What is Reddit's opinion of
Twine?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
- Java: MOOC <strong>Object Oriented Programming with Java</strong> from the University of Helsinki. Hands down the best free Java course.
Since you mentioned "choose your own adventure" games:
- Inform7 is a system/tool specifically created for this type of games
- Twine is another such system that produces HTML/CSS/JavaScript and thus can run from anywhere
The statements that you have heard about Codecademy are true. It is good to learn simple languages, like HTML and CSS, but fails miserably at more complex languages, like Java. The online editor is not suitable for OOP languages. It does not teach you how to write a complete class; it does not teach you how to compile and run your code; it only teaches syntax but not actual programming.
Make games using Twine. http://twinery.org/ Make visual novels using ren'py. http://www.renpy.org/ Mod other games. Get into interactive fiction. This will help you get the hang of the general flow of how writing for video games will feel like. I myself am working on a Twine game (I love videogames!) as well as my regular novel and writing the two take very different thought processes at times. Look at narrative in your favorite games and really analyze how they do it.
Making games is a discipline. Really take it seriously and seek out articles on sites like Gamasutra as well as ASK QUESTIONS and speak to people with experience. When I say "discipline", it's like, I'm pretty sure being a baker doesn't entail sitting around eating cupcakes all day.
Above all, sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and just go for it. Code it all up and play through it to see what works, and ask others to play the game as well and give their feedback on the writing. (you can PM me!)
Really, there are two ways to make a game: Write the code or write the check.
The good new is that there are some great easy-to-learn tools for narrative gamedev right now. Take a look at Twine. http://twinery.org. You can build very involved "choose your adventure" games with little to no code, and it's free.
If nothing else, this is a good way to prototype your ideas and get them in front of people.
I've made some videos about this tool I've used for kids coding camps and with English teachers to encourage creative writing. Let me know if you want them.
Spend time writing normal stories, and also making games with characters in them. Practice, question, improve, practice.
The most common pitfall of new game writers that I see is it's easy to be wayyyyy too long-winded. More than a few game writers take up Twitter JUST to practice their snappiness -- if you can't write a dramatically interesting scene/line/character moment in 140 characters, you're doing it wrong. A published novelist-and-game-writer friend of mine calls them "painful but important exercise to do daily, like crunches for your abs".
Stay lean, focus on the game. The OTHER common pitfall is to spend a year working on the backstory, lore, setting, etc without actually having any game design or mechanics or actual game prototype. It's very tempting to get sucked into an infinite hour navel-gaze, but that stuff can all come later -- once you have an actual game mechanic people care about, it is dead easy to work on backstory etc. Unless your game is literally nothing but a series of cutscenes and you have upwards of 10 million dollars to implement your amazing vision and you want to compete with Ubisoft (which I do NOT recommend)... focus on gameplay first, and the essences of character motivations first. Create an interpersonal conflict and go from there.
Finally, for creating interactive story-skeletons, I recommend trying out Twine. It's a great way to prototype basic choices and consequences and character arcs, kinda like a "paper prototype" for game designers.
Good luck!
EDIT: To clarify, I've both published short stories and been a professional writer & designer on multiple games (The Secret World being my top credit, but people say they enjoy the stuff in Dungeons of Fayte and Shattered Planet)
> so how can we trust anything from these entries
hoo hoo hoo
Yeah, the basic principle is the choose-your-own-adventure game, but those are pretty hard to do with linear text. If Bungie wanted to do something completely insane they might have implemented something like twine.
Depression Quest wasn't made solely with CSS, but using Twine: http://twinery.org/
Get this though, she didn't even do that by herself, there were three people that worked on Depression Quest: http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/depression-quest/
>Zoe Quinn, Patrick Lindsey and Isaac Schankler
It doesn't get much more straightforward than Twine. It's visual scripting, so all you really need is a good story in mind. It's fun creating experiences with this, especially because you can test your story instantly.
Ren'Py is decent for making visual novels, and god knows how many of those get success on Steam. But as a tool, I can't see it being of much use.
I suggest Twine. With it you can create an interactive fiction of sorts, without having to deal with graphics and coding. Try it out!
It's server side code (PHP), so there is no way for the user or archive.org to access the game logic, unfortunately. If the people in charge didn't make a backup, that's it :( But if you want, you can try to rebuild it, for example with http://twinery.org/
I've been meaning to write one of these 'interactive flowchart' things for a while (my current favorite is this self-care one). Did you code this from scratch or is there an existing package you'd recommend?
