How to Write a Text Adventure Log: Record Changes and Unfinished Items, Don't Retell the Whole Plot
After each turn ends, the log records only four types of content: actions the player actually took, facts thereby confirmed, observable state changes, and still-open to-dos. Plot processes, environmental descriptions, and characters' original words do not go into the log, unless that sentence itself is a confirmed fact. Below, a fictional teaching example illustrates the compression method; the station names, personal names, numbers, and dialogue in it are all fabricated and do not correspond to any real work.
Introduction
After each turn ends, the log records only four types of content: actions the player actually took, facts thereby confirmed, observable state changes, and still-open to-dos. Plot processes, environmental descriptions, and characters' original words do not go into the log, unless that sentence itself is a confirmed fact. Below, a fictional teaching example illustrates the compression method; the station names, personal names, numbers, and dialogue in it are all fabricated and do not correspond to any real work.
First Distinguish Four Kinds of Sentences
Before writing the log, split that turn's narration into sentences and place each one:
- Action sentence: what the player chose or carried out. Write it as "player + verb + object," for example "the player restarted the transmitter."
- Fact sentence: what the world is thereby confirmed to be like. Write only content the player has already seen, heard, or verified.
- Change sentence: the state differs before and after. It must be possible to point out what changed and from what to what.
- To-do sentence: things not yet done, not yet confirmed, or explicitly postponed.
Plot sentences (atmosphere, psychology, process descriptions) and leak sentences (information the player character could not possibly know) are deleted directly. The criterion is simple: if the player has not experienced this sentence, it should not appear in the log.
A Running Case: The Seaside Radio Station
Fictional setup: the player plays a repair worker, "Lin An," who goes to "Grey Cape Radio Station" to troubleshoot a fault. In the third turn, the player chooses to open the back cover of the mixing console and finds a blown fuse, but has no spare part on hand; before leaving, the player hears a fragmentary Morse signal coming from the direction of the control room and cannot identify its content.
Original long narration (fictional, about three hundred characters, containing a large amount of process and atmosphere):
Sea wind pours in through the broken window crack. Lin An crouches behind the mixing console, unscrewing screws one by one, the smell of metal mixed with dampness. He remembers the station manager saying this machine had been used for more than ten years. The back cover finally opens, wires like tangled vines. Following the scorch marks, he touches a fuse; the glass tube has already blackened and broken. He searches the drawer twice, finding only a few rusty screws and a faded duty roster. Just then, from the direction of the control room, a beeping sound suddenly rises, intermittent, like someone knocking on a wall very far away. He holds his breath and listens for a few seconds; the sound stops again. The sky darkens; he decides to come back tomorrow.
Compressed into three log entries:
- Action: the player opened the back cover of the mixing console and checked the wiring and the drawer.
- Confirmed: the mixing console fuse is blown; there is no spare part of the same specification in the station; a fragmentary signal appeared from the direction of the control room.
- To-do: obtain a fuse of the same specification; identify the signal content; confirm the signal source.
The comparison shows that the sea wind, the smell of metal, the station manager's words, the vine-like wiring, the color of the duty roster, holding breath for a few seconds, and the darkening sky all do not go into the log. "The station manager said the machine had been used for more than ten years" belongs to old information the player may remember, but this turn has no new confirmation, so it is not written. "Like someone knocking on a wall very far away" is the player's metaphor, not a fact; only rewriting it as "a fragmentary signal appeared" is accurate.
Empty Logs, Repeated Logs, Suspected Facts
These three situations are the easiest to write badly; give one handling rule for each.
Empty log: in this turn the player only observed or moved and did not trigger any change. The rule is to still write one action line, leave facts and changes blank, and carry over to-dos from the previous turn's unclosed items. Do not move environmental descriptions in just to fill it up. An empty log looks like this:
- Action: the player walked along the corridor to the control room door.
- Confirmed: (none)
- To-do: identify the signal content; confirm the signal source.
Repeated log: this turn's action is of the same kind as the previous turn, for example searching the drawer again. The rule is to merge like items and record differences only when quantity or scope changes, writing "checked the drawer again, expanding the scope to the tool cabinet," not copying the previous turn's full text again. Repetition itself is not a new fact, unless this time something was found that was not found last time.
Suspected fact: the player hears a sentence that cannot be verified, for example the fictional character "A Qiao" says, "Someone entered the control room last night." The rule is to record it as "A Qiao claims someone entered the control room last night," marking the source and unverified status, and not to write "someone entered the control room last night." Handle it the same way when a character fabricates an excuse: the excuse is the character's statement, not a new world fact. For example, A Qiao later says, "I just said it casually." The log writes "A Qiao changed her statement, claiming her previous statement was said casually," and does not write "no one entered last night." Both statements are only her statements.
Do Not Leak Information the Player Has Not Learned
The log's reader is the player, not the author. The author knows the truth behind the scenes, but the log cannot write it out in advance. The method is to add a source to every fact sentence: the player saw it with their own eyes, heard it with their own ears, learned it from a certain character, or read it from a certain object. Sentences without a source are all downgraded to to-dos or deleted.
For example, the author knows the signal is sent by the lighthouse's automatic transmitter, but the player has not yet verified it. The log can only write "To-do: confirm the signal source," and cannot write "the signal comes from the lighthouse transmitter." Only when the player actually walks to the lighthouse and sees the transmitter operating does it upgrade to a confirmed fact.
Fix the Rules into a Template
Use the same set of subheadings for each turn's log; it is fast to write and not easy to miss items:
| Column | What to write | What not to write |
|---|---|---|
| Action | The choice the player actually carried out this turn | Mental activity, hesitation process |
| Confirmed facts | New information with a source and verifiable | Truth the author knows, speculation |
| State changes | From what to what | Atmosphere descriptions with no change |
| To-do | Unclosed questions and postponed actions | Things already completed this turn |
State changes must write the before and after values, for example "fuse: intact -> blown" and "spare parts inventory: unknown -> confirmed as zero." If there is no before-and-after difference, do not fill in this column.
Completion Check
After writing one turn's log, go through six questions one by one:
- Does the action column contain only things the player did, with no narrator's actions?
- Can a source be pointed out for every confirmed fact?
- Do state changes write out the before-and-after differences?
- Does the to-do column retain only unclosed items, and have completed ones been moved out?
- Is there any information the player has not yet learned?
- Compare the log with the original narration: is the word count clearly shorter, and are the deleted parts all process and atmosphere?
If all six items pass, this log can be handed to the next turn for use. If item 5 does not pass, return to the handling rule for suspected facts, add a source to that sentence, or downgrade it to a to-do.
Next step: take the original narration from your most recent turn, split it into the four columns according to the table above, then delete once more against the six check items to obtain a reusable log.
