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Suggestion: Explicit types

While we can assign periods, events, and scenes to markdown heading levels (i.e., H1‥H6), I feel it's difficult to see with a glance at the gameboard, so I suggest we use something like

# PERIOD: Title of the period (tone)

## EVENT: Title of the event (tone)

### SCENE: Title of the scene

Agreed. And start and end periods would be labeled

PERIOD [START]: Title of period (tone

?

(Sorry I forgot the closing bracket. Also I now know the markdown for code highlighting)

In my opinion the markdown format doesn't work well for our purpose: Even when we add explicit STARTs and ENDs to PERIODs, it's difficult to see which END belongs to a given START. As soon as we have nested PERIODs the whole thing collapses, and using indentation is just asking for other problems.

I'm afraid I don't have any good suggestions.

• While JSON could solve the nesting problem, it is a user _un_friendly format when it comes to manual editing.
• We could use a directory structure to hold individual files as metaphors for cards, but then we lose the overview.
• I imagine some mindmapping software could do the trick, but then we're adding unnecessary complexity (and possible platform incompatibility) to something that should be simple.
• A wiki sounds tempting, but then we lose the decentralisation.

Any thoughts?

When I'd proposed using markdown lists, my thinking was that each list item would link to a separate file with the in-depth content. I figured it would be nice to be able to have one file as an overview, and then be able to zoom in from there.

Having one file overall is simpler, but as you said, it has its drawbacks.

Is it worth adding a bit of additional code into the mix to allow collapsibility?

Maybe something like OPML (or one of the alternates)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML

OPML proper, while suitable for outlines, is even worse than JSON when it comes to legibility and manual editing. And as far as I can see, the alternates are also XML based (which is a no go for us, in my opinion).

Suggestion: Being more explicit

The overview.md file introduced by @ansuz is very helpful in the way it gives a condensed overview of what's going on. What you can't see from this file without consulting the gameboard.md file, however, are the element types. I would like to add shorthands for elements (periods, events, …):

How about going from

# Overview

* Refusing the singularity (Dark)
  * Earth population reaches 30B  (Dark)
  * Boarding of the first Ark (Light)
    * How was the Sequoia governed during the boarding phase (Dark)
* A torch in the night (Light)
  * Establishment of a new democracy (Light)
* Torn sails (Dark)
  * Set adrift (Dark)
* Peace in diversity (Light)
  * The first baby is born on planet Voiturn (Light)

to

# Overview

* P: Refusing the singularity (Dark)
  * E: Earth population reaches 30B  (Dark)
  * E: Boarding of the first Ark (Light)
    * S: How was the Sequoia governed during the boarding phase (Dark)
* P: A torch in the night (Light)
  * E: Establishment of a new democracy (Light)
* P: Torn sails (Dark)
  * E: Set adrift (Dark)
* P: Peace in diversity (Light)
  * E: The first baby is born on planet Voiturn (Light)

using P for periods, E for events, and S for scenes. Perhaps our current overview is not the best example (it works as it is, except the last period is not really a period, it merely marks the end of the all-encompassing period), but what if we had nested periods (e.g., a super-period could be the life of a red dwarf star, and sub-periods of this could be pleistocene, ice age, …)? Nested periods are allowed, right?

Our history.txt file is our collective memory when it comes to which part of the game we're currently playing. Perhaps I haven't been paying enough attention, but several times in out game I have been wondering how far we are and whose turn it is. What if we used the form “$ROUND: $PLAYER: $LOGTEXT” for the text part of each line (i.e., I'm ignoring the timestamp for simplicity)?

PAL = Palette, FP = First Pass, Rn = Round n

PAL: @A added […]
  :
FP: @C added period […]
  :
R1: @A: foo
R1: @B: bar
R1: @C: baz
R2: @A: yet another foo

In this way I can consult the history file and in one glance see which round we're in and whose turn it is, and the overview file show me the coarse structure of the current universe.