Edit: The one I linked is apparently built with Twine. Is that what you used?
The latest progression of CYOA in Interactive Fiction is through Twine. A lot of interesting things have been created with it, too... in fact Howling Dogs won Best Writing and Best Story in the 2012 XYZZY Awards.
Look into Inkle's Ink. It's a simple, but very powerful scripting language specifically designed for narrative games like Lifeline. Bear in mind that it's not an engine - it's just a language - which means that you have to use it in conjunction with something else like Javascript or Unity for it to function. The "Inky" tool is possibly the quickest and easiest way to get started with it.
You've pretty much got it. Use branching trees. Store and check variables for longer-lasting decisions. You'll quickly notice that the reason so many adventure games have railroaded decisions (Telltale's games come to mind) is because paths that branch over and over become increasingly tedious to write.
I advise you to check out Twine and Inklewriter. Even if you don't use either engine, you might get some ideas about how to structure such a system.
As a gamedev, I can gaurantee you that Twine is probably what you're looking for.
If you're using Unity (or a custom C# engine), you can also use Yarn Spinner which is essentially Twine but built for that kind of thing.
Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. Would that be a good fit for your needs? Other than that, Steam Summer Sale ends today or tomorrow (?). Articy Draft 3 ($) is 30% off during Summer Sale. (I am not affiliated). Their description:
> articy:draft is a visual environment for the creation and organization of game and story content - such as non-linear storylines, branching dialogues, level layouts or character and item databases. All content can be exported into various formats - including JSON, XML and Microsoft Office.
Resources by u/Serapth:
You might also look into the various non-python platforms for developing interactive fiction.
For games that use a command and response style interface the Inform 7 system is often used. It has a nice development environment and a natural language like coding syntax.
For games that have more of a branching structure the Twine development system is very good.
Well given the extendable nature and the fact the end result is an html file that works in basically any modern browser twine would probably be able to andle an undertale text adventure complete with graphics, random encounters, scripted events, inventory, value storage between sessions, and so forth.
This very well could happen.
Better than that, it was built using the coding equivalent of paint by numbers.
Seriously, just add story and a couple of hooks and you're done. The way it's set up makes things like the Shoot Em Up Construction Kit on the Amiga back in the 90s look positively difficult. By this standard, I am a game developer...
This is somewhat tangential to your questions, but since you said she's more interested in the story side: would she be interested in messing with something like Twine? It's more of a hobbyist thing than an industry thing, and it doesn't really involve learning to code- it's simply a framework that easily allows non-technical people to make interactive stories- which are at least game-like, if not actual games. Not a bad way to practice at writing for a game.
Hello.
Thanks for the post. On my side, when I need to make conversation, i use Twine (http://twinery.org/). You can add JS if you need (for logic), add tag (for logic again and export in html.
And i love the editor.
You'll want to familiarize yourself with the documentation, as it's your first point of contact for all information about how different functionality works.
It's also worth noting that twine is just the interface--assuming you don't change from the default story format (which uses the syntax the above poster showed), Harlowe is what you're using.
There are lots of links in the sidebar, such as the twine cookbook, which gives an outline of how to do common effects. This tutorial series is also pinned in the subreddit.
If you are using SugarCube 2, this should help you:
http://twinery.org/questions/1412/sugarcube-how-remove-only-the-back-and-forward-arrows-sidebar
The first answer is correct. Add
Config.history.controls = false;
to the story's Javascript, which you can find by clicking the name of your story in the bottom lefthand corner of the interface (next to the house icon). This will disable the back and forward arrows in Sugarcube 2.
I hope you like Twine and find it useful for your horror story!
Prototype it using Twine and find out the answer to your questions.
Twine is a very simple tool to make text games. I know you mentioned Assassin's Creed, but your actual gameplay seems to be about dialogue choices rather than actual movement in a 3D environment. The "hardest" thing you'll need to use are variables, but those are easy to learn and there are plenty of resources on how to use them with Twine.
Firewatch was prototyped in Twine.
Let me know if you have any questions.
​
For story and narration driven games you can use engines like Twine (or Ren'Py), especially for prototyping.
It (only) allows you to create interactive stories, but is fairly easy to pick up and you can focus on crafting an interesting story. Best part is that you can share the prototype easily and anyone with a browser can play it.
