Just starting a new game. Would Twine be best for total beginners?

Currently i am designing a map and putting the story together, i will be illustrating also. I have no coding experience and was wondering if Twine would be the best option for someone who is just starting out.
Seamus

2 Likes

Probably. Twine is super easy to start off with. If you’re going to do layout and illustration it does pretty much just say “go learn CSS and HTML” pretty quickly, but you can learn small pieces at a time and the community on the Q&A site is quick to respond and very helpful.

Ditto with building more involved behaviors: it pushes you into “go learn JavaScript” faster than I think makes sense but you can learn it as you need it.

I’d say that other things have a higher entry barrier while Twine will have a “speed bump” later. Either way you’re eventually going to learn to think like a programmer to some extent, whether you realize it or not. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Hi Josh, thanks for your reply, code seems way over my head but i am willing to try and looking forward to it. Never imagined myself to be a programmer:) Got to start somewhere.
Thanks
Seamus

1 Like

It may depend a bit on what sort of game you want to make. If what you have in mind is choice-based, then certainly Twine would be an excellent choice. But if you want the sort of open exploration that parser games excel at, then it won’t be such a good choice because you will quite quickly find yourself “fighting the tool”, which can be fun for experts, but not for beginners. There will be a learning curve to anything, of course. But sometimes it’s better to spend a bit more time learning something a bit more difficult if that is going to get you to the end result you want.

Why not look at a few different options, and see which ones suit you best? Don’t try to implement your whole game in any of them, but try to implement something and see what the experience is like for you.

If you are not experienced with coding, I’d have a look at Twine certainly, and probably at Inform7 too. You might also like to have a play with Ink. All three of those “come with” development environments which make the price of admission quite low.

3 Likes

The current version of Twine is “Twine 2” and Harlowe. I believe there are users who still swear by Twine 1 (1.4?) and/or Sugarcube. I agree with checking those out, along with some other systems that are even potentially easier than Twine - like Squiffy and Ink and AXMA 6.1 (I still can’t get my head around the JS AXMA version, but 6.1’s “early twine” syntax is a lot more straightforward for me than Harlowe’s markup and “gift tags”.)

Check out our list of resource links that includes more IF systems. And please add any others you know about - this post is a Wiki that can be edited by our regular users.

2 Likes

Hi Paul, Inform7 looks really good, will definitly look into it, will check out Ink also. Maybe Twine will be best for starting as i was thinking of a choice based game for my first try.
Thanks
Seamus

1 Like

Sounds like a great idea! Feel free to ask any questions that come up in your creation process!

1 Like

Hi Hanon, looks like i will be going with Twine 2 for now, i found a book that covers Twine by Melissa Ford, looks pretty good. Thanks very much for the links and info.
Seamus

1 Like

Hi Brian, thanks very much, will more than likely have a billion questions:)
Seamus

1 Like

Twine 2 lets you use SugarCube as well, though Harlowe is the default story format. Melissa Ford’s book covers both, and doesn’t assume any programming knowledge. It does almost completely ignore the history of Twine and the ways it has been commonly used: Emily Short’s review says “A curious and fascinating thing about Melissa Ford’s Writing Interactive Fiction with Twine is how it combines hypertext craft advice and Twine syntax tutorials with design expectations largely derived from parser-based interactive fiction.” That doesn’t in any way detract from the book’s value as a practical intro to using Twine (it may even fit your game better than some of the other tutorials out there). But it’s an interesting cultural note that some people feel strongly about, so it’s worth being aware of.

2 Likes