.
  4. Click "Join league".

If you want to read the rules first, they're here.

I picked 6PM Eastern on Saturday, March 21 for our live auction because spring training will be almost over by then, and we'll have a good idea of what the opening day roster looks like. We'll do an optional Zoom call during the auction for banter and running commentary. If a different date or time would make it so you can join, let me know.

This is specifically designed for people who have never been in a fantasy sports league before, and for people who don't know anything about baseball or the Phillies.

The auction is going to be about 90% of the whole experience. After that, you just check in whenever you want to see how your four players are doing. There's no day-to-day management or anything. 

Anyone on One Post Wonder is invited to join.

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I’m in like Harley Quinn.
 
 

Any of my One Post Wonder people down with projecteuler.net?

if response == yes:
     1183867_IMS0sWktfxXi9wYmDmPGoLWGtiz71nXV

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3/9 '18 3 Comments
Unlike Matt, I feel I'm pretty good on the math part, but much weaker in programming. I like the idea of Project Euler, but for now, it's going to need to go on the "wanna" list. I'll be happy to talk about the math with anyone who wants to, though!
Interesting! Will check it out soon.
I've long wished that I had a better understanding of Math. It's one of the many areas of Life that I know just enough to know that I know _nothing_. The site speaks to that desire quite intimately.
 
 
 
 

The Arden Museum is doing an exhibit on authors from Arden.

They asked me for a bio.

http://www.rmbryan.com/about-rm-bryan

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8/30 '15 10 Comments
I loved your bio. To be fair, part of my enjoyment was in learning things about you, my friend, that I didn't know, and that isn't going to be a universal experience for bio readers ... But then again, when I really like a book, the author feels like someone I know and I want to know more about them.
Thank you!
I'm glad they didn't limit you to 150 words. You have a good style.
Writing this, I kept hearing Louis C.K. screaming, "Nobody cares about you, they only want to talk about themselves!"

That didn't help.
Those inner editor/censor voices are EEEEVIIIIL.
Absolutely beautiful.

I selfishly was hoping to see a comment about your writing project "The Weekly Ping," which I thoroughly enjoyed and very much looked forward to. I'm sure I still have some saved, assuming they're not on the hard drive that died.

I've had 4 different people write to me today to say, "Where is the Weekly Ping in your bio?"
You are all so dear.
I think I only sent that to, like 9 people.
Welp, we nine people were very lucky people. :)
A fine story which happens to be your own. Thank you for sharing it.
My pleasure!