Building a Text-Based RPG in Twine

Twine is a framework that allows a user to easy make branching, interactive text and image based narratives and games. It produces an HTML document with multiple links, that allow a player to make decisions and progress through a story, but it requires no knowledge of HTML at all. As the head of the UMass Game Development Club, I find that most members are not programmers, rather are writers, but they still want to create a tangible product of some sort. Twine is the perfect way to allow these writers to develop without having to learn a whole programming language. The idea we came up with for the club was to decide the club into three different teams, each with their own story, and each one would work together to develop it as they see fit.

Our team was given the story of a character in purgatory who is trying to get out. Using Twine, we were able to turn these writers into programmers without them even noticing it.

Outside of the club, I wanted to try to make a basic turn-based RPG in this framework. It uses a markup language called Harlowe, though it also allows the option to modify the project directly in JavaScript. This allows logic statements and well as variables. I began me making a quick wireframe of an example story. Beginning with an init and a main, I established some variables that I would use. Then I made a couple places the plyer could go, including of course, a combat situation. I experimented around with a few different combat systems, like ones with randomness and ones with one entity hitting at a time, but I learned that a quick and simple simultaneous combat system worked best.

This was because I’m not using any animations, so no matter what combat is going to not feel great, so best to end it quickly, as well as the fact that the big appeal of this framework and of this game is how easy it is to build large and deep worlds. A time-consuming combat system would keep players from exploring which defeats the point. The game is in the decisions, and the combat is meant to be only a factor in those decisions or a gate temporarily restricting some of them until some loot is found.

Ultimately, I feel very comfortable developing in Twine and plan on continuing production in this framework.