In terms of gameplay it might be restricting, but I think there are some RPG plugins available now.
A partner of mine did something similar a while back, though they used Twine and it was to come out as genderqueer. It turned out to be very handy when people who hadn't gotten the memo wanted to ask probing questions about pronouns etc.
Have you considered writing with an Interactive Fiction engine like Twine? The barriers to entry are low, as it is primarily a visual scripting environment. This would give you experience writing interactive stories, which IMO is a must for those wanting to become game writers. There is a rich IF community out there that you can draw resources and help from, rather than working solo.
If I can use a boxing analogy, there's no point always trying to go for the knockout punch. But at the same time, there's no point giving up on the knockout punch and missing a chance if it comes.
You need to keep an eye out for a knockout chance, whilst using jabs to keep the opponent off balance and create opportunities.
Basically this means you need to do what little you can to keep creating (with reduced expectations) whilst making sure you stay open for good opportunities.
In practical terms, that means keep making games. Even if they're not 100% what you dream of, make the games that you CAN make right now.
If all you can do is write, then make interactive fiction: http://twinery.org/
Alternatively, keep making RPGMaker games, and just use the stock assets as placeholder, and skip any game mechanics. Once you have a game with a complete story, release it as a demo for people to enjoy, and see if there's anyone out there who likes your story and is willing to contribute artwork or program your mechanics (and reading your Project Fire reviews, someone to proofread your English).
So yeah, don't give up on your dreams, but don't obsess over them too much. Concentrate on doing what you CAN do, right now. 99% of all humanity never realise all their dreams in their lifetime. I have a great epic MMORPG idea that I accept I will never see in reality. But I will keep working on smaller projects that are within my capabilities.
If I understand you correctly what you want to do is interactive fiction. There is whole scene around it with dedicated engines, competitions, etc. If this is your very first project and you don't have a burning desire to program it by hand you could try Twine or even ChoiceScript.
For sure, if he's interested specifically in story-telling, Twinery is a great place to get your feet wet. It lets you learn things like branching paths, is relatively simple to learn, but you can get deeper with it as you get more advanced.
Also of note is inklewriter. This was created by the people that made the app 90 Days, and is a very robust interactive storytelling program.
Now, if you want more "game," something like RPG Maker may be interesting for a young person like your son. Simple to use. That said, this particular program costs money. That said that said, it also goes on sale quite often.
Let me know if this helps and if you have any other questions!
I keep a small notebook of info that my character knows and how she relates to other people (mostly a thing of who owes her money and who she owes favors to).
In between sessions, I maintain a very complicated web of notes and speculation. Our DM makes complex plots, and we enjoy trying to guess what's happening. A lot of the stuff on here is metaknowledge, which is why I keep it separate from my character notes. I use Twine to make this web, which allows it to be pretty fluid (Twine is used to make digital choose your own adventure games, basically). This way I can connect stuff I know is fact to different theories I have.
Definitely use MS Office on a daily basis, but I've used Twine once to make a branching scenario: http://twinery.org//.
For Web Design, I'm starting to pick up Adobe Muse. By "starting to pick up" I mean I have it open on my desktop right now and I've watched a few tutorials. My dev swears by it though. He also loves using Adobe Edge.
Things that can die in a fire? I've never enjoyed using Lectora. I like using Storyline, I haven't dabbled much with Captivate - but Lectora has always been so frustrating and limiting for me. I'm not sure why it's as popular as it is (which isn't very anymore).
I'd recommend you look for something that works in the browser on your Chromebook rather than on your mobile, if only because typing on a phone is not a great experience.
As you want to make something text based, you could try Twine on your Chromebook. It's a in-browser program in which you can make interactive stories. I haven't used it much myself, but I think you can do quite a lot like use variables.
If you prefer to use/learn code, I think there are also some in-browser IDEs which you could use to make a web game.
Not at the moment. This is the standard look for games built with the Twine game engine and it's really more of a writing project than a game anyway, hence interactive fiction. I totally understand that this kind of text-only thing isn't for everyone but with the limited time I have to work on projects my choices were basically: be happy with this look or never finish it.
Regardless thanks for playing and I'm glad you're interested in the concept!
So all of Choice of Games' games look like they're using Twine. That's also using HTML-based output as far as I know.
Another option you could try would be Ren'Py, the visual novel engine. As far as I know you can still do full-screen text with light visuals instead of the more common examples with lots of character art and dialog, with choices presented the same way.
