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Current creative outlet: Trying to learn Twine 2 well enough to program the rough-rough draft of an interactive story/game in ninety days. (It's a thing someone started on tumblr called ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
writingin90. I'm probably going to skip NaNoWriMo this year, since last year was a bust. Too much schoolwork and too little time.)
I really could use some advice from people who know about Twine/Twine 2, please.
A short summary of what I am hoping to do:
You (the player, but not) inevitably begin the game in a void. You can't remember who you are, or what any of you looks like, even the instant after you look at yourself. The memories just wash away.
From the start, you can choose how you attempt to "travel" through this world. You start exploring strange landscapes. The way that you interact with these landscapes (and sometimes with the creatures/people within them) will determine what kind of personality you are, within this strange world.
In the end... this is where it gets kind of fuzzy. In the end, you either become who you have chosen to be, and live out the rest of the days doing exactly what you want to do, or you rebel too hard against who you're becoming, and end up becoming closer to nothing. Or, you realize exactly what IS going on in this place, and as a fully-actualized personality you still find a way to escape from it and discover who you really are.
(I'm being a bit vague here. I might post more details later, locked and under a cut. I'm hoping to actually finish a playable draft of this, and am not so sure I want to spoil everything. Which I can't, anyway, because I don't know exactly how things are going to work out yet.)
Doing what I want to do... I don't know how to do that yet, with Twine or any other programming tool, although my classes might help me this Fall (they are all computer programming.) Twine is a good tool to start with, although I might switch over when I know more about what I want to do. But there are some things that I don't know how to do, or if I can do them.
In particular, I'm wondering about things like this:
- Can I have certain "attributes" - nothing like the usual Str-Int-Cha stuff, but character traits based on the player's actions - saved invisibly in the background of the game, and then use them to determine whether or not certain options appear? (Example: If the player shows themselves to be patient enough, is there an option to have them wait out a particular event in order to see a different outcome than they would if they'd run away because they couldn't take it anymore?)
I'll still write text and ideas for the game if this is impossible, but I'll probably wait until I can find another way to write the game, or figure out a language well enough to write it "from scratch," before I playtest it. This is important to what I want to do with this game. I've been fascinated with the idea of a player thrown into a situation where they don't know the rules, and what they become is dependent on what they do.
- Can I randomize the order in which the player visits particular areas, but still only make it possible to visit them once in the course of normal gameplay? (I say "normal" because it might become possible to revisit a place or two, but that would be a completely different path.) Maybe create five different worlds for a stage, and the player only visits four of them in a game? Or more than five - I'd really like for this to feel really expansive, and even after several replays you don't know what you'll end up with.
It's ambitious, but it's a concept I'm finding myself really liking, and so I'm hoping I can figure out how to do it one way or the other.
(I haven't decided on graphics. I might try some drawings of the various "worlds," at some point.)
I really could use some advice from people who know about Twine/Twine 2, please.
A short summary of what I am hoping to do:
You (the player, but not) inevitably begin the game in a void. You can't remember who you are, or what any of you looks like, even the instant after you look at yourself. The memories just wash away.
From the start, you can choose how you attempt to "travel" through this world. You start exploring strange landscapes. The way that you interact with these landscapes (and sometimes with the creatures/people within them) will determine what kind of personality you are, within this strange world.
In the end... this is where it gets kind of fuzzy. In the end, you either become who you have chosen to be, and live out the rest of the days doing exactly what you want to do, or you rebel too hard against who you're becoming, and end up becoming closer to nothing. Or, you realize exactly what IS going on in this place, and as a fully-actualized personality you still find a way to escape from it and discover who you really are.
(I'm being a bit vague here. I might post more details later, locked and under a cut. I'm hoping to actually finish a playable draft of this, and am not so sure I want to spoil everything. Which I can't, anyway, because I don't know exactly how things are going to work out yet.)
Doing what I want to do... I don't know how to do that yet, with Twine or any other programming tool, although my classes might help me this Fall (they are all computer programming.) Twine is a good tool to start with, although I might switch over when I know more about what I want to do. But there are some things that I don't know how to do, or if I can do them.
In particular, I'm wondering about things like this:
- Can I have certain "attributes" - nothing like the usual Str-Int-Cha stuff, but character traits based on the player's actions - saved invisibly in the background of the game, and then use them to determine whether or not certain options appear? (Example: If the player shows themselves to be patient enough, is there an option to have them wait out a particular event in order to see a different outcome than they would if they'd run away because they couldn't take it anymore?)
I'll still write text and ideas for the game if this is impossible, but I'll probably wait until I can find another way to write the game, or figure out a language well enough to write it "from scratch," before I playtest it. This is important to what I want to do with this game. I've been fascinated with the idea of a player thrown into a situation where they don't know the rules, and what they become is dependent on what they do.
- Can I randomize the order in which the player visits particular areas, but still only make it possible to visit them once in the course of normal gameplay? (I say "normal" because it might become possible to revisit a place or two, but that would be a completely different path.) Maybe create five different worlds for a stage, and the player only visits four of them in a game? Or more than five - I'd really like for this to feel really expansive, and even after several replays you don't know what you'll end up with.
It's ambitious, but it's a concept I'm finding myself really liking, and so I'm hoping I can figure out how to do it one way or the other.
(I haven't decided on graphics. I might try some drawings of the various "worlds," at some point.)
