Posted In: Reflections
This week we didn’t have any required article to read. Instead, we were instructed to begin working on our final projects for the course. This week, I started to study Twine, the computer program that allows you to create interactive stories.
The most useful source I studied this week was the video that was linked for us in the article “What is Hypertext?” a few weeks ago. In this video, one of the writers of a popular interactive story 57⁰ North that was made with Twine gives a brief overview of how Twine works, using his own story as an example. For this reflection, I will note the information I learned that I believe will prove most useful in the creation of my own project.
Overall, Twine looks like a computer program that is simple to use and not too involved. I plan on using the online version, but if I think it will be easier for me to work on and edit the project with the downloaded version, I will consider doing this. What I found most interesting about the program is the basic structure. Unlike when we created randomized stories, or aleatory poetry, for our own blogs, the overview of your entire story on Twine is a big graphic, with each possible part of the story in its own box and each possible link connected with arrows. I think this will be very useful for looking at the big picture of my story, seeing where I need to add more or take some off. I like to see the entirety of what I am working on, and this application seems like it will be much easier to do this.
Luckily, this program has very simple syntax for constructing a story. All you have to do is put the options for the user in double brackets. Depending on how complex I make my story, this may be the only information I need to know about the details of how Twine reads code. The speaker in the video also discussed another option for making a more complex storyline, adding variables. Overall, these variables seem pretty simple to use. They can be useful if I want to base the options of a certain section of the story on a decision the user made a while back. For example, if the user choses to have the protagonist bring his pocketknife with him to the haunted house, I can use a variable to ask the program whether or not the user chose to bring it. Then, depending on the value of that variable in an if-then statement, I will include or exclude the option for the user to use the switchblade as a weapon.
After I get the hang of the Twine program, I will begin writing the content for my story. I think I will definitely take a look at the other videos by the writer of 57⁰ North when I begin this process. He said at the end of the video that he has others that explain plot structure and strategies for writing interactive stories, and I believe I can get a lot out of these videos as well.