Story Format Breakdown

mcoorlim

I'm interested in people's opinions of the different available formats (Harlowe, Sugarcane, SugarCube, Snowman). What are their strengths and weaknesses? What sort of projects are best suited to each? Why would one choose one over another?

If it comes down to personal preference, then what are the factors that make up those preferences?

greyelf

Just for clarity:

The current Twine 2 story formats are Harlowe, Snowman 2, and SugarCube.

The built-in (aka vanilla) Twine 1 story formats are Sugarcane, Johan, and Responsive. Two of the third-party story formats are SugarCube and Snowman 1.

Timster

Sugarcube hands-down, if only simply for the Save functionality. I see little point in writing a sprawling piece of interactive fiction if the player can't even save and come back to it. Sugarcube has saved me a lot of grief in that regard.

Claretta

I like SugarCuibe for its save function too.

I also, perhaps strangely, find the <<if>><</end if>> etc macros of SugarCube more intuitive than Harlowe.

L

Timster wrote:

Sugarcube hands-down, if only simply for the Save functionality. I see little point in writing a sprawling piece of interactive fiction if the player can't even save and come back to it. Sugarcube has saved me a lot of grief in that regard.

I should mention that the main reason this hasn't landed in Harlowe yet is because of complications regarding the new types of data that can be stored in variables: since you're permitted (and expected) to store things like (text-color: "fuchsia") or (dataset: "amulet", "cross", "brooch") in variables as well as plain strings and numbers, some extra work has yet to be done to make these data structures savable.

In the meantime... I was thinking of implementing the save function sooner, but with a restriction: if any variable contains a value other than a string, number or boolean, the save function is disabled for the rest of the game. This feels too arbitrary to be a permanent aspect of the feature, but maybe it'd be useful just for right now.

Claretta

The other aspect of SugarCube I'm really liking is the widgets. For a sprawling work where you have lots of repeated functions they are a godsend.

E.g. I have a news broadcast that changes based on the day it is. Putting this on every page without widgets would be a nightmare.

bawpie

It's good to hear that there is save functionality planned for Harlowe - would the suggested save restriction exclude variables which contain an array?

L

bawpie wrote:

It's good to hear that there is save functionality planned for Harlowe - would the suggested save restriction exclude variables which contain an array?

I can make an exception for arrays... and probably also datamaps and datasets. What I meant would excluded was changers and other commands.