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Agency: The Key to Making Fun, Immersive, Non-Linear Interactive Twine Games

Greetings! :)

At Trip's prompt, I decided to start a conversation about what I think makes a good Twine game.

For the purpose of this thread, loosely defined, I think a story is something someone reads and a game is something someone plays. In this thread, I'm talking about Twine games and not stories that just so happen to be written in Twine.

What I personally enjoy are fun, interesting, immersive non-linear interactive Twine games. I want to play a game, not read a story.

I read a lot. If for some reason I want to suddenly read an amateur flash fiction, I'm not going to flip through games on the Interactive Fiction Database.

Growing up, I read a lot of Choose Your Own Adventure books. I also read whatever gamebook I could get. I was thrilled when several years ago, I learned all the Lone Wolf gamebooks were available for free download! Most Twiners don't seem to have ever read any CYOA or gamebooks and don't seem to create works at all similar to them. For me, that's a shame, because that's what I like. Not everyone likes that, but I do.

Most Twine stories don't even pretend to be IF. They are stories and are not meant to be games. That's fine. I'm not interested in them, but if that's what the Twine user wants to do, more power to them.

However, some Twine "games" have almost no agency at all, and that is a big problem.

What is agency? Here's Emily Short's definition:

[quote=Emily Short]Lets say, for now, that agency is the players ability to affect the world and story, and it depends, in turn, on whether the player can form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action.

Basically, "agency" is defined as "meaningful choice" in interactive fiction.

(For more about agency, read the rest of Emily Short's blog post on the matter: http://emshort.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/types-of-action-and-types-of-agency/)

Text games need meaningful choice and plenty of it. The more choice and the more meaning that choice has in the outcome of the story, the more fun and immersive the game is.

For example, this is not what I consider a good choice:

[quote]Start

You wake up in your apartment to the sound of the alarm clock.

>Hit snooze.
>Get up.

There's no agency at all in that choice. Perhaps the alarm's buzzer has a bomb attached to it. You hit it, you die and the game is over. Perhaps there's a time bomb under the bed. If you don't get up, you die and the game is over. Who knows? The bigger problem is, who even cares? Besides the fact that the "choice" is mundane and boring, it's basically asking, "Do you want to play along or not?" Chances are, if you choose "hit snooze," the game is going to continue until you get out of bed and do whatever the author plans. So, in the end, no matter what, there's no agency and no real choice at all.

Compare this lack of agency to the But Thou Must trope:

[quote=TV Tropes]The problem, however, is this: The writer already has the script plotted out, and your decision, whatever it is, is going to affect all of jack squat. Either the other characters will just ignore the answer and get on with what you're supposed to be doing, or they'll ask the question over and over until you make the "correct" choice. You might see some altered dialogue or a slightly different scene, but the plot itself will remain largely unchanged. In particularly egregious cases, such as the page image, the dialogue tree will give you multiple "yes" options but not a single "no".

That's bad. That's so bad, it gets it own trope. ;D

If Twine game makers could improve that one aspectadding as much real choice to the game as possibleI think Twine games would be much better as a whole and be more accepted by the IF community in the process.

It's not even that hard to do. Even what I called a boring, mundane illusion of a choice can be given some amount of agency with a few short sentences.

Consider the same example passage with a few more sentences:

[quote]Start

You wake up in your apartment to the sound of the alarm clock. The words of your police informant, one who has never before provided false information, echo in your sleepy mind:

"The next time you hear a buzzer: you better shut it down ASAP. I don't know what they're planning, but somewhere, there's a bomb and it's got a buzzer attached. You've got sixty seconds after it goes off before boom!"

>Hit snooze.
>Get up.

Now, the player has been given some information to make reasonable guess about the results of their choice, but the choice still has no agency. The player knows that staying in bed might mean death by explosion, but that only means there's no reason to choose "Hit snooze." It's not a meaningful choice, unless you consider the ability to choose death and end the story meaningful. By strict definition, it is, but in the practical sense, it's not.

