I'm looking to create my first gamebook. I'm already a game developer (software engineer in particular), but would like to do something on my own.

Right now I'm trying to decide whether to use QUEST or SQUIFFY to create the gamebook. I would definitely like to be able to turn the gamebook into a store-compatible app, and it appears that both can do so without much difficulty. My real question here is which of the two options is the better choice right now for creating gamebooks?

I'm not intimidated by complexity, so more advanced scripting won't be troublesome. I would prefer to be able to track a plethora of variables, states, and the like, but it seems that both can do so pretty well. I know that Squiffy is a much younger piece of software, but I have no problem of growing with a new application (as long as it's growing and not in a stagnant state).

Do you think that Squiffy is better suited for creating gamebooks than Quest given specific design features? Or would you recommend that code-savvy users who want the most features available use Quest to create a gamebook?

Thanks!

Squiffy is designed specifically for gamebooks. It outputs directly to HTML and JavaScript, which means you can directly import the primary output into Phonegap, whereas with Quest you would have to run the output through a converter first.

So as you're already a developer I would definitely suggest Squiffy - presumably Squiffy's lack of a GUI is no problem, and you'll be comfortable using JavaScript for any scripting you need. Being much closer to the final output will mean less headaches when it comes to app-ifying things.

I don't think you would gain much from using Quest, indeed there are already features Squiffy has that Quest doesn't ("continue" links, text replacement for example). If you're happy creating your game in a text editor, Squiffy should just get out of your way and let you focus on writing.

Also it will definitely help me if Squiffy has more active users giving feedback! As you say, it's a much younger product, but it's growing. Quest is still being maintained, but I'm not planning any major changes, and certainly not to the gamebook mode (which I can see being deprecated in favour of Squiffy once it's matured).

Awesome advice, thanks for getting back!

I'll download and start using Squiffy. It looks very feature rich for gamebooks, especially with javascript built in!