Now, if you want to make a more classic-styled text adventure, you'll want to look into the Inform language. It's a little odd, and tries to use a natural language syntax in the most recent interation(s), but it's pretty powerful for that kind of game.
I'd probably say you'd make good use out of Twine. It's designed for text based choose-your-own-adventure games but there's really no reason why it couldn't be used to roughly hash out the storyboard. You wouldn't even need to play it, really.
They are made in Twine, which is a great tool for constructing interactive fiction. It's really easy to pick up and learn with little to no coding experience.
I use Version 1.4.2, rather than 2.0.6 (and I think most people do).
It appears the "game" is made using Twine. There are some other similar ones as samples on the official website, like this.
Based on the source code of both webpages, it uses "Sugarcane", which is a part of the Twine tool. These are clearly right at the beginning of the page source:
DQ: > Sugarcane 1.2 is based on: TiddlyWiki 1.2.39 by Jeremy Ruston, (jeremy [at] osmosoft [dot] com)
Label Maker: > Made in Twine 1.4.1 (running on Windows 7)
> Built on 08 Feb 2014 at 23:14:14, Pacific Standard Time
> Sugarcane is based on:
So it is not like plagiarism.
Sounds like a good reason to learn to program! There are languages and tools specifically made for developing interactive fiction— check out Inform7 and Twine. While I have not used either, they both have a good reputation for beginner-friendliness. I recommend starting by looking up some Twine tutorials and following along with them.
This is the most basic form of text adventure, so you want the most basic, user friendly tool available. [Twine](http://twinery.org/) is the most popular tool in that niche that I'm aware of.
The very generic answer for this:
> pointers on making a game
could be this:
In particular, these two tools for visual novels have been mentioned very often:
| Tool | Website | Mantra |
|---|---|---|
| Twine | http://twinery.org/ | an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories |
| Ren'Py | https://www.renpy.org/ | a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices |
The very generic answer for this:
> Looking to start practicing/making games
could be this:
In particular, these two tools for visual novels have been mentioned very often:
| Tool | Website | Mantra |
|---|---|---|
| Twine | http://twinery.org/ | an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories |
| Ren'Py | https://www.renpy.org/ | a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices |
It allows some rpg elements.
I am sceptical that you will be able to make something close to diablo anytime soon and alone.
Learning is not that big of a deal in modern world - time is.
If you really want to start learning by making rpg - i would suggest to do prototypes first as separate small projects.
Many would say to make pong or tetris first, but i would say if you can make a game where 2 cubes can move and hit each other - it is same as making a pong game, but more related to ARPG that you want to create.
You can do text adventure / interractive book with pictures (if you can draw).
Those are simple enough if you just want to tell a story.
There is engine http://twinery.org/ for this purpose. Did not use it myself, but it is made for people like you :)
I don't know exactly what Twine provides for that stuff, was just throwing you the first links I saw when I clicked on Twine's wiki. I mean, there's this page on the wiki.
The Twine Wiki explains how to display images.
Incidentally, there's also a page on the wiki about RPG stats, which sounds like something you want.
It's not currently up to date, but this is my compilation of the timeline as it exists in the Star Chart, and where past events could be slotted in.
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1T1Zc1EJLU1JzbpTmp-VhdEogihFppEei8w7_O1FcG10 " )
And yes Patient Zero, and many of the events related to it are way out of position, on both the Star Chart and this take on the timeline.
What it needs to look like is Breeding Grounds -> Mutalist Incursions -> Patient Zero -> Tubemen of Regor ----> The Second Dream.
Patient Zero comes before Tubemen of Regor, as in that Event we (the community) "cure" Alad. This then sets him up to help us in 2nd Dream. Which then makes Hunhow and the Stalker mad, resulting in the Shadow of Debt event and the Acolyte hunting.")
I started work on an interactive Twine but actual paid programming work has really slowed me down on finishing it.
Yeah man! And if you need help organizing your campaigns (homebrew or not) I reccommend Obsidian Portal or Twine for organizing plot/NPCs/history/etc.
Twine is an open source alternative for writing non-linear fiction for web or offline use that outputs to an HTML file you can do whatever you like with.
Also has several languages you can use for styntext/formatting/options. So you can make a story that has a table of contents, legal, about, and author blurb on their own side links and then have one chapter lead to the next lead to the next with occasional links here and there to expand on concepts that you don't want to break the main narrative for, or you can go full on branching paths stat systems and randomizer on.