Let's make it a meaningful choice:

[quote]Start

You wake up in your apartment to the sound of the alarm clock. The words of your police informant, one who has never before provided false information, echo in your sleepy mind:

"There are two bombs. One is attached to your kidnapped boyfriend's chest. The other is attached to a buzzer somewhere; I don't know where, but it'll be somewhere around you. You hear a buzzer, you got sixty seconds to shut it down or it goes boom. Here's the catch. If you can't disarm it and it doesn't explode, your boyfriend's will."

>Hit snooze.
>Get up.

Now the player has a real choice to make: hit snooze to buy yourself some more time to try to disarm it, or get up and try to escape before getting blown to smithereens.

Maybe the "get up" choice leads to the following passage:

[quote]Frantically, you throw off the covers and get out of bed.

>Dive through the window, chancing a three-story drop onto a concrete sidewalk below.
>Tear apart the alarm clock and try to disarm the bomb, if present.
>Run out the bedroom door hoping the bomb, if present, isn't powerful enough to blow up your whole apartment.

Maybe the "hit snooze" choice leads here:

[quote]Frantically, you throw off the covers and slam your hand down on the snooze button hoping that will buy you more time.

>Dive through the window, chancing a three-story drop onto a concrete sidewalk below.
>Tear apart the alarm clock in order to defuse the bomb, if present.
>Run out the bedroom door hoping the bomb, if present, isn't powerful enough to blow up your whole apartment.

Now, we're talking about a game with some real agency, some real, meaningful choice right out the gate. There's a lot more that can be done with the scenario, but we're off to a good start. Diving out the window is a chance, but we all know of people who have fallen 30 feet and survived. It also means saving the player's boyfriend. However, maybe the player can disarm the bomb and keep the other form going off. Who knows? Hopefully, the player will care and will enjoy finding out. :)

So, in conclusion, I think adding agency to a Twine game is the most essential aspect of making it a fun, interesting, and immersive interactive fiction.

What do you all think? Do you try to include as much agency in your Twine games as you can? What makes a Twine game fun?

Thanks for reading! :)
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Comments

  • Choices yes. Fully informed choices? Not so sure.

    Part of it comes down to the contract between the author and the reader - this is a game and is played for enjoyment.  While choices may change or even shorten the game, the results shouldn't be arbitrary or capricious.  You should not need to use knowledge garnered on a previous run through the game to win on this run through.

    Consider a scenario where you see some gold on the ground.  Pick it up or leave it be?  There's presumably some risk associated with gathering it, as you're being asked whether or not you want to.  Don't get it, you don't have any gold, which may limit your options later in the game.  Do get it and you'll probably face a challenge - which may have a spectrum of possible outcomes, at least some of which mean survival and may even be more beneficial than simply gaining 2 coins.

    Games need different paths - not all need to lead to victory and they are allowed to diverge and recombine (although not necessarily with the player in the same state - that's part of the history of how they got there).  Point is that choices should select between paths - in simple games they do it immediately, in more sophisticated ones they can do it later or have more subtle influences such as changing how characters react to you.

    Consider your 'snooze' or 'get up' example.  Get up, shower, have breakfast, go to work, get there in time to read your email before the morning briefing - reward is breakfast and the information in the emails.  Hit snooze, get some extra rest, maybe reflect on the day ahead or doze off and dream, get up late, skip the shower and breakfast and get to the office just in time for the briefing - reward is more energy from resting longer and some information from your reflections and/or dream (although you may find your tummy rumbling at some inconvenient point because you skipped breakfast and get some comments about your  personal hygiene - maybe changing some interaction options).  Neither path is wrong, they just prepare you differently for the challenges you are going to face.  If the author is being fair, both should allow you a chance of success - although probably not with the same choice tree.  This also ups the re-playability of the game, as different choices change the nature of the puzzle you are trying to solve.

