clyde

Twine Recommendations

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Yeah, that was not helpful at all. Do you really equate the knowledge of the Idle Thumbs community with a google search? If so, you aren't doing it right.

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Cuddlefish:

A silly but somewhat game about a cuttlefish trying to have sex. I love this game. Cara Ellison described it well as being like it's narrated by a 15 year old David Attenborough.

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79581979/cuddlefish.html#9

 

Mastaba Snoopy:

Brilliant and in parts absolutely horrific. Based around a decaying computational singularity that's tried to reconstruct Earth, but only has a Peanuts Anthology to go on. Some of the endings are quite beautiful. Most are horrible.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/3p6uthbmkusf2ja/MASTABA%20SNOOPY.html

 

CRY$TAL WARRIOR KE$HA:

Made on the basis of actual Ke$ha quotes.

http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/kesha.html#7

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FreeIndieGam.es features Twine games regularly, but I personally can't recommend any of them as good.

 

As games, the Twine games I've played are hostile to player choice and are genuinely uninterested in any kind of exploration.  As stories, the ones I've read seem artlessly confessional, like clicking through somebody's Xanga.

 

I've taken to speedrunning the Twine games I encounter.  No reading, just clicking.  Just like Diablo!

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FreeIndieGam.es features Twine games regularly, but I personally can't recommend any of them as good.

 

As games, the Twine games I've played are hostile to player choice and are genuinely uninterested in any kind of exploration.  As stories, the ones I've read seem artlessly confessional, like clicking through somebody's Xanga.

 

I've taken to speedrunning the Twine games I encounter.  No reading, just clicking.  Just like Diablo!

I'm facing similar challenges.

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I enjoyed the Mastaba Snoopy one, but the choices are incredibly infrequent. It was too similar to just reading a short story. I did enjoy the premise and how it reminded me of Zeno Clash.

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Ok, the Ke$ha one is pretty awesome. Now that I've read one I like, I have the will to continue my search. Keep the recommendations coming if you find any that are noteworthy.

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Ugh. I couldn't disagree more with mike and clyde: I've had more fun playing Twine games that most other games released in the past few years, and had I not discovered Twine I might've just gotten fed up with gaming as a whole and given this shit up forever. The idea that "choices" make a game good or bad is silly. I don't have any choice when I read a book but most of the books I read are better than most of the games I play. You folks sound like you need to play Is This A Game? or something.

In addition to Nachimir's recommendations, I would go for:

Howling Dogs

Queer Pirate Plane

Myriad

»——-?——-> (by friend of the show JP LeBreton)

Hero Room

Even Cowgirls Bleed

Cyberqueen

Self Portrait AM

Cave of Flies

Shorn Face

How to Speak Atlantean

Aegis Wing

You Will Select A Decision

There Ought to be a Word

Climbing 208 Feet up a Ruin Wall

Very Scary Story imo DO NOT READ

A Game for Davis

Too Tall

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Ugh. I couldn't disagree more with mike and clyde: I've had more fun playing Twine games that most other games released in the past few years, and had I not discovered Twine I might've just gotten fed up with gaming as a whole and given this shit up forever. The idea that "choices" make a game good or bad is silly. I don't have any choice when I read a book but most of the books I read are better than most of the games I play. You folks sound like you need to play Is This A Game? or something.

 

I feel zero shame for wanting to know if I should be expecting a branching narrative or a kinetic novel. People are coming to twines for different reasons, I see no problem with clear labels that help the audience find what they are looking for. It's not that choices make a game "good" or "bad", it's the idea that people are more likely to enjoy something if it fulfills certain expectations. I'm not saying that all interactive fiction should have choices, but I would prefer to know if it is completely linear, because I want to read the ones with choices. 

That said, thank you for the recommendations.

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Sacrilege by Cara Ellison impressed me.

 

I enjoyed that. 

I thought it was interesting that John's rejection due to a sense of honor to his friend was interpreted as a commoditization of the main character. I've had similar experiences (I'm a heterosexual male) where women have refused to consider me as a possible partner because the feel a sense of honor to a female friend who is trying to get with this. Commoditization never occurred to me, though I can see why it would be a chosen analogy. I wonder if this perspective ( that rejection because a friend is also interested, is a property issue) is more common with women in our local cultures than it is with men.

