I’m planning on setting up some workshops focused on interactive fiction using Twine and Sugarcube at a local library in my home town. I don’t need to spend time justifying why this might be a valuable thing to share with this group
However, I was wondering if anyone on this forum has ever tried something similar and might have tips for me on format and layout of a workshop?
As a general loose overview of what I have in mind :
We’ll be using Sugarcube (just from my own experience of facing a gap in extended functionality with Harlowe and wishing I’d started here first)
Overall technical level of the audience is expected to be low. However I still think Sugarcube is accessible enough and flexible enough for those that stick with it
Basic plan is to do a very brief guided tour of the Twine UI, demonstrate how to structure a story and the very basic macros for logic
Following that some basic styling demonstrations
For the first group workshop project I’m planning a “What if” style story, where participants choose their favourite book/story and find a critical plot point - and fork their own story from this critical place.
Alternatively we could just wing it and see what folks come up with
So that’s the full extent of what I have in mind. Any hints about other workshops that have been done in the past, or how to easily accomodate folks to have the best experience possible is welcome. Thanks!
You might find this guide helpful in categorising stuff by level:
It goes over the super basic stuff to make a super basic Sugarcube project, and increases in difficulty as you want to customise more things
Note: unlike Harlowe or Chapbook, Twine doesn’t have a Syntax Highlighter (for code errors) or listing macros/markup for SugarCube.
For super basic Try to make a game in Twine - the baby steps, you might want to consider Chabook. Twine includes a SH + macro/markup list. The format is meant for simple/beginner project. There are very few macros to use. The Chabook guide is pretty simple.
Very cool and exciting! I’ve run quite a few community IF workshops for beginners so I’m always delighted to hear about others doing the same. I usually give a brief overview, then get participants to make a very short game based on a guide to get hands-on experience, then support them to develop their own ideas.
Some resources I’ve used in the past linked here (using Harlowe, but principles more or less the same) - these were developed for young people with complex learning needs so might be a bit basic, but could be some useful stuff in there:
Also this lecture I gave to undergraduates isn’t Twine-specific but digs into some principles and strategies for writing IF, bit more in-depth
I went into my first workshop anticipating a lot of fear/hesitancy about the tech - while there was some, in practice I found that people were far more worried about coming up with story ideas than they were about the implementation. Now I always try and go in with a bunch of prompts available so people who aren’t as confident have some places to start from.
If you want to chat in more detail please feel free to DM me too, I love talking about this stuff!
Excellent interactive tutorial/reference ! I encourage you to write the equivalent for the other three libraries (or story formats, but I like to “give bread to bread and wine to wine” as we say in Italy…)
I’ll let someone else do that… because that guide took me months to write (and impaired my progress on other more fun projects) - see the update log.
Also I don’t have any interest in learning how to code in Snowman, and the Chapbook documentation is pretty good already as a guide.
how much time do you have for the workshop? if you only have 2 hours or less I might skip the styling part, as teaching css is kind of a different thing…give them as much time for the game writing as possible
what I’ve done when teaching people (albeit friends one at a time who were interested) is
if needed, explain interactive fiction and why it is cool and what other things it’s like (choose your own adventure books is my usual touchstone)
teach the twine ui
teach the syntax for branching ([[next passage]])
teach the syntax for setting variables (starting with a single variable)
teach if/else conditionals (using the variables) and explain the concept of opening and closed tags
give them an story idea or let them use their own idea. I like the prompt you have
add more context/info for specific individual needs (“how do I make text appear?” “how do I make this win state?” “how do I do points?”) as they arise
Agreed, Chapbook’s documentation is great as is- very easy to page through and customize lightly. It’s a fantastic little format right out of the box- which I think makes it really well suited for the span of a workshop, since the final results already look very pretty without having to delve into heavy modifications through CSS.
On the other hand, if there isn’t a thread already to collect or chat shop about potential grant ideas, I do think that this would make a great opportunity for someone to apply for IFTF funding for a project that would benefit the community. Might be something Dr. Piergiorgio would want to look into starting the thread on.
agree that you want to do more fun projects (I parse it as "writing IF ) but a little finishing touch should be duplicating the links to the three lists (macros, function/method and API) into sidebar buttons, a little detail which can only improve the “reference” side, at least IMVHO.
Thank you, this is a great suggestion for overall structure.
Time is limited to a little under 90 minutes but with luck I might have some folks who are interested enough to stick with the subject matter for a follow on week or two.
Can I just say, when you linked the 100% great guide earlier I thought, “Oh, cool - other people have seen this wonderful resource and are using it too!”
Then I did a double-take at your username.
Absolute legend, thank you for the incredibly helpful guide here
) but a little finishing touch should be duplicating the links to the three lists (macros, function/method and API) into sidebar buttons, a little detail which can only improve the “reference” side, at least IMVHO.
