The files Fatum reads (Twine, Moiki, Quest, numbered manuscript), the preview before importing, what is carried over and what is left to do afterwards.
This chapter is a reference: come back to it when an adventure needs it. If Fatum is new to you, start with the first step of the path: What the engine can do
What is carried over
Each passage of your adventure becomes a scene, with its text, and each link becomes a choice, with its text and its destination. Nothing else is created: no rule, no test.
In "My adventures", the "Import an adventure" button, next to "New adventure", opens the import page. You send a file there, check what it contains, then confirm.
- The starting scene is the passage the original tool marks as the start. If it marks none, it is the first passage in the file.
- A link to a passage that does not exist gives a choice with no destination. The preview points it out.
Which file to send
Fatum reads files from four tools or formats. It recognises the format from the content of the file, not from its extension. When you send the file, you also choose the language of the adventure: it becomes its default language.
| Tool | File | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Twine 2 | .twee or .html | Open the adventure in Twine, then the "Build" menu and the "Export as Twee" command. The .html file produced by "Publish to File" is read as well. |
| Moiki | Twee | Export the adventure in Twee format from Moiki. |
| Quest | .aslx | Send the .aslx file of a gamebook made with Quest. A Quest text adventure, with rooms and objects, is not a gamebook and is refused. |
| Numbered manuscript | .docx, .txt or .md | A Word, text or Markdown file whose sections are numbered. The expected layout is described just below. |
Laying out a numbered manuscript
A gamebook manuscript has no official format: Fatum reads it according to the conventions of the genre. The more closely your file follows them, the more faithful the reading, and the preview shows you what was understood before anything is created.
- A number alone on its line opens each section ("1", then "2", and so on). The section's text follows, up to the next number.
- The first section is the start of the adventure.
- Each sentence that sends the reader to another section, such as "If you have the key, turn to 45.", becomes a choice whose text is the whole sentence. That sentence is removed from the scene's text: a condition written out in words therefore stays in front of you, on the choice, ready to become a rule.
- The phrasings recognised are those of the language you choose when you send the file. In English, "turn to 45" and its common variants ("go to 45", "turn to section 45", "turn to page 45"). In a Word file, a bold number after "to" counts too.
- A sentence that sends the reader to several sections, such as "turn to 12 or 30", gives one choice per number, with the same text. You then need to tell them apart in the editor.
- A section with no cross-reference becomes an ordinary scene, with no choice. It is counted among the passages with no links in the preview.
A section whose number breaks the increasing order is imported all the same, and flagged in the points to check. A missing number is no problem: a book often skips numbers.
The preview and the points to check
Nothing is created straight away. The file is analysed first, which takes a few moments. The page then shows the adventure's title, the format recognised and the starting passage, followed by four figures: the passages, the links, the links with no destination and the passages with no links. For a manuscript, a passage is a section and a link is a cross-reference.
Under these figures, the "Points to check" list gathers, by kind, what the import removed or could not connect: a removed macro, an image left out, a link to a passage that cannot be found. Each group gives the number of cases and the first passages concerned, with their line in the file.
These points never block the import: they indicate what you will need to redo or check. Only a few files are refused, always with an explanation: unrecognised format, several adventures in one file, starting passage not found, a passage too long to be imported.
For a manuscript, the preview also shows the first choices that were read, with their text. This is the moment to check that your cross-reference sentences were understood as you expected.
"Import" creates the adventure, "Cancel" abandons the import. A preview you leave unanswered eventually expires: send the file again.
What is left to do after the import
When the import is finished, the page shows how many scenes, choices and destinations were created, and "Open the editor" takes you to the adventure. It arrives as a draft, with no rule and no test.
The validation report, the editor's "Validation" mode, serves as your to-do list. It first points out that no playable path leads to an ending, then, scene by scene, the ones that lead nowhere.
- Declare the endings. The import never turns a scene into an ending, even when it has no choice: it is up to you to declare each ending. For a manuscript, the sections with no cross-reference are the ones to go through.
- Give a destination to the choices that have none, the ones the preview counted among the links with no destination. The validation report flags them as blocking.
- Rebuild the logic with the editor's rules. The variables, conditions and scripts of the original file are not carried over. The "Points to check" list shows in which passages they were and stays displayed on the import page for twenty-four hours: note the passages concerned within that time. It is in those passages that you will set a condition, a test or a cost.
For the details: Checking and publishing
What is never carried over
The words of your adventure are kept; whatever is not text is removed. Every removal appears in the points to check.
- Variables, conditions and macros are removed. The text they surrounded stays in place. In Fatum, logic is written as sentences with the editor's rules, without code.
- Scripts and style sheets are ignored: Fatum's engine runs no code.
- Images are not carried over.
- HTML tags are removed and their text is kept. Lists and quotations become plain paragraphs. Bold, italics, headings and separators are kept.
- Links to a website create no choice: their text stays in the scene.
- Technical passages in Twine (initialisation, style sheet, script) do not become scenes.
For the details: Writing a rule