[HN Gopher] Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive...
___________________________________________________________________
Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear
stories
Author : memorable
Score : 179 points
Date : 2022-09-10 08:45 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (twinery.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (twinery.org)
| e12e wrote:
| Has anyone experience using this or similar tools for e-learning
| / in-house "edutainment" solutions? Like walking a stakeholder
| through how to write a user story, or introducing how to do a
| certain task with in-house systems?
| genezeta wrote:
| I've been on the receiving end of that.
|
| Place I worked at a few years ago, used to have some mandatory
| courses about various of the company's concerns, like security
| practices, contract handling, or various other stuff. They
| decided to make it "fun" by having the courses done as some
| form of interactive thing which could certainly be done with
| Twine/Sugarcube.
|
| It was hit and miss. I think there's a very thin line between
| writing something "entertaining" and something "awfully
| cringe". Some of the stuff was ok, but sometimes they veered a
| bit too much into writing some weirdly fantastic story over
| explaining whatever it was they wanted to explain.
|
| So I'd say it is a valid tool in itself; it _can_ work. But as
| with any other tool, the result depends a lot on how you use
| the tool.
| [deleted]
| LelouBil wrote:
| Twine is nice, I am using it to create the story for a game with
| visual novel elements in Unity.
|
| I'm using a heavily modified version of Cradle[0] and it works
| great.
|
| However, I personally had a bad experience while trying to
| contribute to Twine. I encountered a severe bug that made me lose
| all my stories and only happens if you have Twine in another
| language than English. I read the code, identified the issue,
| wrote a detailed issue and sent a PR[1]. I got no answer until a
| year later saying "not applicable anymore" since the app
| basically got a rewrite.
|
| At least I'm happy a lot of it got rewritten however it still
| seems as unstable as before, with random crashes and stories that
| can disappear on their own.
|
| [0] https://github.com/daterre/Cradle
|
| [1] https://github.com/klembot/twinejs/issues/898
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yeah, Twine devs definitely treat it like their own baby. Not a
| bad thing per se but act accordingly.
| hwayne wrote:
| I've always wanted to try using Twine to prototype a product.
|
| Apropos of nothing, here's Julia Evans using Twine to teach
| debugging practices: https://computer-mysteries.netlify.app/slow-
| website.html
| uhhyeahdude wrote:
| I believe this was used by Charlie Brooker to build that
| interactive episode of "Black Mirror".
| pavlov wrote:
| Interactive, nonlinear stories == interactive fiction (IF) ==
| text adventure games in the style of 1980s Infocom.
|
| It's interesting that the Twine website seems to actively avoid
| calling them IF or text adventures or games, and prefers
| "stories" instead. Maybe the community feels that those labels
| are too limiting. (I haven't played any contemporary IF or any
| Twine experiences, so just observing as an outsider.)
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| > interactive fiction (IF) == text adventure games in the style
| of 1980s Infocom.
|
| Not necessarily, infocom style games are just a subgenre of
| modern interactive fiction nowadays. Infocom style games are
| enormous and full of obscure puzzles, mazes, etc. that require
| hours and hours of gameplay. IF has branched out a lot and most
| stories are written to be completed in less than an hour and
| typically have less infuriating puzzles or mazes, along with
| complete help and hint systems.
|
| There are tons of award winning IF stories that involve no real
| combat, puzzles, etc. and are just exploration of interesting
| environments or talking to characters. Check out some of the
| winners from the annual IF competition for a great sampling of
| modern IF: https://ifcomp.org/comp/2021
|
| Emily Short in particular is someone who really pushes the
| boundaries of IF, her story Galatea from the early 2000s is a
| great example of how far beyond Infocom style games IF has
| gone: https://www.ifwiki.org/Emily_Short and
| https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=urxrv27t7qtu52lb
| the_af wrote:
| Emily Short, Zarf, Adam Cadre. All masters breaking the
| boundaries of the IF genre.
|
| Adam Cadre's _Photopia_ [1] made me choke some tears. His
| _9:05_ [2] is darkly comical, and is fun to explore again
| once you know what it is about.
|
| Zarf's _Spider and Web_ [3] is both a thrilling spy tale and
| a subversion of text adventure mechanics. For those who are
| never going to play this game, a minor spoiler. The setting
| is a fictional Cold War-style spy setting, your "adventure"
| is you being interviewed by your captor, recounting your
| story so far; for much of the game, whenever you make a false
| move -- the kind which would result in your death in a
| traditional adventure -- your captor will just simply tell
| you "...except that's not what actually happened, is it?" and
| rewind the story to the last checkpoint, where _something_
| has changed.
|
| Then there's _Rematch_ [4]. It 's essentially a one-move
| game. One move -- that is, one complex multi-clause sentence
| -- and you die, except if you figure it out. And the kinds of
| things you can do in that one move are very complex!
