Play the game here soon!

COMING SOON...

            One program I have been wanting to use for a long time is Twine. Twine is a beginner programmer friendly system designed to make text-based games. It allows users to utilize HTML, Chapbook and a few other programming systems to create a branching heavily story-based game.

            For those not old enough to remember text-based games, or have never seen one before, text-based games usually consist of a branching story line with many possible endings that have no visuals. There are only words on the screen and options for players to choose. Some examples of games like this can be found on itch.io.

            I love using games to teach. Most of the time, it’s the best way for me to learn. Twine is a very accessible way to do that. I have issues with it, nothing is perfect after all. I wish the customization was easier and that the download version of Twine matched the abilities of the browser version. However, as a free to use tool, it’s a very well done and user-friendly system.

            I have some background in programming, I once thought that would be what I did with my life (and we can all see how that turned out). I’ve programmed robots, websites, and occasionally 3D animations. It can be both extremely frustrating and rewarding. I personally found it more frustrating than anything else, which is why I did not pursue programming as a career.

            Thankfully, Twine is very easy to use and their ‘cookbook’ makes some of the more complicated pieces of it easy to understand. For those who want to use Twine for themselves, I recommend the tutorial on the Programming Historian. They have a bunch of tutorials for all levels to create games as well as how to use other digital tools to ‘do history’.

            As I said, I’ve always wanted to work with Twine, and soon, on this very page, you might see the result! Sign up for updates!

Get on the List

Sign up to receive the first word when we go live.