    The other thing is not to spoon feed the player the solution.  Put some clues in, give them opportunities to follow up on them, but, ultimately, if they miss them, allow them to fail.  Most CYOA have a few different paragraphs for ignominious (or sometimes really spectacular) failure.  If they get to the final confrontation without the mystical orbs of power, then the baddie is going to win...tough. It's a game, they lost. Try again.  Ideally the branch points at which they can loose shouldn't be to early in the game - or should lead to a fairly quick end.  One of the things that really annoyed me about one of the Zork games was that you could render the game unwinnable within two moves of starting - something about picking a seedling - without any warning.  Even if you spent 50 hours playing the rest of the game right, you were stuffed.
  • mykael wrote:

    Choices yes. Fully informed choices? Not so sure.


    Sure! But, there's a big difference between "fully informed" and enough information for the player to "form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action."

    Of course, some choices may be a total mystery to the player (hopefully not ones that end in death/game over though!). If that's the game maker's intent and it adds to fun and interesting game play, then that's the route to go.

    mykael wrote:
    Part of it comes down to the contract between the author and the reader - this is a game and is played for enjoyment.  While choices may change or even shorten the game, the results shouldn't be arbitrary or capricious.  You should not need to use knowledge garnered on a previous run through the game to win on this run through.


    Good point! The "contract" you describe is much like the Golden Rule of role-playing games: Everyone at the table should have fun. Note, that's different than Rule #0, which goes something like: "The Game Master isn't always right, but he's always the Game Master." ;)

    mykael wrote:
    Consider your 'snooze' or 'get up' example.  Get up, shower, have breakfast, go to work, get there in time to read your email before the morning briefing - reward is breakfast and the information in the emails.  Hit snooze, get some extra rest, maybe reflect on the day ahead or doze off and dream, get up late, skip the shower and breakfast and get to the office just in time for the briefing - reward is more energy from resting longer and some information from your reflections and/or dream (although you may find your tummy rumbling at some inconvenient point because you skipped breakfast and get some comments about your  personal hygiene - maybe changing some interaction options).  Neither path is wrong, they just prepare you differently for the challenges you are going to face.  If the author is being fair, both should allow you a chance of success - although probably not with the same choice tree.  This also ups the re-playability of the game, as different choices change the nature of the puzzle you are trying to solve.


    Totally agreed. My example was just a little more exciting and shorterit was just a quick example. Yours is also a good example of non-linear game play.

    However, the game maker must take care that too many of these these clicks are little more than a digital version of turning the page. The more meaning choices have, the more immersion and fun they are.

    Of course, not every passage can end in a choice and not every choice can have profound results. The key is to add enough agency to the game to make it fun, interesting and immersive!

    mykael wrote:
    The other thing is not to spoon feed the player the solution.  Put some clues in, give them opportunities to follow up on them, but, ultimately, if they miss them, allow them to fail.  Most CYOA have a few different paragraphs for ignominious (or sometimes really spectacular) failure.


    Most CYOA's do, but this is one aspect"agency"that I would like to see improved in most Twine games. I agree that failure should be an ultimate option. Without that, again, there's no agency; every choice would be a win.

    Thanks for the comments! :)
  • I agree, apart from this bit:
    [quote]It's not even that hard to do.
    If every choice is meaningful (in the sense of affecting the world), then every choice combination should have its own ending. If you have two choice combinations with the same ending, then there is no difference in the world, and the choice was not meaningful. And you do not need many choices to have a huge number of choice combinations.

    I am not saying you are wrong about making Twine games fun (I posted a similar comment on another forum that said much the same). There is a reason most games are linear; they are easier to write them that way.

    What would be great would be ideas of how to actually implement a game that has a lot of agency, and is still manageable. How to give an illusion of agency, perhaps.
  • Very interesting thread! I honestly didn't know about it, at least not conceptually. The agency problem is exactly what I felt for most IFs I played. For that reason I decided to follow more the path of stories rather than of games. Putting choices just to make it "interactive" was something that, for me, was completely broken and ruined the whole point of making something interactive. In other words, interactivity was actually making the experience worst.

    By now I only made 2 Twine stories, the 1st was clearly a story. Links are there for the user to explore, but this will only reward him with more information and knowledge about the world (and maybe some nice curiosities) that will give him/her a broader perspective when reading the rest of the story. But the only choices you make are in which order you want to access the information. I opt for this idea exactly not to follow the path of forcing users to make choices they don't understand with consequences they couldn't see in any way.