|
| ---
|
| [1] Photopia: http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html
|
| [2] 9:05: http://adamcadre.ac/if/905.html
|
| [3] Spider and Web: https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/
|
| [4] Rematch: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=22oqimzgf8snv002
| ahtcx wrote:
| My GR writes IF stories and I think even though there's
| ressemblance with the text adventure games it seems that they
| manage to differentiate themselves by being closer to books and
| mainstream fiction. It seems like the average IF is read more
| like a book and less like a game.
| growt wrote:
| Sorry to be off topic, but what's a GR? Just a typo of GF? I
| searched but the only thing I found was Golden Retriever and
| I don't think they are very good at writing fiction in
| general.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I've made several Twine stories, participated in IF jams, and
| see folks using IF/stories/&c fairly interchangeably. It could
| certainly be that Twine keeps a naming convention in order to
| be neutral, but as an IF writer and therefore more or less a
| community member, it's not something that I see people fighting
| over as opposed, say for instance, to the roguelike community.
| the_af wrote:
| There was one pretty bizarre Twine story about genetically
| engineered ponies. It was subtle, you didn't realize how
| gross it was at first reading. It was brilliant. Do you
| remember the name?
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| You're probably thinking of _Horse Master: The Game of
| Horse Mastery_.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes! That one. Thanks!
| jordanpg wrote:
| The IF community will absolutely go to the mat insisting that
| Twine, etc. is IF in the same sense as parser games. They are
| judged side by side in the biggest annual competition.
|
| I get that they are trying to be maximally inclusive, but
| frankly I have no idea what they are talking about. These
| things are plainly apples and oranges. And there is great value
| to be found in both.
|
| But saying these are directly comparable is roughly analogous
| to saying a point and click adventure game is comparable to a
| "quick time event" game. I think the IF community cedes too
| much ground with respect to parser games in the name of having
| a bigger tent.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| This wasn't always the case -- there was a considerable
| amount of resistance to the idea that choice-based games were
| equivalent to parser IF in the community as recently as 10
| years ago.
|
| There were a few related factors that led to the current
| state, where if anything parser IF is more on the margins
| than choice-based IF.
|
| The first is that choice-based IF is far, far easier to
| write, debug, and release than parser-based IF. The barrier
| to entry is _much_ lower.
|
| Because of this, the diversity of authors participating in
| the IF scene expanded quite a bit. Parser-based IF skewed
| really heavily toward the programmer demographic. Twine and
| other choice-based options brought in a lot of LGBTQ and
| minority authors who wanted to tell their stories but didn't
| have the programming background to do so with a parser-based
| engine.
|
| Twine and other choice-based engines were designed web-first.
| They incorporated graphics and other visual features enabled
| by the browser environment while parser-based engines were
| still effectively stuck in VT-100 emulation mode.
|
| Finally, choice-based IF is also often better at simulating
| interpersonal interaction and conversation than parser-based
| IF.
|
| Parser-based IF stagnated for quite a while. Graham Nelson's
| Inform 7 programming language was a work of staggering
| genius, but it was a closed-source one man show for a very
| long time and didn't update to keep pace with what the
| choice-based engines were doing.
|
| Inform 7 has just recently been open-sourced, with a
| rearchitected pipeline that should allow for some interesting
| integrations and enhancements. It will be interesting to see
| whether there's still sufficient interest around the tool
| such that the community brings it into the modern era. I
| certainly hope there is!
| jordanpg wrote:
| Fascinating survey of how we got here.
|
| I would also note that, whatever the API, parser games
| still leave something to be desired in the year 2022
| compared to what is now possible with other gaming
| frameworks. I'm thinking of indie games like Papers Please
| and Beholder. But also Twine, et al.
|
| The parser interface accomplished beautiful things in its
| heyday, but now feels to me to be needlessly constrained
| and difficult. I think there is a future for text-based IF.
| I think there are entire genres of games that are only
| (theoretically) possible with that interface. But the usual
| <verb> <object> + inventory puzzles formula is just too
| narrow, too time-consuming to play anymore. And I say this
| from a place of love.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| In my parser game _Aotearoa_
| (https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=lrbpmlpsknsgvgem) I worked
| really hard to provide player affordances such as an in-
| game interactive tutorial, exhaustive noun and verb
| synonyms, plus keyword highlighting so players literally
| _couldn't_ miss a primary interactable item.
|
| Even with all of this, people still got stuck, and
| properly pacing a story that uses an unconstrained parser
| world model is an exercise in frustration. But I disagree
| that the games are too narrow. If anything, the
| frustration comes in because they are too broad. No other
| game genre has the sheer hubris to present the player a
| story, tell them they are the main character, and then
| challenge them to literally do anything they can think of
| to overcome the puzzles they are presented with. "I got
| this," they say, presenting that blinking cursor on a
| blank line. "Anything you can imagine, I can handle."
|
| Of course every parser title fails spectacularly at this.
