Futile Wanderings is now avaliable on Facebook. Check it out!
Like the splash page said, Futile Wanderings is a choose your own adventure book written collaboratively by our visitors. Let's start off with an overview of the origins of the site, before moving on to how to use it and finally how you can add your ideas to the melting pot.
Futile Wanderings started with the germ of an idea, and a hell of a lot of boredom. RockyB, the owner of Shock Therapy, had a nasty habit of doing random things when he's bored. The original Futile Wanderings was a set of hand-crafted HTML pages like the one to the side, which and a few forum members contributed to over a period of almost a year. But due to laziness on his part, it never really took off.
Then he went to study computer science at Manchester University, and learnt PHP. Now the Futile Wanderings are a fully database driven system, meaning pages can be added at will with no waiting around. The system is even set up to allow people to start their own stories, and whether to make use the admin moderation which is used by default on the original story.
It's just like one of the old 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, except even more effortless. You don't even have to turn the pages! Each page has a certain number of 'continuations', which are basically links to other pages. Click on the continuation that you wish to follow to advance the adventure. If you come to a page with no continuations, you've basically died. Either click on the 'start' link to start over, or the back button to try another route.
There are no actual user accounts on the site. Mainly because it was too much hassle for to bother implementing the system. However, the number of times a unique 'Author Name' is used are counted up in a seperate table and used to display the Top 10 Authors list.
If you want to contribute your own continuations on the story, there's basically two ways in which you can do it. The first is if you come across a 'cap' page which basically says the page you are trying to access hasn't been written yet. In this case simply click the link on the cap page and get writing.
Alternatively, you can choose a specific page to edit through the 'Continue a Current Story' link. This will ask you to select a story, page, and then a continuation to work on before allowing you free reign with your creative talents. Keep in mind, based on the story creators choices you may need to have your submission moderated before it shows up for display and further continuation.
(As a tip, it's possible to inter-link separate story threads, and even independent stories. If a continuation already exists with the exact same title as one of the ones you are trying to add to a page, the new continuation is automatically linked to the already existing page.)
If you want, you can even create an entirely separate story. Simply click on the 'Create Your Own Story' link. You'll be able to create a starting page and choose whether or not you want submissions to be moderated before they're added to the database.
In return for contributing, you get to link to a domain of your choice on each page you submit though the 'Author Link' box.
If you need any more help, the best way to get in touch is through our community forums. There's sure to be someone there to help clear up your confusion.
Basic legal bumbf: All contributors retain copyright to their work, while giving permission to Shock Therapy and RockyB to modify, display and create derivative works from it. Any submissions may be deleted at any time, with no need to clarify reasons for the deletion.