Story (Classic 2)
Player’s Manual
Story • Canvas Edition1. Welcome
Story (Classic 2) is a full-screen illustrated storybook adventure. You choose a book, read a page, and select choices to travel through the story.
The current story library includes books such as Puzzlum’s Palace and The Peninsula Fortress. Each book begins at its own first page and may remember your most recent page when you return to it.
This manual is written for players. It explains how to play, save, load, and navigate without covering the developer internals behind the scenes.
2. Quick Start
- Open Story (Classic 2). The game appears on a full-screen canvas.
- Choose a book from the Books screen.
- Read the illustration, title, story text, and available choices.
- Click a choice, press its shown letter key, or use the number keys for visible options.
- Use F2 to open Sagas when you want to save or load your progress.
3. The Screen
4. Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| F1 | Toggle Books. If no story page is loaded yet, F1 starts the highlighted book. |
| F2 | Toggle the Saga Manager. |
| F3 | Toggle the on-screen keyboard. |
| F4 | Toggle Page History. |
| F5 | Toggle Percentiles. |
| Esc | Does nothing by design. |
| Tab | Inside the Saga Manager, switches between the save list and the Name field. |
| Enter | Activates the focused item. In Books, starts the highlighted book. In the Saga list, loads the selected saga. In the Saga Name field, saves. |
| ↑ ↓ ← → | Move focus, scroll lists, or move through the on-screen keyboard depending on the open panel. |
| 1–9 | Choose one of the visible story options by position. |
| Shown letter key | Choose the matching story option, such as N for North or C for Continue. |
| Mouse / pointer | Move the game cursor and click the front-most button, choice, field, or key. |
| Mouse wheel | Scroll the Books list, Saga list, or Page History when that panel is active. |
Space is intentionally blocked from doing normal browser scrolling or accidental activation. It only acts when a real story option is bound to Space.
5. Books
The Books screen is the main story selector. Each book has its own set of pages, illustrations, visited-page memory, and most-recent page.
- Use F1 or the top-bar Books button to open or close Books.
- Use the pointer, arrow keys, wheel, or gamepad cursor to choose a book.
- When you select a book you have visited before, the game may resume that book from its most recent page.
- Reset All clears story memory and returns the library to a fresh state.
6. Pages and Choices
A page usually contains a title, an illustration, narrative text, and a list of choices. Choices may appear or disappear depending on what pages you have already visited.
How choices work
- A visible choice can be clicked.
- If a choice shows a letter, pressing that key chooses it.
- Number keys 1 through 9 choose visible choices by order.
- Some choices are hidden until the story condition is met.
- Some hidden key-only actions may exist; they do not display as visible choices.
Common choice labels
You may see direction choices like North, South, East, West, Up, or Down; conversation choices like Talk or Ask; and progress choices like Continue.
7. Page History
Page History shows your visited-page progress for the current book. It also displays a visited-pages count, such as visited pages out of the total page base count for the book.
- Press F4 to open or close Page History.
- Use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to scroll it.
- When Page History is open, normal story option clicks are blocked so the history panel can receive input cleanly.
8. Percentiles
Percentiles gives a compact progress readout for the current book.
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Completion | The percentage of unique page bases visited in the current book. |
| Efficiency | The percentage of exact pages visited at least once compared with total exact page visits. Repeating pages lowers this number. |
Press F5 to open or close Percentiles. When Percentiles or the OSK is open, the game docks panels side-by-side in landscape or stacked in portrait.
9. Saga Manager
A Saga is your saved Story (Classic 2) progress. It can remember book progress, visited pages, current pages, and related story state.
Press F2 to open the Saga Manager.
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| Save / S / Enter in Name field | Saves to the name currently typed in the Name field. |
| Load / L / Enter in save list | Loads the selected saga, closes the Saga Manager, and returns to Books. |
| Delete / Delete | Deletes the selected saga. Autosave cannot be deleted. |
| Mode: Server / Local | Switches between server-backed saves and browser local saves when available. |
| OSK / Y | Opens or closes the on-screen keyboard for saga naming. |
| Login / Logout / I | Uses the site login state for server saves. |
Autosave is pinned to the top of the save list. Named sagas are useful when you want a stable checkpoint instead of relying only on autosave.
10. On-Screen Keyboard
The OSK is the canvas-rendered on-screen keyboard. It is useful for entering a saga name without using a physical keyboard.
- Press F3 or use the Saga Manager’s OSK button to toggle it.
- The OSK includes function keys, numbers, letters, Backspace, Enter, Shift, Space, arrows, Close, Clear, and Done.
- Close closes the OSK. Clear empties the Saga Name field when editing a saga name.
- Esc on the OSK is intentionally inert.
- When the OSK overlaps the Saga Manager, actual OSK keys receive input, while empty OSK space may still let you click the Saga Manager beneath it.
11. Gamepad Play
Story (Classic 2) supports a virtual gamepad cursor. The default mapping is designed around common browser gamepad layouts.
| Gamepad Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Left stick / directional movement | Moves the virtual cursor. |
| A | Clicks or activates the item under the cursor. |
| B | Back-style action where supported. |
| Y | Toggles the OSK according to the default mapping. |
The Saga Manager also includes a Gamepad toggle. Turning it off returns pointer control to mouse-style behavior.
12. Troubleshooting
Esc does not close anything.
Correct. Esc is intentionally inert in Story (Classic 2).
I cannot delete autosave.
Autosave is protected. Create and delete named sagas instead.
Save says “No Saga loaded.”
Start or reset story state first, or load an existing saga. The game only saves when saga state exists in memory.
Server saves are unavailable.
Use Local mode for browser saves, or log in when server saves are required.
Clicks are not reaching the story choices.
Check whether Page History, Sagas, Percentiles, or the OSK is open. Front-most panels receive input first.
My option key does nothing.
The option may be gated by story progress, or the current page may not offer that choice. Use visible choices when in doubt.