| But the best ones fail in impressive and fascinating
| ways. S. John Ross's _Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom_
| explicitly limits the number of verbs down to six, but
| succeeds in creating a game environment that is enjoyable
| on both the direct and meta levels. My own _Aotearoa_
| does a lot to remove the normal barriers to entry to
| interactive fiction, at the cost of some immersion should
| you choose to use the cues and tutorials. Andrew
| Plotkin's _Hadean Lands_ and _Spider and Web_ both have
| high-stakes, complex stories with detailed world models.
| This is usually the recipe for frustration and failure in
| parser IF, but both titles implement wonderful unique,
| _diegetic_ mechanisms to motivate failure and
| experimentation.
|
| I would hate to see parser IF go away. I think its
| innovations have been more valuable and influential than
| many people realize, and I think there's still a lot more
| that blank line and that blinking cursor have to offer.
| bttf wrote:
| There is a distinction between Twine games, or choice-based
| games, and parser games, which are typically called Interactive
| Fiction games. One provides a pre-set list of choices at
| branches of narrative, while the other provides a world that
| the user can explore and manipulate via a palette of text
| commands.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Wait, Twine is _not_ for making "text adventure" style games
| with a palette of text commands? Somehow I was getting the
| idea that it was, but when used for shorter stories authors
| just didn't want to call it "text adventure". but we're
| actually talking about a different feature set of the game
| software entirely?
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Twine does not lend itself to making Infocom style games
| easilly. It is more like Choose Your Own Adventure books in
| that at its simplest it is "do you want to go left or
| right?" style choices. However, you can use javascript to
| program more complicated styles of game play.
| awavering wrote:
| See also: https://storyboard.viget.com/ which was built to
| provide an even easier editing interface for choose-your-own-
| adventure style fiction.
| packetslave wrote:
| Not to be confused with Meta's "twine" cluster management system
| (which isn't actually called that, except where trademark lawyers
| can hear).
|
| https://research.facebook.com/publications/twine-a-unified-c...
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| I run a competitor: https://fiction.live/
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| I fail to find an example.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Some of my clients' grooming meetings that veer too far off
| into yak shaving could use this tool...
| jasonlotito wrote:
| I've enjoyed using Inklewriter myself.
|
| https://www.inklewriter.com/
|
| It's free software, and I've always enjoyed using it.
| rhdunn wrote:
| There's a text-based representation called twee. You can use
| tweego (https://github.com/tmedwards/tweego) to convert between
| twee and html/twine.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Is this a "call-and-response" AI writing assistant? Or most just
| to structure a story you write yourself? I went digging on their
| website but couldn't find the answer.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| It helps you structure the story, no AI involved.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Twine is a platform for writing and reading interactive stories
| with a branching structure. It has nothing to do with AI.
| strix_varius wrote:
| I've been looking for something Twine-like, but with non-HTML
| output. Does anyone know of an alternative tool that can output
| structured data, like JSON or XML?
|
| Essentially, I'd like to find a non-technical-writer-friendly UI
| for interactive stories that can output data appropriate for
| consumption in a game/app/system.
| phreack wrote:
| I did exactly that a while ago combining Twine with Twison [0].
| A non technical friend would write the story with Twine,
| compile to a JSON file, and I'd parse it with a quick script on
| build time so I could display it on a React web app (that I'd
| then make apps with, with Cordova). There were a few things
| that could be improved in the process but it all worked
| incredibly well after I hooked everything up!
|
| [0] https://github.com/lazerwalker/twison
| strix_varius wrote:
| Nice, was your friend able to just use the Twine web API
| then? (no installation / setup required for their tooling)
| phreack wrote:
| It's been a while but I recall he'd run Twine locally with
| the Twison plugin. Nonetheless, I believe you can easily
| add Twison as a plugin to the Twine web tool. That way
| you'd only need your game designer to send you the updated
| JSON file (or possibly commit it to a VCS) after working.
| tskguarantee wrote:
| Ink from Inkle[0] can output to JSON. It has a Unity
| integration and I have used the JSON format in a custom game
| engine. Their editor (inky) makes it easy to play through the
| story as you write it. I used it for NPC dialogs for game.
|
| [0]https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/
| strix_varius wrote:
| Awesome, thank you!
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Ink
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I used this a couple years ago for teaching a college class on
| intro to game narrative class and I didn't want to assume any of
| the students knew any programming. Since many in the class
| weren't gamers some of them came up with some interesting topics
| like trying to do a story-based game about whether a college
| football player should go pro or not or getting ready to go out
| for the night.
|
| Since then I've contributed to his Patreon and out of all the
| people I support on patreon he is the most consistent with
| sending out weekly updates on his progress.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing this! I've been waiting for years
| for such tool. Is it Friday yet?
| thot_experiment wrote:
| If you're into a weirder side of twine I highly recommend works
| by Porpentine.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porpentine_(game_designer)
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| So, this plus StabilityDiffusion equals?
| [deleted]
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| https://play.aidungeon.io/
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear
| stories_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21771022 - Dec
| 2019 (50 comments)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-12 23:00 UTC)