One Way
Brian Crane takes up the challenge of “How To” in “Web Dialogue: A Sample.”
He runs up against a limitation of conventional web links: there’s no way to turn them on and off as you progress through a reading. Storyspace does this with guard fields – links can say “I can only be followed if you’ve seen X” or “I can only be followed if you haven’t yet seen Y”.
Storyspace 3 makes guard fields a bit more powerful than they used to be, too; you can say “I can only be followed if you’ve read X, and then read at least 5 more things.” Or, for that matter, “I can only be followed if you read X at least five minutes ago.” Storyspace 3 also supports the sort of manipulation we like in “interactive fiction”: “I can only be followed if you have the Golden Key and if your Health exceeds 10, and it’ll cost you 50 gold pieces.”