OUT OF THE BLUE

A low fantasy, romance and time-travel interactive fiction set in Regency Era England written in Twine.

[outoftheblue-if]

Out of the Blue IF — A Regency Romance

Demo | Instagram | Pinterest | Discord | Spotify | Ko-Fi 

Out of the Blue is a romance/mystery/fantasy interactive fiction set in Regency Era England for anyone (like me) who is obsessed with Jane Austen and other period dramas, and always dreamed of being transported into that world to find romance and intrigue.

It’s also just a lighthearted project I’m working on to practice my writing skills and get familiar with Twine as a platform for other interactive fiction projects that I have in the works. Definitely a WIP, so characters and plot might change throughout.

Coding | Tags | FAQ

You are a university student struggling to find the motivation to finish your degree as the world seems to be falling apart around you, when you find yourself transported to what appears to be Regency Era England. With no idea how you got there or how you can get back, you are at the mercy of the fates. Given the probability of being classified insane if you reveal your true origins, you decide to feign amnesia. Lucky for you, a wealthy couple decides to take pity on you and take you in.

Will you be able to keep your secret hidden from your new friends, or risk ending up in an asylum? Will you conform to the expectations of regency society, or show regency society what a modern person is like? Will you solve the mystery of how you ended up there and find your way back home, or perhaps decide that you’d much rather stay?

Fully customisable character - name, gender, pronouns, appearance, sexuality, background, studies ++

Character driven story with choices that matter

Try to solve the mystery of your time travel

Romance - romance any of five different love interests, two male, two female and one non-binary

Friendship - build friendships and meet new people

Explore an AU England in the 1800s

Isobel Claymoore [she/her] | Portrait | Playlist |

Isobel resides at Oakley Estate with her father, who runs the local coal mines. Being the daughter of a man whose fortunes were acquired through trade, she is not widely accepted amongst the higher class society, and her reputation is only made worse by her being an unmarried woman in her thirties. At first glance, Isobel appears to be cold and haughty; a proud woman who has little interest in you, but as you spend more time around her, you might discover there is more to her than meets the eye.

Maximillian “Max” Winthrope [they/them or he/him] | Portrait | Playlist |

Max is the eldest son to Lord Charrington, the Earl of Charrington, and thus the heir to both title and land. He is upbeat, frivolous and a bit of a flirt, and people aren’t quite sure what to make of him. Although he seems to be cheerful and unconcerned, you can’t help but feel like he’s holding something back. Will you discover what lies behind his careless facade? 

Richard Winfield [he/him] | Portrait | Playlist |

Richard is a Captain of the Royal Navy, just returned from the Napoleonic Wars to his childhood home to visit his brother and his wife at their new abode. Though he has made a name for himself, and amassed a sizeable fortune, his deepest desire is to find a spouse to start a family, and build a home, with, but he seems to be caught up on the past. He is suspicious of your intentions and sceptical of the credibility of your story. Will you be able to change his opinion of you and help him move on from his past?

William Taylor [he/him] | Portrait | Playlist |

William is a local farmer who struggles to get by while raising his two children by himself since his wife disappeared. Given that William and his son are the ones who found you and helped you, you feel like you should repay him somehow, but William seems to take an immediate dislike to you and wants nothing to do with you. Will you be able to weed out the story behind his harsh, biting shell and worm your way into his fortified heart?

Clara Amelia Hamilton [she/her] | Portrait | Playlist |

Clara is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Charrington, the Hamiltons of Ainsley Park. She comes from a life of comfort and privilege, seemingly lacking in nothing. Being cheerful and outgoing, she is well liked and generally always surrounded by people, so why does she feel so bored? Will you help her find some sense of purpose in her life, and possibly fill that void in her heart?

[doriana-gray-games]

🔮✨A Courting of Curses ✨🔮

Play as your own villainess in this 3D romance RPG! Romance four mysterious suitors that bring survival or destruction. Live your life in a Magical Academy, trapped in a day/night cycle: study, socialise, and fight for your life—then do it all over again.

