(image from porpentine’s the sky in the room.)
in my book, published last march, i wrote about my excitement over twine as a game-making tool for authors with absolutely no coding experience. almost six months later, i’m astounded by how many new twine games there are, especially from women and queer authors, and especially from first-time game makers. twine has become fertile territory for marginalized voices to grow.
(a caveat on twine: i’ve only used the windows version. people have told me that the mac version is really buggy, which is unfortunate.)
below is my attempt at a list of twine games on the internet (including my own). as a cross-section of videogames they show a very different form than the one we expect to see. recommendations: all of them.
seven hours pass by loren schmidt
ten by maddox pratt
intake by maddox pratt
fall by maddox pratt
the sky in the room by porpentine
myriad by porpentine
batman is screaming by porpentine
a place of infinite beauty by porpentine
workday by kim moss
drowning by kim moss
alone in an alien swamp by kim moss
úrquel the black dragon by david t. marchand
eioioio by david t. marchand
the temple by luna
arcadia by jonas kyratzes
pontrefract by kitty horrorshow
when sneezles attack by rachel helps
calories by emma fearon
escape pod by aaron evan-browning
choose your own anna anthropy interview by cara ellison
absent heroes: choose your own interview II by cara ellison
weird tape in the mail by adam dickinson
circa regna tonat by jasmine choinski
rat chaos by j chastain
sex cops of tickle city by anna anthropy
police bear by anna anthropy
encyclopedia fuckme by anna anthropy
afternoon in the house of secrets by anna anthropy
17 comments
we have made twine our own
chris klimas, the author of twine, tried to leave a comment and got a weird error message. but here’s the comment:
Twine desperately needs people who know Python to love it, especially someone who could be a maintainer for the Mac. A group of people approached me about updating it a while ago; they have a github repo at https://github.com/tweecode/twine but sadly have not come out with a release per se.
I think sometimes about doing a rewrite based on what I know now — wxPython was not the smartest of choices — but I am stymied right now as to the right language/toolkit to use.
I should add finally that it has surprised the hell out of me a) that people really do use Twine b) and they use it in the oddest, most fascinating ways.
I didn’t get around to playing Calories when you last mentioned it, and I didn’t quite remember what you said about it, so I played it now. It’s good.
This is THE RISE OF THE VIDEOGAME TWINISTERS! no…
the twine of the videogame twinis- wait…
the rise of the twineo- you know what, fuck it, let’s just keep making these.
Twine is a really cool program and medium to work on. Being able to look at your game and see the connections between the screens is kind of intoxicating.
David — Twinesters?
Twinesters sounds good. Anyway, feel honored to be on the list. I may be a cis straight dude, but I’m also a South American first-time game maker, so maybe Twine has a strange, inscrutable component that makes it appealing for videogame minorities, for some reason?
Hey, don’t forget me, I made one too! It’s called “Arcadia: A Pastoral Tale” and I’m extremely happy with it. One of my best game-making experiences.
http://www.jonas-kyratzes.net/arcadia/arcadia.html
well shit how did i forget that one? i’m adding it right now
Thanks! :)
Twine really is amazing. As I’ve said elsewhere, I wish there was a Twine-like interface for Ren’Py. And more themes for Twine itself. It’s a great tool.
twine naturally appeals to people outside the ordinary run of gaming because it’s simple and accessible and intuitive, and also because people who aren’t Gamers with a capital G are more likely to value a good story, narrative, feelings, words, everything that interactive fiction allows
a good story can’t be quantified and doesn’t need a huge budget and a fortress of esoteric, inscrutable code, that’s why nerds don’t get it
That seems about right. Besides, I believe, Twine’s accessibility not only attracts people who can’t code, but also probably scares people who can, because you can’t show off your coding skills with hyperfiction. But that’s just a guess.
I did this with twiiiiine. Cause it’s horribals https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14190886/TwineGames/inthewind.html
added a bunch of games to the list !
Maybe include this thing? It’s awfully silly though.
Thanks for the list. I’ve found one other nice list at TwineHub (http://twinehub.proboards.com/)… I kind of wish there was some active forum for Twine enthusiasts, like the ones that exist for other types of fandom. Maybe they’re out there and I’m just missing them?
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