twine workshop

How to Twine something

A few short notes on using the Twine software to read a text

Hello!• I'm Mikkel Lodahl

• I teach game design and game analysis at Dania Games

• Which consists of two applied science educations in programming and design

• It's located in Grenaa, the video game capital of Denmark

Basic Twine

• A series of passages of text and or pictures, connected by lines that allow the player to chart a path through a story

• Made in a simple, graphical editor

• But actually made in your planning out before-hand

Here was a picture of how a Twine-map looks that came from this site:

http://slav.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/12/12/interactive-fiction-with-twine/#.Uz6ZoVYaySM

There are many resources for learning how to use Twine

• twinery.org

• The best text tutorial: http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/

But I want to focus on the thinking process involved in planning your Twine game

Basically, my theory is this...

To write fanfiction well, you must understand the original text well

Where most fanfiction fails as a created work is in the structure - nothing interesting happens

Interactive fiction is only about things happening - it's just called input

So preparing an interactive fiction version of a text - writing Twine fanfiction - will make you undestand what is interesting in the original

text's structure

Who do you play?

• Who is the protagonist of the original text?

• Who might it be fun to be?

• Who faces interesting choices?

Star Wars

Luke Skywalker is the protagonist.

But do we really want to be him and make choices as him?

The Princess on the Pea

Isolating interesting choices

• In linear media, interesting choices are interesting because of their consequences

• In interactive media, interesting choices are interesting because they are interesting to make

Star Wars

Luke's aunt and uncle are dead, killed by stormtroopers.

What are his possible choices? Which of them are interesting?

The Princess on the Pea

Find spaces for expansion

• Where in the original text is there room to tell a different story?

• Remember that the different story needs to preserve something of the original

• This is usually well accomplished through isolating one or more themes in the original text and building a story from that

Star WarsSome possible spaces for more story:

The Cantina Aliens The officers at the officer meeting The construction of the Death Star

The acquiring of the Death Star plans by the Rebels

Which themes from Star Wars as such could you use in each of these spaces?

The Princess on the Pea

Exercise

• Sit down and find a protagonist, some interesting choices and a space in the Princess on the Pea

• Plan out a short interactive fiction story this way

• You have fifteen minutes!