The big thing twine has over inklewrite even beyond 'it outputs to a file that is YOURS' is it gives you a visualization tool that allows for more options on how to do things, such as creating special passages for specific formatting bits, or housing variables at the start of the story, or edit the CSS of a story so the html file has a specific look (like it look like something out of mac's hypercard, or have 'picture' above passages tagged for specific locations rather than having to do it manually.
It's a very flexible thing. I mostly like it because of the fact it works offline and naively for mac/windows/linux rather than simply being a web app. My home connection is not the most stable in the world.
Yikes. Like I said before, I don't really have the coding knowledge to have sussed this stuff out before, so I'll have to take your word on the issues. But this is what I've found so far:
Installation instructions for different formats in 1.x
As for Twine 2.x, I do believe Sugarcube is one of the default formats available from the main menu.
Trauer, I love you infinitely more for using a K-ON Gif.
On a side note, heard of Twine? I've been using it the past while to make some sample CHYOA type stories and it's pretty handy dandy.
Sure it's possible. Everybody has to start somewhere! The problem you'll run into is people who code for a hobby usually have plenty of ideas of their own and you'll need to figure out what you're bringing to the table (unless it's hard cash, of course). Doesn't mean you won't find someone who likes coding but not designing, of course, I've seen (very rarely) posts from people along those lines.
I would suggest making a small game by yourself, start to finish, just to see if you enjoy it. Pick a mechanic you're interested in, flesh it out, and use something like Vorple or Twine or Ren'py or whatever engine you like to get a feel for the basics. Then you'll be in a better position to recruit.
What about truly non existent graphics? Twine is a very popular and very capable branching text adventure game. I think it's your best bet if you want to pack in as many storyline branches as possible.
I had the same issue finding the right program a couple of months ago. There were some paid options but I needed something free and with the option to be ran offline.
After weeks of searching, I found Twine. It's for creating interactive linear games but I re-purposed it for a troubleshooting chart. It is very easy to use and free. Hope this helps.
> Are choose-your-own-adventure books coming back?
Well, looking at the amount of Visual Novels on Steam and nice things like Twine (to stay at least a bit on-topic), I would say: Yes, there is certainly a market for Choose-Your-own-Adventure type stories right now!
http://twinery.org/ >You don't need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine
>Twine emphasises the visual structure of hypertext and does not require knowledge of many programming languages other game development tools do.
If making a "game" with Twine makes one a developer, then so does writing a book with Word.
If you're good at writing, perhaps you might want to start building browser-based text adventures with the likes of Twine? You can extend the system using Javascript to create virtual worlds that change as you navigate through them, implement skill-based battles, tie music and art into your world, or whatever else you like, while focusing on a great narrative. It's niche, but it's a platform that's still yet to be fully explored, IMHO.
There's been a few successes with Twine - Depression Quest being a fairly big one.
Trying to make money off such a thing is going to be an issue, but nobody makes money off their first projects anyway, and if you manage to make a name for yourself you could possibly crowdfund development of a future game, or branch out into other narrative-focused genres. Good narrative in the indie world is rare, so I'm sure you'd find a niche.
If you're looking for a free and simple tool, have a look at Twine! http://twinery.org/ You write your text inside the mind-mappy interface, then the program creates a .html page out of it. So you can actually "browse" through the different story branches.
you can also use switches instead of if: http://twinery.org/questions/32749/about-switch
​
basically thin of it like a junction of if statements you define what variable you're checking and put all the conditions in a row below it with a "default" if nothing matches.
I felt the same way when I found out, haha.
BTW, here is some CSS you can use to add background images to your game and make passages display in a nice translucent textbox.
And here is some CSS/javascript you can use to create a second sidebar, on the right side of the screen.
I combined the two, and for the hell of it also made both sidebars translucent in my own game project. I just wanted to share these as I think it looks very sleek. ;)
I use Twine. I don't write traditional gamebooks, though. Mine are more digital gamebooks. You can find a tutorial for how I write here: Twine Tutorial.
Twine is more basic than VN Maker, but Twine has a visual map in which you can see all the variants that your story can have. So you see branches and bottlenecks and all endings visually. Here's a pic of it. I think I'm going to miss it in VN Maker, but VN Maker is better than Twine in everything else, si I'm choosing VN Maker.
