Twine Games

Interactive Fiction is a genre of games that is mostly text-based and as the story unfolds the player makes decisions that alter the direction of the story. A great tool for making these interactive, text-based games is Twine. It's free! And easy to use (once you get used to it). We suggest that you play a few games that were made in Twine and then make your own!

Interactive Fiction is a genre of games that is mostly text-based and as the story unfolds the player makes decisions that alter the direction of the story. A great tool for making these interactive, text-based games is Twine. It's free! And easy to use (once you get used to it). We suggest that you play a few games that were made in Twine and then make your own! Don't panic - even if the game is text-based, you can still add graphics and sound!

1. Play a few games made with Twine

You can search for some cool games made with Twine, but here are some popular ones we like:

Zork (this is NOT made in Twine, but is one of the most popular text-based games in the world - your parents might have played it).
The Oregon Trail (also not made in Twine, but a great game where the player makes deliberate choices - your parents definitely played this one).

2. Watch some tutorials about Twine

We've made some tutorials for you so you can understand the basics. What you need to know before watching the tutorials are:

There are a few different themes you can use. Each theme has a different layout and slightly different programming language. We chose Harlowe as our theme because it's very powerful and many games are made using it.
Once you understand how to link passages you'll be able to make some cool decision points (similar to "Choose Your Own Adventure" books).
You can include images and music (and HTML if you know any!).
Your work is saved in your browser, so make sure you download it before leaving today!

Tutorials

Note that the interface for Twine has changed recently so the videos don't match up exactly; don't panic! All the functionality is there but you might have to poke around to find it. You can always ask us!

3. Make a cool game with Twine

Try making a cool game! Or not cool game. It doesn't have to be cool. It just has to be interesting!

Be sure to download the game before you leave; that is the only way to save it. To download the game

Go to the Build tab
Choose Publish to File

If you'd like to submit your game to the arcade, let us know and we'll make sure we get the file from you!