    My second one I finished these days for the Cyberpunk Jam and the idea was to be more of a game, although it followed the path of a story as well. I added a mechanic to it where the player can access the cyberspace, which puts him in the same passage, but with a different look. This gives exclusive options for the player to explore (as well as being in "real life" have its exclusiveness). In this work, I think I got closer to a game where you can have other options like choosing the paths, solving a puzzle and two moments of decisions (that I couldn't implement ACTUAL consequences, although it was in the plans). One is a moment where some thugs assault you and you can deal with them from the cyberspace or in real life, and the other moment is actually the ending.

    Nonetheless, thanks for the insights =)!! This was very helpful for me and I'll keep in mind in my next project :D!
  • One thing to think about is how characters in the game world interact with your character.  You could use a simple choice when you first meet a character to determine how they feel about your character.

    Praise the rookie cop on the scene and he'll worship you, going above and beyond to help you.  Ignore him and he'll just do what's expected.  Belittle him, and he'll desert you in your hour of need. 

    Flirt with a girl, and she'll flirt back, be rude to her and she'll be a bitch. 

    One choice, mostly the same game path, but different experiences, potentially changing many scenes and, perhaps, opening one or two up and shutting one or two down.

    These are choices that let players express themselves and see it reflected back by the game.  It's lets them explore social interactions within the game space.  Later events and actions on your part may lead the character to change how they view your character - switching them to a different dialog set.

    Mostly it's about giving the player freedom to explore and to try different solutions - to make the rail road tracks a bit less visible.
  • The wrote:

    I agree, apart from this bit:
    [quote]It's not even that hard to do.


    I very much agree that writing a good non-linear interactive fiction is harder than writing the "same" story traditionally. I didn't mean to sound flippant, but it "simply" comes down to giving the player enough information to make an informed decision and making the choices matter.

    The wrote:
    If every choice is meaningful (in the sense of affecting the world), then every choice combination should have its own ending. If you have two choice combinations with the same ending, then there is no difference in the world, and the choice was not meaningful. And you do not need many choices to have a huge number of choice combinations.


    Well, every choice in the game doesn't have to make a profound change in the world for the game to have plenty of agency.

    I agree that agency in Twine games causes branches in almost all cases, but remember that Twine games are pretty varied creatures. Choices with plenty of agency in Twine games won't always create a branch of passages. The "difference in the world" might be a player ability/attribute or equipment (handled by changing $variables), for example. But, yes, agency leads to increased game complexity for the most part by far. No doubt about it.

    The wrote:
    What would be great would be ideas of how to actually implement a game that has a lot of agency, and is still manageable. How to give an illusion of agency, perhaps.


    "Illusion of agency," I like that.

    Nick Keirle wrote a case study on the illusion of agency: End Boss. It breaks all the guidelines I propose in this thread and still remains one of my favorite Twine games ever.  :)

    iurikato wrote:
    Nonetheless, thanks for the insights =)!! This was very helpful for me and I'll keep in mind in my next project :D!


    I look forward to playing it! :)

  • This is a great thread and a very interesting, thought-provoking read in itself. Dare I say, much more satisfying than trying to find a solution to a frustrating CSS or Javascript problem?!

    Sharpe wrote:


    What I personally enjoy are fun, interesting, immersive non-linear interactive Twine games. I want to play a game, not read a story.



    I'm also a big fan of all kinds of gamebooks. I'm nearly fifty, but those ill-spent years of my 'youth' (and beyond) reading and playing through many, may Fighting Fantasy, Fabled Lands and Lone Wolf books, are still with me.

    However, although enjoying the stories, I've quite often had a problem with finding agency with my actions as the hero. Am I really the hero? What's my backstory? What's my motivation for taking part in this adventure? Am I supposed to react in the story as the fighter/wizard/thief character, or react as me, the person playing the role of one of those characters?

