Hypertext and Twine/Inklewriter
This is based on a couple of readings, a how-to guide in a way, and a few hypertext/hyperactivity interactions. There was much going on this week and to be 100% honest, I do not think I understood everything.
To begin this journey we will be looking at a piece by Adam Hammond called “A Total Beginner’s Guide to Twine 2.1.” This article actually goes over what we have learned in class; however, we still go over it for the sake of information. Twine allows you to make stories that are interactive. What is a basic definition of interactive stories? Well, there is no true definition; however, they are something that is engaging and the “reader/viewer” can become part of that world.
According to Hammond, Twine publishes in standard web formats such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and even JavaScript. Using twine means you will need to learn some coding and programming but once you do learn those skills, you can forever use them.
He breaks each step into videos that that range from 13 minutes to 33 minutes; however, he does go into great detail regarding each step. Please watch them for more information and assistance. Tutorial one is all about passages and links. Tutorial 2 is “making your game look awesome with CSS.” Tutorial 3 is adding music and images. Tutorial 4 is variables and programming. The first thing you should know is what is a variable? You may have learned a vague but similar definition in science class. A variable is something that can be changed depending on the situation or anything really — it does not have to be constant.
Another reading regarding Twine is Emily Short’s interactive storytelling, “Choice-based Narrative tools: Twine.” In this reading, she talks about six elements of twine and inklewriter.
First thing first is what is Inklewriter? Inklewriter is a design tool that allows anyone to write and publish interactive stories. It is a great feature for students and even teachers to combine the skills of computer programming and creative writing.
The first element she discusses is visualization. Visualization is what it is, the visual aspect(s) of the piece. That can the “layout map” or actual images, icons, etc. Short says that “twine presents a graphical layout as its primary way of conceding authorship.” Variable handling is next which means code markups. Moreover, Twine will allow you to store Cookies. Cookies are something that saves information from web browsers. You may have experienced them when you are on a website and it asks you to “accept cookies.” If you do, you typically will have a better browsing experience. Next is Segment length. Twine will allow you to have larger text boxes and more words, unlike Inklewriter where you have to break things into much smaller boxes. Another will be Format of presenting choice is how you entrance the reader. One thing to note is twine will allow embedded hypertext, unlike inklewriter. Build Cycle is next on the list. With Twine, you will need to build the story in the app but only see the progress in a browser. Lastly is ownership and monetization. Basically, Twine is free and can be used as you want it, and inkle writer you have to pay for and you can only do so much.
The next reading is an interview with Emily Short and the Author of Howling dogs, Porpentine. The interview is simple. Some things in the interview are that a company does not own twine, it is a simple game maker, and it lets you have freedom. Later on, in the interview, it will list some twine games that I recommend you to try because some are interesting.
Relating back to the previous paragraph, we looked at Howling Dogs in the Browser. It is very simple and straightforward. You have some hypertext to work with. Other than that, it tells a short story of a life — when I mean short, it doesn’t take 5 minutes to get through it.
Luminous Airplanes were written by Paul La Farge and is considered a “hyperromance.” There are options along the bottom that allows you to look around before starting. You have a few options on how to start the story (1) you can begin at the beginning, (2) if you already started the reading, you can continue where you left off, or (3) use the map selection which will allow you to select any part of the story.
Either way, you will be able to look at/read all parts of the story. As you read through each story, there will part of the text that is in blue and I saw a few in green — these are considered hypertext. If you click on them, they will take you to either a side story or another part of the story in general. There are also some pictures scattered sparsely throughout the text. Once you are in the texts, there are two panels. One panel is the reading parts with the hypertext among it. The second panel is a panel with everything on it such as the menu from the beginning, recently visited sections, places you can add bookmarks (to save the section you liked or want to go back to) and to clear the bookmark, and lastly, there is a section that keeps track on how much of the story that you have “explore.” If you want to search up a specific spot, you can because there is a search bar for that as well.
I found the piece by Adam Hammond long and in some places hard to understand. Some of it is nice to review from class and his videos are very helpful. The thing I could not wrap my head around was the coding. Some of the codings were not in the same form as we previously learned. Like what is | bar for? The other of Emily Short’s two were simple and were straight to the point. The Howling Dogs was short and basic but gave you an idea of how to use hypertext. Luminous Airplanes — that is a long one. The stories are nice and there are graphics as well. La Farge did you plenty of hypertext using a variety of colors. My only issue was that some of the hypertext was grey so it was a bit difficult to see among the rest of the text.