Steam page link

OK THE TRAILER AND STEAM PAGE IS OUT NOW

AHHHHHHHHHH—

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Hi Vahnya! I love your Twine Templates, however I've been running into an issue with your Twine Template II. When I start a new game, black scroll bars appear on what I believe is the story interface. They aren't on the initial loading page but are there as soon as you start a game - they are on the header menu and when I open it they drop to the bottom of the menu/stay on the side. I can't describe it any better, if you need a pic or vid, message me! <3

Hi @suevi-if ! Thank you ✨ Hmm, if scroll bars appear where they shouldn't be it's possible that there is some content/element on the page that is taking up too much space, in which case I would check whether that's an error - meaning something is taking up too much space where it shouldn't (I would use Developer Tools to check that). And, depending on the situation, maybe look into changing the overflow property styling.

The overflow property controls what happens to content that is too big to fit into an area/the size of an element, and by default is set to create scroll bars when necessary. You can override this by setting the styling to hidden - which means that any content that extends beyond the width or height of the element is clipped, or visible - which means any content that extends beyond the width or height will simply be visible outside the element (rarely a good thing though)

But it could also be a browser that has some default coding for scroll bars that overrides the styling somehow?

If you need any help sorting it, just shoot me a DM ☺️

[outoftheblue-if]

hi! i've been recently trying to use your first twine template but there are a lot of visual glitches which im pretty sure comes from the fact that the template was made around 4 years ago now and twine has changed a lot since then. i wanted to ask what version of twine you used to make it, so that i could maybe go back to that version and see if i can mess around with it myself. i know youve kind of been off the twine scene for a while, but i was curious and thought i should try and ask anyway.

Hi @crispy-jpeg ! Do you have any examples of visual glitches you are experiencing? I've looked at the template now and it seems to be working as intended for me, but I haven't been actively using Twine for a while, so I may have missed something.

Some information that can be helpful is what type of browser you're using, and whether or not you're building the UI through the Twine app or if you're using Twee with some coding editor like Visual Studio Code.

It might be that if you're testing the template by clicking "play" through the Twine app, the visuals won't fully work, because some of the elements of the template are dependent on images and fonts that are located in the game's folder, which is not accessible when played through the Twine app - if that makes sense?

Let me know and I'll look into it!

[outoftheblue-if]

there's more than one person who remembers! I randomly think about this if from time to time and revisit asks you've answered as well as the demo! I hope you are able to come back to it, if that is something you wish

Yay! Thanks for the encouragement, anon 🫶🏼

I've just been re-reading all the old asks as well, trying to really get back into it, and I'm sitting here simultaneously cringing, lol'ing, blushing and kicking my feet! These dumb idiots, I forgot how much I love them.

Also - all the places where i've not answered an ask because of spoilers I'm like... 👀👀 ?? 👀 ? girl, what's the tea, i've forgotten! And then I check my notes and I'm like ooooh, juicy 😏😏

[outoftheblue-if]

Oh thank god I thought this IF is dead😭

She's definitely on life support - hanging on by a thread 🥲

No, but on a real note - Out of the Blue is definitely not dead. She'll be back, but after a much needed re-vamp and re-write. All this time away from it has allowed me to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, so there will definitely be some changes to the settings, characters and story to raise the quality, but nothing too major.

I probably won't take it out of hiatus until I have something very solid, along with a few more chapters, to share with you guys though.

But I'm happy to see there's still someone out there who remembers my little story 🥹🤎✨

[outoftheblue-if]

Hello, dear Vahnya, I hope everything is happy for you!

My question is about the Twine template you created! It has been a great help during my beginner phase, and to me, the person who created it is like a goddess! So, when my game needed modifications, I felt very nervous—I didn’t know whether I could change your code or use it as a base to create other designs.

Therefore, I chose to come here to ask you.

Also, assuming you would allow me to make changes, could I still put a link to your template on my game’s release page? Would this offend you?

I hope my questions do not bother you. Best wishes to you again!

Hello, love! I'm so happy the template has been helpful to you ✨

You're very welcome to change, modify and further develop the template however you please. It was always meant as a free for all to get people started with their stories and game UIs. I would not at all be offended if you put a link of credit on the release page, that's very nice of you, but it is by no means required 😊

Wishing you a lovely day!