Here’s one way: http://twinery.org/cookbook/typewriter/harlowe/harlowe_typewriter.html
You would basically have to store any typewriter text into arrays. More trouble than it’s worth if you ask me, if you want to apply it to the whole story.
Interactive fiction is fantastic! It sort of accidentally ended up becoming my bread & butter the last year or two because I had the great good fortune of being mentored by an editor at Choice of Games through the SFWA career mentorship program.
I hadn't really intended to go much further with game dev at the time, but now it's the majority of my writing.
I genuinely encourage every writer out there to give it a go because there's a lot of extremely accessible tools for making interactive fiction!
Twine (and shoutout to /r/twinegames) is my default, and can be supplemented with a knowledge of HTML/CSS.
Ren'py is great if you want to make something in line with visual novels, and is supplemented if you know any Python.
Inform7 is where you want to start if you want to try and write parsers. Parsers aren't my thing, and they really require a certain kind of brain, but they're an art form in and of themselves.
My first game was an adaption of an old short story where I could just never get the end right--I kept changing it. As a game, though, I didn't have to settle on one! (That said, an IF game doesn't even need multiple endings! Sometimes what matters is simply how you get there).
Sure. You can store the amount of money a player has in a variable, subtract from it when they spend money, add to it when they gain money, and check if they have enough when someone tries to buy something.
Some of the basic building blocks are here:
http://twinery.org/questions/1682/how-to-make-a-working-store-in-twine-2-sugarcube-2
Usually, such programs have some form of persistent data storage behind (can be text files, CSV files, databases, etc.)
The classes are mainly for tracking stats or locations, but not every dialogue has its own class - in fact, dialogues don't have classes at all except for maybe a general one for presentation.
These games quite often follow a tree (or graph) like structure. You start at a certain point (node) and have some choices. Each choice branches off to a different node. Some nodes can be reached from multiple branches.
Twine can help visualise what I said above. I'd recommend you take a look at it.
This is a great tutorial series
It's browser based and has a stand alone program. Uses a varaint ofJavaScript, I believe, but no coding required to use it.
I'd strongly advise doing a short, 1-chapter Twine game for practise. You can get all of the core gameplay of the series into that format and add illustrations easily. Anything more complicated than that and the amount of work will quickly balloon and you'll run the very real risk of never being able to finish and wasting all the effort you've put in.
I've been approaching my multiple routes by drawing out how I want them to progress. You can use any kind of flowchart program or, in my case I use Twine. You can plan out the big chunks this way and at a top down glance figure out where to add or remove branches in your storyline. Twine in particular also would let you put your passages inside each "node" of the story, so that might make it easy for your proofreaders / friends reading your drafts to understand what's going where.
​
I think the horror visual novel called The Letter actually does something kinda similar to what you're proposing, as it has 7 playable characters that you swap perspectives between with their own relationships and such to eachother. Maybe playing it will give you some ideas of how to execute your idea. That said, it may be wise to try reducing your scope if this is your first game or if you feel you're having trouble keeping track of everything.
​
If you just want to work on the story elements, and not spend a lot of time with graphics or coding, Twine might be better, even if you're just using it to plot out the story and dialogue to later move in to Ren'Py. It's primarily a text driven engine, but since it supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you could add anything to it that you could add to a web page, if you wanted to. You don't even need to know any coding at all if you just want to make a simple branching-tree-style "choose your own adventure" (CYOA) story, and it has the tools if you want to make something more complex than that.
If you decide to try it, I recommend using the SugarCube story format for Twine, since it has great flexibility, plus some nice built-in tools. (SugarCube comes with the Twine 2 install, but that page has a newer version.)
Itch.io has a number of Twine games if you want to get a feel for what it can do or want to look at some sample code (you can import other Twine 2 games into Twine 2 if you want to see how they're coded, though for Twine 1 games you'll also need Twine 1 to be installed so you can open those in Twine 1).
Good luck and have fun! 😀
Twine would work too. Probably needs more effort/leaning the program than the other options but the end result can be well tuned to your specific need (and very easy to use once built).
Edit: here's link http://twinery.org
It's exactly what it sounds like. They are looking for a sample of your game writing.
Have you written any games? Interactive fiction? Something in Twine, maybe? A Choose Your Own Adventure? Tabletop instruction manuals? D&D modules?
