Mikkel Lodahl's Twine Workshop presentation at CounterPlay '14.

1. How to
Twine something
A few short notes on using the Twine software to read a text

2. Hello!
• I'm Mikkel Lodahl
• I teach game design and
game analysis at Dania
Games
• Which consists of two applied
science educations in
programming and design
• It's located in Grenaa, the
video game capital of
Denmark

3. Basic Twine
• A series of passages of text and or pictures,
connected by lines that allow the player to chart
a path through a story
• Made in a simple, graphical editor
• But actually made in your planning out before-
hand

4. Here was a picture of how a Twine-map looks that
came from this site:
http://slav.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/12/12/interactive-
fiction-with-twine/#.Uz6ZoVYaySM

5. There are many resources
for learning how to use Twine
• twinery.org
• The best text tutorial: http://
www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/

6. But I want to focus on the thinking process
involved in planning your Twine game

7. Basically, my theory is this...

8. To write fanfiction well,
you must understand the original text well

9. Where most fanfiction fails as a created work is
in the structure - nothing interesting happens

10. Interactive fiction is only about things
happening - it's just called input

11. So preparing an interactive fiction version of a
text - writing Twine fanfiction - will make you
undestand what is interesting in the original
text's structure

12. Who do you play?
• Who is the protagonist of the original text?
• Who might it be fun to be?
• Who faces interesting choices?

13. Star Wars
Luke Skywalker is the protagonist.
But do we really want to be him and make
choices as him?

14. The Princess
on the Pea

15. Isolating interesting choices
• In linear media, interesting choices are
interesting because of their consequences
• In interactive media, interesting choices are
interesting because they are interesting to make

16. Star Wars
Luke's aunt and uncle are dead, killed by
stormtroopers.
What are his possible choices?
Which of them are interesting?

17. The Princess
on the Pea

18. Find spaces for expansion
• Where in the original text is there room to tell a
different story?
• Remember that the different story needs to
preserve something of the original
• This is usually well accomplished through
isolating one or more themes in the original text
and building a story from that

19. Star Wars
Some possible spaces for more story:
The Cantina Aliens
The officers at the officer meeting
The construction of the Death Star
The acquiring of the Death Star plans by the Rebels
Which themes from Star Wars as such
could you use in each of these spaces?

20. The Princess
on the Pea

21. Exercise
• Sit down and find a protagonist, some interesting
choices and a space in the Princess on the Pea
• Plan out a short interactive fiction story this way
• You have fifteen minutes!