    I found a series of articles that, alongside 're-inventing gamebooks', look into several aspects of bonding with the hero and immersing yourself in the story/game. I don't know if anyone else would find them interesting. Here's the link to the start of the articles: http://blog.mysteriouspath.com/2013/03/the-problem-with-gamebooks-trilogy-part.html

    At the moment, I'm more interested in writing stories, rather than playing a game... but with a twist!

    I'm currently trying to turn an existing wiki-based role-playing game (with over 2000 wiki page/'passages') into a game that writes a story. I don't know if that's a good description! In other words, I want to turn it on it's head and have a story in which you actively participate, instead of explicitly playing a game. The game effectively ends with an 'outline story' of your game session which you can flesh out to write a story of the game you just played. I now want to try to hide all of the game aspects and all the mechanics. The player should be able to enjoy reading along and steering the story without really noticing that they are playing a game. Much more of an overall interactive adventure story experience, rather than throwing the dice, deciding on which game option. making a move, resolving the current situation and then back to throwing the dice.

    Twine seems like a good tool in which I can start to do this. Hopefully leveraging the wiki aspects buried in Twine and using my knowledge of TiddlyWiki and adding some new stuff... oops STOP! Forget the technical-stuff here!  :o

    But I really do need to get the agency right. I'm taking a fairly traditional solo RPG with rules and adventure sourcebooks and trying to make each story read like a short fantasy/sciene-fiction novella. If you can't engage with the story, or you can't connect with your character then it'll just be, behind the scenes, a story with a hero full of very detailed stats and possibilities, but without any soul to make you want to come back and play.

    I do like technology and all the bit-twiddling (I've been doing it long enough!), but a good discussion about how to write and present a story to maximise the engagement with the reader or player is, for me, equally interesting.
  • I'm having a lot of difficulty responding to this. I keep writing stuff and deleting it.

    Sharpe, I understand what you're saying but I disagree with the idea that games and stories are two separate things.

    A game of cards is clearly just a game. Chess, checkers: games. They have virtually no narrative.

    Candyland: still a game. But it has a lot of narrative.

    Magic: the Gathering: very much a game. Like Candyland, also has a lot of narrative. I'd say games like this are 70% game, 30% story.

    Zork, etc (take your pick of parser-based text adventure games): These are like 50/50 split! Ungodly abominations!

    Yeah, so...Twine creations I think are basically like parser-based text adventure games. The platform itself lends itself to making products that are roughly 50/50 game and story.

    Sure, individual text adventures (parser-based or Twine-like, take your pick) are going to be more or less game- or story-heavy, but for the most part the two elements are intertwined in this genre.

    So, Sharpe, I think you're taking exception to Twine products that are very story-heavy and game-light, but really, I feel as if you're overstating the prevalence of these, and also overstating a distinction between stories and games when most Twine products are heavy on both.

    By your own definition of a good game, from memory I would say the Lone Wolf books you want to emulate are poor, poor examples of games. Because, similarly to the simpler Choose Your Own Adventure line of books, there was basically just one narrative arc, one good ending, with a million tiny little branches coming off of the trunk all ending in ignominious deaths. That's not agency, man.

    What say you? ;D
  • loopernow wrote:
    Sharpe, I understand what you're saying but I disagree with the idea that games and stories are two separate things.


    Well, that's why I double-hedged my definitions with "for the purpose of this thread" and "loosely defined."

    This whole thread would have made no sense at all without a distinction between the two. Agency is only a concept in games and not at all one in stories.

    You're right that "a story is something you read" wouldn't fly in any literature course! :D

    loopernow wrote:
    Yeah, so...Twine creations I think are basically like parser-based text adventure games.


    I agree that games written in Twine certainly can be a lot like parser-based IF.

    Agency is a very, very popular topic of discussion in the IF community, BTW.

    loopernow wrote:
    Sure, individual text adventures (parser-based or Twine-like, take your pick) are going to be more or less game- or story-heavy, but for the most part the two elements are intertwined in this genre.


    Words make a story. Words make a text game. Yes, words are inseparable from both. I agree.

    loopernow wrote:
    So, Sharpe, I think you're taking exception to Twine products that are very story-heavy and game-light, but really, I feel as if you're overstating the prevalence of these, and also overstating a distinction between stories and games when most Twine products are heavy on both.


