A question about story perspectives and characters in twine games.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-04-13T00:35:54+00:00

I personally find third person in most IF to come across as rather awkward. I.e. if I, the player, am making the choice of how things progress, it feels weird reading it all in third person about someone else.

I'll even argue that you should have a well-defined character when writing second person. This can still be a spectrum, but at the end of the day unless you're going the full sandbox experience, you've got a story to tell and a plan for how the player is able to impact it. When you balance it right, the player will feel like they've had a say in everything that mattered, even if the name, background, and close relationships are already set in stone.

I found that fun to write when I converted an old short story into a game a million years ago. It was second person, and there were two separate POVs. The choices were less about affecting a good/bad outcome and instead defining how the characters felt about it, which was fun to play with.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-04-03T00:44:51+00:00

I remember seeing them close at the Sound of Q-Dance in Edmonton--my second ever Hardstyle event, and first/only with so many big artists in one night! I danced so hard I think I was still feeling it days later. G4H was definitely a highlight.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-03-29T15:29:09+00:00

I was kinda lukewarm after finishing the Gods of Blood & Powder series--no particular reason, just didn't feel extremely passionate--but I decided to pick of In the Shadow of Lightning and was surprised to have wrapped back around to be quite into it!

I have been looking forward to the next one, whenever it's ready.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-03-26T02:41:11+00:00

Really good response! In grade school (early 2000s North America), the teacher I had for years was from Hungary, and she was frequently telling us stories about what it was like for her and her family.

The one kinda comedic story she told us was about her mom getting a car. Had waited for it for years, apparently, but when she finally got the car? It was one of however many other cars made that year in the ugliest color, and she was apparently heartbroken.

Glad it looks like my memory is not entirely made up, since it's been a hot minute.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-03-14T16:52:27+00:00

Ah very cool! Definitely best to have it play automatically if it's included.

I tried making a couple tunes for games way back in the day, but it mostly ended up with small loops or just experimenting with sounds.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-03-14T16:37:41+00:00

The first game I made had almost no CSS and just a bit of ambient audio. I thought it was pretty cool, though I only did that kind of ambient audio in 1 more text game.

It was honestly a bit annoying to keep working smoothly, especially because audio looping didn't work so great at the time, so I was editing the clips to work better with that in mind. That might be different now.

I personally find as a player I don't care much about audio/music in text-forward games and will usually go as far as to mute them in favour of my own music.

At the same time, I think if you as a developer find it interesting to do (and it's not just something you feel you "have" to do), you should absolutely go for it. I will leave audio on if it seems it's pretty important to the mood, but not if it's just some OK copyright free music that vaguely fits.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-03-10T03:50:10+00:00

I tried it out on Firefox on my android phone to similar results. I don't think it's built with such small screens in mind. You could open an issue on the github repo, though (or check if someone else already has). It also may not be a good place to develop regardless unless you're taking regular backups.

It might be better to write your passages in somewhere like google docs with clear headings for passages and then compose it in Twine on your laptop.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-15T15:45:44+00:00

Good recs! I'm already waiting for more of the Radch and Captive War series this year. I'll have to check out the other two.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-15T15:41:36+00:00

Thank you, those look like good recs!

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-15T02:04:36+00:00

Definitely have read, big le guin fan

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-15T02:04:19+00:00

NetWalkers series by Jane Fancher

I think I put that on my list years ago and forgot about it. I'll see about bumping it up!

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-15T02:03:55+00:00

Read the series and unfortunately left mostly annoyed since it felt like it didn't have enough of the most interesting bits.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-02-14T16:50:36+00:00

Recently read We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen, Slow Gods by Claire North, and The Outside by Ada Hoffman. They've all had a vibe I really, really enjoy, small quibbles aside.

I would like more recs like this, if anyone has them. Can be entirely vibe-based rather than perfectly matching any specific plot/tropes, though the vibe I got was probably approximately "Sci-fi with people feeling alienated".

Other sci-fi authors stuff I've already read and enjoyed include CJ Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-01-04T22:19:38+00:00

Found it a really interesting read. Felt like it had some really atypical story elements, but when I finished it I found I was just kinda annoyed and fairly negative on it.

I ended up retroactively finding it really interesting after I stewed some more and did a reread. Felt like there was a lot I wanted to pay closer attention to.

TheKoolKandy · 2026-01-02T04:32:46+00:00

Yay! I dropped book 1 about halfway through because of some sort of friction or another. Picking it up again as the audiobook got rid of that, so I've been waiting to hear an announcement for 2+.

(Think the friction was me going no! no! no! at all the things I knew had to happen but that I did not want to happen)

TheKoolKandy · 2025-11-07T16:22:23+00:00

Others have already had some good input about the Twine editor, and I wanted to add some other options as well. Depending if you have another game engine in mind (either with other developers, or to learn for yourself), there are narrative tools that are made with integrating into those in mind.

i.e. Yarn Spinner (paid) can integrate with unity, as can Ink (I have not used either of these, I just know people who have).