For OP's benefit, want to mention that TWINE is a great tool for games like that. Very little if any programming involved, yet you can easily create a branching narrative, and it has the power to build out into rudimentary inventory systems and basic variables if you need them. u/Simply-Absurd if you can figure out Reddit formatting, you can make a twine game. Check it out if you don't have luck assembling a team...
edit: Linky!
Sure! This is an interactive fiction game (like a Choose Your Own Adventure book). It's text-based but does have a soundtrack, made by u/Zarkonnen. You play as a numbers station enthusiast trying to find out more about a particular station. It was made with Twine. I wrote a short blog post with a bit more information if you're interested. :)
I'd give Unreal a shot, based on /u/Erasio's comment.
But if even that is a bit too much, you could try Twine: http://twinery.org/ which pretty much lets you make simple text adventure type games, but as a series of webpages.
There's also GameMaker: https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker which is 2d, but is even easier to get up and running than Unreal, and could accomplish something like what you want.
This reads pretty good. Why don't you try interactive fiction? It would be great to develop your story using open source non-linear text, images and decision trees. It is free using Twine. Visit://http://twinery.org/
Good luck. If you need any help PM.
There is a lot of narrative building tools out there. The explosion of indie point and click adventure isn't a hazard, the planning tools are much better than when Maniac Mansion was created.
Twine is pretty cool, and free.
> Maniac Mansion has multiple endings so making the game completely unwinnable is very unlikely.
It happened all the time actually... but back then you could kill the player and/or force him to reload their game without anyone complaining about your design.
Point and Click Sierra games were notoriously known to pop up messages telling you that you broke something that would prevent you from winning.
Out of first instinct, I would direct you to Twine, but that wouldn't meet your requirements.
So, the second suggestion would be to
- not code an "applet" or any similar form at all, but to create a web based game.
To do this, you will need:
- HTML/CSS to style your page
- A bit of JavaScript for dynamics and making AJAX calls that prevent having to reload the entire page
- A backend language. Here, my recommendation would be PHP because it is available on basically any web host including free ones and also it is extremely easy to learn
- A database (also available on most free web hosts) to hold the actual story and statistics
well, pictures would involve a UI and that's a whole can of worms you probably don't want to deal with.
you might want to check this out: http://twinery.org/
the output from twine are basic html files. so, you could figure out how to host that or you could just package it all up on a thumb drive and open the starting page in any web browser.
- Which compiler are you using to compile your project? Yes, it matters. If you're using one of the Twine IDEs, then you're not going to be able to use their normal Play or Test functionality to test the audio as they compile your project to a temporary location which is not relative to the relative URL you're using to specify your audio file. You could switch to using an absolute URL for testing, but you'd need to remember to change it when you published.
- URLs use forward slashes, not backslashes, regardless of what slash your OS uses (i.e. your relative URL should be
"Documents/satellites_and_waterfalls.ogg"). - As you're using a relative URL, the compiled HTML must be placed relative to the path you're using (i.e. the HTML file needs to be a sibling of the
"Documents"directory in this case) for the system to be able to find the audio file.
Compile your project (in the Twine IDEs it'll be called Build or Publish), place the compiled HTML relative to your "Documents" directory, open it in your browser of choice. If your browser supports OGG files (and not all do), you should hear your BGM. Also, you'll have to distribute your project with the same setup, so it may behoove you to use directory structure other than your "Documents" directory.
See also: twine 2 sugercube 2 No audio what-so ever at the Twinery.org Q&A site, as it covers almost the exact same question.
I'd suggest Twine. Sure it's a tool aimed at choose your own adventure, but it has other uses such as being able to have a table of contents with chapters and being able to hyperlink notes and descriptions in individual words. I like Twine over its Tiddlywiki parent because twine includes a program (either web or downloaded) that gives you visualization of how everythign connects.
Your link is only a scanned book as is clearly evident:
- Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0
- Ppi 300
- Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3
Nonetheless, there are programs for creating ebooks, like <em>Sigil</em>.
There are also programs for creating interactive fiction in the choose your own adventure style:
Still, /u/michael0x2a is correct in telling you that you're in the wrong subreddit.
Hi there!
If you know some Javascript, check what you can do on Twine (maybe Snowman and JQuery, or the Protagonist format: https://github.com/massivedanger/protagonist)
GameMaker could also do it I think?
