Twine Basics

Twine Editing Interface

To create a story in Twine

  1. Navigate to https://twinery.org/
  2. Click ‘Use in your browser’
  3. In the top-left corner, click + New to create a new story. Give yours a name
  4. The editor has an overall map with a single passage – double click to edit
  5. Enter some text and rename your passage
  6. Click Test From Here to preview your game in a new tab

Basics

  • Link to a new passage using double square brackets [[pasage name]]
  • Use hash marks to create headers: # Header 1 and ## Header 2
  • Use ** for **bold** and * for *italic*
  • Use the WYSIWYG editor for other types of customizations

Vocabulary

  • Markup - How data is structured, displayed, and organized (general term)
  • Story - A Twine project (i.e. a website, game, or book)
  • Passage - A contained section of a Twine story (a page or “node” in the network)
  • Macro - A bit of code used to change functionality or style of text, indicated with parentheses
  • Hook - The passage of text that a macro acts on, indicated with square brackets (font: "Arial")[This text will be in Arial.]
  • Variable - A container for values and words that can change within the game (set: $myName to "Alice") Hello, $myName!

Tips

  • Preview/test your work often to make sure everything works
  • When using the browser editor, export your game every time you are finished
  • Create an outline or storyboard before you try to build complex functionality
  • To check your story format: from the story editor, select ‘Details’ and select ‘Harlowe 3.3.9’