[outoftheblue-if]

Are we allowed to make commercial games with your twine templates? Thank you for your time!

Absolutely! You may use them however you want - they are completely free 😊 Although I've been made aware that they might be in need of an upgrade since Twine was updated to the new version.

Please let me know if anyone has any troubles with them, or if there are any suggestions for improvements. I've suddenly got a lot of free time on my hands, so I'm itching for something to do 🤓

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hi! i’m wanting to make custom templates for my twine games. i was wondering — for the main menu screen you have on your template, did you have to delve into the storyinterface? honestly thats the only part thats confusing me 😂

Hi there! I'm not entirely sure which of the two templates you're referring to, but I did use StoryInterface for both of the templates 😊

Using StoryInterface allows you to build the user interface entirely yourself using HTML, but it will replace all of SugarCube's built in code, so you'll have to create all the elements of the UI yourself - if that makes sense.

You must include an element with the id "passages" for your story's passages to show up, for example with a <div id="passages"></div> element. Just leave it empty, and Twine will populate it with your story's passages.

Another neat trick is using the "data-passages" attribute to populate elements with content from certain passages. For example, in my first template the StoryInterface contains this element:

class="story-author" obviously allows me to style the element using CSS in the Story Stylesheet, whereas the data-passage attribute is an attribute native to Twine that allows you to populate elements with the content of specific passages. This one has the value "storyAuthor", which means that Twine will automatically populate the <h2> element with whatever content is inside a passage called "storyAuthor" when the game runs.

Other than that, if you're looking to learn more coding, I find w3schools really helpful, it's completely free and you find everything you need there. I also used the Twine documentation a lot. To learn more about how everything works, maybe download one of my templates and play around with the StoryInterface that's already built to learn what everything does? 💁🏼‍♀️

Hope that helps, anon! Have a nice weekend 🤎

[outoftheblue-if]

I just love tall strong/buff and mean women.

hahah, you and me both, anon. are you referring to isobel, or is this just a general public service announcement? 💁🏼‍♀️

either way, i support it

[outoftheblue-if]

Would you mind if someone else was inspired by you to make a game where you travel back in time to regency or medieval, etc. time periods? You've inspired me but I don't want to copy you. Anyways, I'm excited for future updates!

Not at all, anon! I, personally, would love to read such a game ✨ You certainly don't need my blessing, but you have it wholeheartedly all the same!

[outoftheblue-if]

Damn, I just found this game again on Itch. To see it on hiatus is such a damn shame, because I adore the premise of the story. And the MC can be so painfully relatable in the first chapter, like who's down to join the depression squad? Just me? Alright.

And damn, I'll always firmly believe that Victorian London wouldn't be ready for my tattooed up punk trans female protagonist. And add a sprinkle of sapphic dust on that gay dessert, and I'm all but assured to hit the asylum or a bonfire, haha.

Shits and giggles aside though, I get how rough it can be when life comes across gray as hell. It isn't uncommon for me to go in and out of periods where I can write a ton of fanfics, just to hit the brick wall called depression like I'm Harry Potter and the wall is the wall to Platform 9 3/4 doing Chamber of Secrets. So I genuinely hope things get better for you sooner than later, and make sure to take your time. Mental health is important, and most of us will still be here if/when you get back to making the game ❤️

Well, thank you so much for not forgetting about my game after all this time, and for still adoring the premise! Sorry for the long hiatus though, sometimes life just hits you like a freight train, ya know? lol. But I’ll take it as a big compliment! 🤎

I was… not doing well when I started writing this story, and that’s actually what inspired it to begin with, especially the mental state of the MC and the idea of being plucked out of the real world and disappearing into a fantasy world. We’ve all been there, right? If anything though, I hope the mental state of the MC comes across as relatable and realistic for those who have experience with it.

