Text game creator

For Windows , macOS , and Linux bit. Version 1. Do you love Twine? Help support its development! Include explicit content. To have your work listed here, add it to the IFDB.

A new tool has emerged that empowers just about anyone to create a game. It's called Twine. It's extremely easy to use, and it has already given rise to a lively and diverse development scene. You're staring at the blank source code page and wondering where to start. Well, what you need to know is that the compiler automatically comes with a variety of commands understood, including movement between areas and relationships between objects.

In it, I've written some really simple code on the left, and then pressed the "go" button at the top left, thus allowing me to play it on the right side. I input a few commands so that you could see what happened. Let me break down the code one part at a time so that you understand what's going on here. The code can get pretty complicated later, but to write a very simple game, I really only need to show you two examples. The one above is the first. After that, the compiler will treat it as a room.

The description immediately follows, and that should be pretty obvious. The next thing I introduce is the admin, who is an NPC. That's currently the only room in the program, so I don't need to further specific where he is. Then I specified what his description is. Then I placed an article in the room, and specified that it was edible. Then gave it a description. This is all really simple stuff, and pretty much all examples of the same principle: displaying 'things', be they rooms, articles, or people.

This introduces the first really, really important bit of coding. If the player inputs a command, you can subvert that command by saying that instead of doing it, to do something else. In this case, rather than actually eating the article, you're cleverly rebuffed.

In the following example, I'll introduce another room, and the 'if' mechanic. Between those two, you should make it pretty far! The first thing you may notice is that I added a second room, called WonderHowTo. I didn't even have to call it a room in the code, because the compiler knows that if an object is east or west, or north, or whatever of another object, it's probably a room.

Since there are two rooms now, I had to edit their descriptions to say where they were in relation to each other so that players can easily navigate between them.

The most important part, though, is the "Instead of going east" section. Much like the "instead of eating article" that I included before, this time I provided a circumstance in which the player could continue to the East. When the player types 'go east', the program will check to see whether they're carrying the article. If so, it will go ahead and move them to the room. If not, it will rebuff them by saying that they need to take an article with them.

This simple mechanic of 'if' will allow you to create incredibly complicated situations and relationships. Of course, as I said, things can get much, much more complicated, but this quick tutorial should have you hit the ground running. Click the "Create" button after changing these settings to update your text. This can really help add depth to your text.

It's not the same as a full 3d render, but can look good for Minecraft and some other styles of text. This can look great with some styles such as lava, but may need some experimenting with.

Coloured Glow This is a glow using a specified colour. Select the colour you want to use with the swatch to the right. Note that very dark colours won't work here since the colour selected is an "addition" to the overall glow, so you may need to use a strong colour with this option. Note: Glow will usually only apply to the first line of text - see the multi-line option for more details. This setting will ensure that the longest line of text is no bigger than the width you specify.

Click to enable this option, then use the slider beside it to select your maxium width. A ruler will appear underneath your text as a guide to the selected width. Leave it turned off for smaller, optimized file sizes, or enable it for higher colour fidelity in large images. Use the Minecrafter and Minecraftia fonts for classical Minecraft style text, or use one of the existing text styles such as "Minescript" or "Achievement Get".

Hint: You can get the Creeper face using the Minecrafter font by entering an upper-case "A". Textcraft has a built-in style database which you can search or add to with your own style settings. The most popular styles for this month are displayed initially, or you can view the newest or top styles in addition to searching by style name or submitter name. Click on the sample "Tt" text icon to load that specific style.

Signup for a free account to save new styles you create. This buttons controls whether "multi-line" mode is enabled or not. The default is switched on for multi-line mode.