Alice in the Park – A Visual Basic Tale

I love fairy tales. And fantasy. Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite stories. I’ve already written my own version, titled Alice in the Park. It’s structured like an "endless story," composed of individual, self-contained episodes. Alice walks through a park, encountering something new each time. Now, I want to turn this into a story-based project using Visual Basic.

This is the very first, simplest version. The main window displays a background image, with a menu bar at the top containing options like "Start Story" and "Settings"—where you can choose between Russian and English. Once you hit "Start," the story begins.

The story itself is organized into modules—think of them like episodes or a season of a TV series. Each module contains several pages, typically featuring one image per page (though this can vary). You view the image and read the accompanying text.

The information provided is minimal: just the page number and the title of the image. Then there are "transition" modules. When a story module ends, you reach a fork in the road—a choice of where to go next. Will you head right or left? Into the woods or across a field? The choice is yours. These modules also include narrative text that sets up the decision, along with images—perhaps an animation—to mark the conclusion of that segment.

There is also a final module for the end of the entire story, which features three possible endings for you to choose from. That’s the core concept for now. The primary building blocks are the story modules and the transition modules; the transitions determine which story module follows next. Currently, there is one story module and one transition module.

It uses a simple, custom data format: an image paired with text, available in both Russian and English. It includes the names of the images in both Russian and English. From an outside perspective, it’s essentially a collection of text files. The files that handle the transitions between story segments are slightly different, but, by and large, it’s all just a bunch of text files. Within a transition module, there’s an additional folder containing more text files and images—that’s the key distinction; there’s a nested structure. The design assumes that a single page might contain multiple images, which you can flip through as you read the text. There are "forward" and "back" buttons for navigation. That covers the technical side of things.

"Alice in the Park" is Alice’s dream. She travels through various locations—starting in a forest. As you flip through the pages, you follow Alice on her journey. She encounters whimsical creatures—a caterpillar, an ant—and engages in conversation with them. You’re essentially reading a fairy tale, much like a short book, but in a digital format—built as a program in Visual Basic. It centers on the combination of text and imagery.

After reading a section of the story—a complete module—you reach a transition point. Where will you go next? You’re presented with a fork in the path: either toward the Mushroom Valley or the Ant Village—the choice is yours. Each story module is a separate form—a distinct window—as is each transition point. Everything functions automatically; you simply read the story and use the forward or back buttons to navigate the pages. It’s a narrative—not a text-based adventure game—presented in the form of a computer program.

At this stage, the beginning of the story is available, along with the overall program structure and one transition point, which currently leads to the story’s conclusion. There are three possible endings. Alice has entered a dream world, where she wanders through a forest, meets various creatures, and experiences all sorts of things. You are invited to embark on this journey with Alice—a fairy tale brought to life in Visual Basic.