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Ugh. I couldn't disagree more with mike and clyde: I've had more fun playing Twine games that most other games released in the past few years, and had I not discovered Twine I might've just gotten fed up with gaming as a whole and given this shit up forever. The idea that "choices" make a game good or bad is silly. I don't have any choice when I read a book but most of the books I read are better than most of the games I play. You folks sound like you need to play Is This A Game? or something.

 

 

I've re-read the previous posts and I can see where I may have implied that Mastaba Snoopy was not "good" because it had few choices. I also noticed I said I was looking for "good Twine stories" in the first post. I didn't take that into consideration when I responded to your post the first time. 

I do have a much better idea of what I am personally looking for now (compared to what I knew when I typed my first post). I am personally interested in notable twines with branching narratives. 

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I've had more fun playing Twine games that most other games released in the past few years, and had I not discovered Twine I might've just gotten fed up with gaming as a whole and given this shit up forever.

 

 

That's good!  Go with that!

 

I am not putting a good/bad value on choice: Twine is.  And Twine says choice is bad. A Twine game's links are only used to kick players out of the game (witness your This is not a Game link).  They are never used to respond to player input.  Player interest in one aspect of the game over another is only used to punish them.  Improvisation, which builds on audience suggest and performer skill, says "yes, and..."  Twine only says no.

 

(If my repeated use of the word "only" sounds ridiculous, it's my actual experience.)

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That's good!  Go with that!

 

I am not putting a good/bad value on choice: Twine is.  And Twine says choice is bad. A Twine game's links are only used to kick players out of the game (witness your This is not a Game link).  They are never used to respond to player input.  Player interest in one aspect of the game over another is only used to punish them.  Improvisation, which builds on audience suggest and performer skill, says "yes, and..."  Twine only says no.

 

(If my repeated use of the word "only" sounds ridiculous, it's my actual experience.)

I don't think you really understand how Twine works. Twine can be used to make a game with plenty of choice. I don't see how you're punished for being interested in one or another thing. Lots of Twine games don't strike me as punitive at all. You're right that Twine doesn't build on audience suggestions though. Neither does Call of Duty, though, and I would never try to say it was a worse game for that.

KING OF BEES IN FANTASY LAND is great.

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Actually, lack of choice or systems is more to do with the way people are using Twine than Twine itself. One of the reasons I like Cuddlefish compared to many other Twine games is that it has an underlying system you have to tinker with to get to the end.

 

Edit: I think we'll always see a majority of games without elaborate systems or branching narratives, since it's easier and most of us are more habituated to write linear narratives.

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I've read through this thread twice and I still have no idea what Twine is. Aside from the string, of course.

 

Anyone care to elucidate?

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Actually, I think The World Is Not Enough is probably both a skippable film and a skippable game in the Bond franchise. EA kinda fucked up the N64 adaptation. I'd skip TWINE and just play Goldeneye and Everything Or Nothing if you're looking for Bond games.

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Actually, I think The World Is Not Enough is probably both a skippable film and a skippable game in the Bond franchise. EA kinda fucked up the N64 adaptation. I'd skip TWINE and just play Goldeneye and Everything Or Nothing if you're looking for Bond games.

I thought for a second that you were posting in the wrong thread. Then I read it a little more closely and... you win. Awesome post!

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Depression Quest by Zoë Quinn (and some other folks I unfortunately can't remember the names of, very sorry 'bout that) is one of the emotionally strongest experiences with any type of media I've had in years, maybe even the strongest I've ever experienced.

 

It does something that I've been wondering how to do for a long time, which is to provide a fairly accurate representation of depression (at least compared to my own experiences).

With that said, my emotional response to this game may very well be influenced by the fact that I've experienced a lot of what is portrayed in the game. For those who haven't I can't promise that it will be quite as profound or even register at all.

 

The game obviously comes with a bunch of trigger warnings, but I found it to be extremely cathartic.

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Goddamn, that game kicked my ass and I'm reasonably sure I'm not depressed. But just reading some of those passages brought tears to my eyes, maybe because I find it so easy to imagine feeling like that, or that it's so close to myself in a not-too-far -removed universe.

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