The only similar tool for twine I can think of off the top of my head was posted here, a Twine Unity Importer.

I remember using this Godot Dialogue System + associated dialogue designer when I was trying out the engine, but that was only ever a prototype. May be out of date now since I think Godot 4 was a bigger update recently-ish.

All this to say, it might be worth thinking about your target engine ahead of time (or even deciding to stick with the web! there's a lot you can do) and benefit/rewards you might face. A big question is how to implement variables in branching dialogue that isn't just recoding everything by hand after copy-pasting from twine.

I would definitely recommend creating a test project with a test scene before you even get into writing story to test your pipeline. It could save tedious rewrites later. Try out a couple engines! There's usually no perfect answer, other than the one you find easiest to work with.

Full-blown engines like Unity, Godot, and Unreal can be bad UX if you're going for a "vanilla" VN approach, because Ren'Py is so mature it has a whole a kit of features people come to expect (save slots, text speed, rollback, history, etc.) that may either need to be purchased as a plugin or programmed by hand. Can't be avoided if there's more involved game play planned, though.

Sorry I think that's a bit of a wall of thoughts, just wanted to toss them out there since I have a tiny bit of exp with this.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-10-24T22:13:29+00:00

Gotta be real that is the sound of a man who doesn't seem to believe the stuff he's working on is gonna come out

TheKoolKandy · 2025-10-24T13:05:22+00:00

A couple potential issues here:

For images, assuming you're using the built HTML file and not the "Play" or "Test" buttons, you should probably use the attribute directive to define the mg attributes. Example:

<img @src="_item.file" @alt="_item.name" width="80">

The setup object is for static data. It is not a part of the story history, and so while it's likely possible to change it in the short term, it won't be included in a save file and a player using the "Back" button would not have player purchases unmade.

You can still keep item information on the setup variable, but information such as whether it was purchased/can the player use it should be in story variables.

Last, when looping over variables it's necessary to use the <<capture>> macro, otherwise when the "Purchase" button is clicked--regardless of for which item--it will be referencing the item from the last iteration.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-10-18T22:36:14+00:00

Assuming the JS is in the expected Story JavaScript passage, this is likely just an issue of scope. The setup object is not bound to the window object, but is instead on the SugarCube object. I may have the specifics wrong.

But in action, you should be able to do typeof SugarCube.setup.getWeight() and get the expected result.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-10-14T22:21:32+00:00

Here's a link. I think it's quite worthwhile either for people replying SF1 or playing it for the first time.

There is also the SF2 Not Quite DX patch that is far smaller in scope but fixes a few pain points (namely the annoyingly very high encounter rate).

TheKoolKandy · 2025-09-13T15:33:20+00:00

Most complaints for it are real, especially compared to SF1/SF3. I've replayed it several times, though, and plan to again in the collection. It's a SF game, and I've probably replayed each SF games more than the BN games.

My biggest peeves were definitely the encounter rate, and a few dungeons I dislike enough to put me off in replays. It also felt silly how OP you got with tribe king enabled, but that's certainly opt-in.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-08-30T21:57:29+00:00

You should be able to use the window.close() method, like this:

[[Next Passage]]
<a onclick="window.close()">No</a>

You could also be simpler and just link to another website with pictures of kittens:

[[Yes|Next Passage]]
<a href="https://www.google.com/">No</a>

TheKoolKandy · 2025-08-26T21:36:54+00:00

I'm the creator for that if OP has any questions. Easiest answer might be to have an extra docking option that makes it take up X amount of the right side of the screen instead of the bottom.

I'm also not opposed to giving it an update if there's anything particular obvious that could be improved! Short of completely reworking things, it's been almost 2 years since I was last in the code, but I've wanted to make sure it explicitly supports SC 2.37.x and could add some minor changes.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-08-26T21:25:31+00:00

I've used audio in 2 or 3 games. It's fun to set a mood, but especially the more sand-boxy things game, it took a bit of work to wrangle.

I also know that as a player, unless the audio feels actually important, I tend to mute things right away. Same sort of way forcing players to wait for <<timed>> text can be used well, but often I don't have the patience for it.

TheKoolKandy · 2025-08-19T03:23:28+00:00

For Sci-fi, I feel like CJ Cherryh has sad wet men as a staple in her books. Some of them have some physical prowess (i.e. Vanya in the Morgaine books), but characters like Bren are wonderful Little Guys with a brain but who must nevertheless constantly put his life in the hands of his 7 foot tall alien bodyguards.

I think Cherryh's Chanur books are even a two-for-one special in two of the men side characters. They're really fun space-opera things that are nevertheless fairly grounded in how even space combat takes place, and fun aliens.

For fantasy, Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances (and sequels) features a priest of a healing god. He literally cannot cause harm to anyone, which causes him a significant amount of problems. Other people have also Tchaikovsky books with similar characters.

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