    You're right that I don't often enjoy flash fiction written in Twine, but this thread is about agency. Agency can't be present in a traditional story, but I contend it needs to be improved in Twine games.

    However, I'm not "overstating a distinction between stories and games" in the context of the thread, which is entirely about agency in Twine games and not at all about traditional, linear stories written in Twine.

    loopernow wrote:
    By your own definition of a good game, from memory I would say the Lone Wolf books you want to emulate are poor, poor examples of games. Because, similarly to the simpler Choose Your Own Adventure line of books, there was basically just one narrative arc, one good ending, with a million tiny little branches coming off of the trunk all ending in ignominious deaths. That's not agency, man.


    That's a little bit like saying the original Dungeons & Dragons isn't an example of a good RPG because newer, modern pencil-and-paper RPGs have progressed in different directions.

    Lone Wolf games could be brutal (but not compared to the Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy books, in my opinion), but they also had a high degree of agency. Sometimes, they did fail in that regard. Badly. They still did a lot better than some Twine games I've played. I also think maybe your memory could use some refreshing. I challenge you to go play the first book and report back. :)

    Also, remember, we're talking about the early 80's here. We're taking about pioneers of the IF genre. We're talking about nostalgia. We can cut them some slack, I think. ;)
  • veryalien wrote:
    This is a great thread and a very interesting, thought-provoking read in itself. Dare I say, much more satisfying than trying to find a solution to a frustrating CSS or Javascript problem?!


    Oh. My. Gawd.

    I cannot protect you from what will come now.

    undefinedundefinedundefinedundefined

    That's right. FOUR memes giving you the stare-down!

    ;D LOLJK

    veryalien wrote:
    I'm also a big fan of all kinds of gamebooks. I'm nearly fifty, but those ill-spent years of my 'youth' (and beyond) reading and playing through many, may Fighting Fantasy, Fabled Lands and Lone Wolf books, are still with me.


    They were great times, man. :) I'm "only" 33, but I feel like a dang time traveler from some bygone era in college sometimes.

    veryalien wrote:
    I found a series of articles that, alongside 're-inventing gamebooks', look into several aspects of bonding with the hero and immersing yourself in the story/game. I don't know if anyone else would find them interesting. Here's the link to the start of the articles: http://blog.mysteriouspath.com/2013/03/the-problem-with-gamebooks-trilogy-part.html


    I took a look and I have to say I fervently disagreed with many of the author's opinions. Still, he makes several good points and raises concerns Twine game makers should consider. Good link! :)

    veryalien wrote:
    At the moment, I'm more interested in writing stories, rather than playing a game... but with a twist!


    Sounds great, man! :)

    veryalien wrote:
    I'm taking a fairly traditional solo RPG with rules and adventure sourcebooks and trying to make each story read like a short fantasy/sciene-fiction novella. If you can't engage with the story, or you can't connect with your character then it'll just be, behind the scenes, a story with a hero full of very detailed stats and possibilities, but without any soul to make you want to come back and play.


    Very true. I'm using Twine to re-write a gamebook I made years and years ago for the GURPS pencil-and-paper RPG with that same goal.
  • [quote]I also think maybe your memory could use some refreshing. I challenge you to go play the first book and report back. :)

    I just might do that. It's been a very long time. ;)

    [quote]What do you all think? Do you try to include as much agency in your Twine games as you can? What makes a Twine game fun?

    One thing that makes a Twine game fun for me is inventivess...I played a game yesterday by L about a lawyer who's just stolen land, via a bark document, from a bear. It was funny and well-written.

    Another thing would be strength of characterization. @Sharpe, you mentioned Horse Master here a while back, which piqued my interest, and I played it recently, it was freakin' good. One reason it was good is that it did a good job of conveying the psychological state of "you" the player, a state of desperation and uncertainty slowly revealed over time.

