Hello! Your IF story inspired me to start my own IF game
Im thinking of using twine
And I would like to ask you if you had any tips or advice
Also side note I’m really excited and very interested in how this story is going to play out I already love the cast and can’t wait to see the rest!
OOoo thank you so much! I'm very flattered the game inspired you!
Twine has many different story formats, each with their own pros and cons. I personally use Sugarcube (I think next to Harlow, it is the most popular) so all my tips will be for Twine Sugarcube:
Bookmark the Sugarcube V2 Document. This is your bible. It will have everything you need to use Twine. It's a daunting read, but I use it to troubleshoot when I forget how Macros work. I always have tab open for it.
Download a Twine Template. If you are brand new to Twine and making IFs, I heavily suggest downloading a template or two. Most of them come with tutorials and examples on how they work. Sometimes they even provide more helpful resources on Twine. I use Vahnya's Template II that I modified myself afterwards.
Study from pre-exisiting Twine IFs. Might be controversial, but I personally believe that diving in and seeing how other authors code and structure their stories helps a lot. Eventually you'll figure out a system and structure that works for you. It might not work for all games, but most Twine games can be downloaded and opened up in the twine editior. If you're worried about spoilers or upsetting people, feel free to download my game and see whats inside. I make multiple copies of the game, so any build I have out in the public is not the original build and therefore have no spoilers. I know it will look insane when you open it, but there's a method to the madness.
Making an IF is no joke! Plan your story out, know your big variables, your branching routes and at least some part of your ending!! Try to stay as organized as possible. These projects and can will spiral out of control if you're not careful. I suggest having a giant excel sheet with tabs for important variables, chapter/scene breakdowns, wordcount and characters ect. Updating it will be a pain (that I am guilty of not doing) but will make developing easier. Even if you don't make a big project, its still good practise to do it.
All the code in here relates to how the game looks. You can fiddle in there to configure the game to look how you want it to look. If you even want to see what element is tied to what ID code, the best thing to do is playtest the game (build >> play) and then leftclick and select "inspect element" you browser will open up the developer window and you see what elements are tied to what and even play around with the contents to test out CSS elements you like.
This website is a great resource on using CSS and other coding language. I personally used it many time to modify my game.
Helpful resources and Macros:
Chapel has made a LOT of custom macros that you can add to your game. You can find the list here.
But the most important one is the Pronoun Template. It might be confusing at first but one you understand how it work, its a great tool to have. You can even add gendered titles so that they work with the pronoun template.
Idrellegame is a great resource on coding in Twine. You can find the list here. It helped me out when starting out.
I never see people talk about Butler when it comes to uploading If games onto itch.io, so i'm doing it now.
What is Butler? Its a command-line tool that Itch made to upload your game onto Itch.io quickly and reliably.
The documentation is here. And I suggest coping and pasting the export codes onto a doc so you can use them for every update afterwards.
Here is a youtube tutorial you can follow along as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCJa5iWREM
I personally have the Butler on the Itchio.app so that's its always up to date.
Thats all I can offer off the top of my head, if you or anyone wants some help on something specifically, feel free to DM me or drop another ask in the inbox. Always happy to help. Working in twine is very overwhelming for newcomers.