And lmao, you might not be far off with the asylum or bonfire if your tattooed up punk trans female mc entered the chat 👀👀 

I’m actually doing a lot better these days though, and I’m slowly starting to pick up some of my creative hobbies again (like writing!) and actually enjoying them! Thank you so much for the well wishes, I hope all is well with you too 🤎 I peeped at your blog and couldn’t help but notice that you’re from Denmark 👀 So that means we’re basically related, welcome to my family!

[outoftheblue-if]

If you don't mind what are the main conflicts in Isabel's and Clara's route? I don't mean like spoilers but more like one to two word descriptions (for example, Clara: Familial tension or something like that). TBH I was actually going to go for Clara first, then I read in one the asks that Isabel would campaign for the rights of the poor and now I'm stuck in a dilemma on who to choose. Actually, one last thing, how does Clara view people who are not of nobility? Thanks, and can't wait for the game!

Ooh, this is an interesting one! Let me brush the dust off my notes here. This might be a little spoilery?

Clara's route honestly doesn't really have much of a conflict. It's more about her own discovery and development that the mc can inspire and incite, whether intentional or unintentional. Once she realises she's in love with the mc, there's really not any obstacles for them tbh, beyond the obvious ones, of course. It's definitely the least angsty romance route, mostly just a sweet one.

For Isobel though, the main conflict is probably.. herself? Her attitude, her beliefs, her priorities. It's kind of the "ice queen" trope - and there's definitely a lot of potential for the mc to call her out and challenge her, which she sorely needs. It's really hard to say more about her conflict without spoiling some of the plot though 👀

As for this ask, I don't know which as it was, or what I answered, but I think Clara is more one to campaign for the rights of the poor, at least in the beginning, but Isobel can and will be influenced to do so. Isobel is more a champion of women's rights, at least in the beginning. She has some character development to do before she will campaign for the rights of the poor.

Clara is very kind and empathic, so she doesn't think badly of people who are not of nobility, at all. She's not a snob by any means, but she is a little naive and... sheltered perhaps? So she'll be making some discoveries throughout the story that will open her eyes.

Thanks for the interesting ask! It really made me get back into the characters and story, which was much needed ✨

[outoftheblue-if]

On a scale from 1 to 10, how weak are the RO to MC's puppy eyes?

I'm sure I've answered this or something similar before, but let's do it again.

Isobel: 2 - basically immune, but respects the attempt to get their way by strategic tactics lol. Will indulge if it's something she's inclined to give/do, because she's amused, but otherwise... nice try 😏

Max: 10 - weak af, will always indulge, would basically do anything to make mc happy or laugh or smile. total himbo, hopeless case 🥺

Clara: 5? - she knows this trick herself lol, so she's not really moved by the puppy eyes themselves, but if it's something that would make mc happy or smile, she will always indulge anyway, because she wants to make them happy and smile!

Richard: thinks and pretends like he's a solid 2, not at all moved, but is actually a 6, bless him. will grumble about the puppy eyes, but will most likely indulge the mc, unless it's something out of his comfort zone or something he really doesn't want to do

William: oh god, not the puppy eyes! he's well acquainted with the puppy eyes, he has children, so he has to be immune, because he has to say no sometimes, but how can he say no when they're so cuute? a solid 7, will probably indulge, just please don't do it too much in front of the children, or they'll know he's a total softie who can be tricked by adorableness

[outoftheblue-if]

Here, Vahnya. A cute doggo pic for you after a long day at work

😭🥺😭 lookathimsocuuute! I need a dog!!

[doriana-gray-games]

I started this painting like... more than a year ago... but I hadn't painted in a long while so I decided to finish it as practice.

It's Clara from @outoftheblue-if 's amazing story 💖

[outoftheblue-if]

ahhhh, look at her!!! 😍😍😍 she's so gorgeous! The eyes, the hair, the dainty little nose - she's perfect! ✨ I wish I had just a fragment of your talent, @doriana-gray-games 🙏🏻 🤎

[outoftheblue-if]

I think of your IF everyday. Regardless of everything, thank you for that.

Aw, bless you, anon! I'll take that as a huge compliment 🤎 Thank you! I still check in every now and then, and it warms my heart that there's still so much activity here. I hope I can find the time to come back to this story one day. It's still very dear to me.