I'm no runescape player, but y'know, a surprisingly large group of people still play nethack despite its utterly nonexistent graphics, not to mention the alive and well interactive fiction community (there are other programs for it, but this is the most common)... Maybe, just maybe, graphics aren't everything?
Have you heard about <strong>Twine</strong> (as /u/DominiaBloodrose suggested)?
IMO it is much easier than Inform7 and still far better suited for that purpose (online/offline play) than Java (even though it is entirely possible with Java, but doing it in Java in such a way that it works on- and offline might be out of your current skillset).
Here is "Flowcharty stuff" that creates interactive walkthroughs. It's made for interactive narratives, but if you put your "beats" in along with alternatives you're thinking of, you can test your storyline before you take the time to write it all out.
Twine - http://twinery.org/
A great tool for "choose your own adventure" type games is <strong>Twine</strong>, it is natively cross-platform because the output is HTML and JavaScript, so it works on any of these platforms (and can simply be hosted on a website as well).
Alternatively, you should be able to use Visual Studio 2015 Community (free) with Xamarin (now free) to create cross platform apps.
If you want to make an interactive novel, then I'd recommend just using a tool to do that. Twine is very popular for that and it doesn't require any programming.
If you want to learn javascript / html for game programming, then there are many tutorials to get you pointed in that direction including this free course on Udemy. It has nothing to do with interactive fiction, but you'll learn the basic tools that you can use to make that and other games. But it'll be much more work.
I guess one could try and wrangle whatever datamined lines are left into a hypertext "game" like with Twine or something. There might not be enough plot information left to reconstruct what would happen outside of dialogues, but at least the conversation format would be pretty easy to recreate.
Apparently Twine 2 is Android compatible, according to that link. If that's the type of thing you're after, look into that. As for something more graphical, I don't know what falls between that and Unity.
What are your strengths? If you are good at drawing, make a point & click adventure or a hidden object game. Check out the Point and Click Development Kit for this: http://www.adventure-creator.com/pacdktool_en.html
If you are a good writer, make a text adventure / interactive novel with Twine: http://twinery.org/
If you want something more complex, you will probably need to learn at least some entry level programming. Unity3d is the easiest to learn general purpose engine I know. They also have a lot of tutorial projects you can use as a starting point and you can buy all kinds of assets (2d, 3d, scripts, sounds, etc) in the Unity Asset Store.
Also, don't underestimate the time it takes to make a game, especially if you want to draw and animate things yourself. Keep it small and simple, you can still add to it later if you see that there is time left.
Have fun!
If you're interested in writing something like Lifeline, check out Twine: http://twinery.org
It's the backend tool that we use to create the Lifeline games. It requires no programming experience and there's a huge Twine community. It publishes straight to HTML in a variety of formats. Super easy way to get started in interactive fiction.
Sorcery and Sorcery 2 are probably the best that I've seen. They're on Android/iOS. 80 Days is also really good, but it's not a fantasy setting. (It's based on the Jules Verne story).
Then there's stuff like King of Dragon Pass (Android/iOS/Steam) and the "Choice" games (published by "Choice of Games LLC), which are CYOA apps for Android/iOS that a lot of people seem to really like. They didn't really do much for me, though.
It's not really a genre where I've found very much worthwhile. You could check out some Twine stuff, though. (http://twinery.org/)
It is not made for specifically for this and might require a bit of reading to understand everything, but I find that using Twine can be a pretty good way to sort everthing in neat way somewhat similar to wikipedia.
Most importatnly however it is completely free and it operates offline.
-4912
I used the online version earlier. Now I know better and have downloaded its software.
> That means you don't need to create an account to use Twine 2, and everything you create isn't stored on a server somewhere else — it stays right in your browser.
First, I would suggest dropping the idea for it being multiplayer right away. The development requirements of a single player game vs an online multiplayer game are worlds apart, and if this is your first game, stick with singleplayer.
I would suggest Twine for what you want to do, unless you have a specific reason to want to create it from the ground up with HTML/CSS/JavaScript or Python.
Even if you do want to build it from the ground up with either of those languages, building a prototype in Twine, which has a very powerful but simple syntax for building interactive fiction, would be a great idea to give you something to build upon.
I recently played Stephen Colbert's Escape from a man sized cabinet, and it was a fun little diversion. It was done using something called "Twine" which seems like a really good possibility for gamebooks. I haven't had much chance to check it out yet though, but based on the Colbert game it seems like it could work quite nicely.