    Whimsy/wonder: One thing I really like about interactive fiction is being able to explore a world; reading about what you're experiencing while it unfolds in your imagination in your own unique way. I remember this fondly about Zork and Beyond Zork (even though I never got close to finishing either game). Naked Shade by Porpentine and Andi McClure does a good job of capturing that sense of "worldness" with the barest minimum of text. Metrolith by Porpentine does this too. Both of these games are very spare but they still do this particular thing really well.

    Humor: Not all good games are funny, but all truly funny games are good.

    Ease: Honestly, I really suck at most games. I don't generally enjoy puzzles. If a game is pretty dang easy, but not completely so, I generally like that. But other elements mentioned above have to be in place too.

  • Okay, here's how I'll try and come into the conversation: I won't be going the "long post" route, I've found it ineffective, for me. Rather, a couple of theoretical rules of thumb - they may or may not hold up under scrutiny - and then a the scrutiny itself, an example passage:  pure text, mind you, what I hope is to start us on a chain of suggestions as to what post-passage options and/or in-passage hyperlinks would be possible for something like that, along with what effect this or that might have. If you're down with it. If not, I suppose I can do it alone, too :)

    The Rules of thumb:

    1. Keep it short - 50 to 150 words/passage, 200 at the outside. You want to keep people in player/actor mode, not "static reader" mode.
    2. Keep stuff coming at people - static descriptions of a room with "Pick up vase/Open chest/Close window" type of options doesn't keep the player engaged. Have something actively tug at his/her interest.
    3. Include cool info, twists and even introduce new information in the choices themselves.
    4. If you use hypertext, don't have a link lead to a static description of the chosen object. (Ex.: Your hero's riding to a castle at breakneck speed. "Castle" is hyperlinked. The player clicks and is battered by an infodump about the castle's history or the hero's reminiscences about it. No, thanks.)
    5. Longer series of more finely granulated choices. Keeps the player invested in a line of choices, like spending a few turns continually moving his Hero to the windmill to collect that 500 gold, you know.
    6. A twist on 5.. but logically following 2.: Let choices have unexpected consequences. Outline a goal for the player, then after he/she starts toward it, have something come from left field, tug his/her attention somewhat astray. Then have *another* thing do that to the second thing. See how long you can keep it up ;).

    That's what I can think of for now. If you agree with the example text idea, what would be the most convenient format? Simple text right here, a twine file, an html-ed twine file?

  • Trip wrote:

    That's what I can think of for now. If you agree with the example text idea, what would be the most convenient format? Simple text right here, a twine file, an html-ed twine file?


    I'd prefer something that can be read inline. For example, Twee syntax in a code block:

    :: Start

    You wake up in your apartment to the sound of the alarm clock.

    [[Hit snooze.]]
    [[Get up.]]
    (Twee syntax is just like Twine, but with "::" at the beginning of a line to start a new passage.)

    Coming back to the original subject:

    The wrote:

    If every choice is meaningful (in the sense of affecting the world), then every choice combination should have its own ending. If you have two choice combinations with the same ending, then there is no difference in the world, and the choice was not meaningful. And you do not need many choices to have a huge number of choice combinations.


    Indeed spinning off a unique branch on every choice is not feasible: you could only write a very short game before the number of combinations goes out of control.

    One way to handle this is to have branches merge soon. For example, if you have to get past a guard to get into a castle, have separate sections describing how you bribe the guard or how you threaten to have him fired if he doesn't let you in to speak to the queen immediately. But at the end of those passages, link to the same passage describing what happens once you're inside the castle.

    You can also set a variable to remember the choice, so you can check it later in the story. For example, if you meet the same guard again and you bribed him the first time, he may try to get rewarded again before doing something for you. If you threatened him and you're now in a position of authority, he may follow your orders, but if you're asking for help as an equal he may refuse.

    You can exploit the difference between what feels like a choice that matters to the player and a choice that actually changes the flow of the game a lot. Even if all offered options will get you past the guard, the choice might have future consequences. The player doesn't know which choices do and which choices don't, so if the game makes it clear that some choices have consequences beyond the immediately following passage, the player will have to consider the long-term consequences for all choices.

    Choices are also a way to role play the experience: a paragon of virtue wouldn't bribe the guard, a shady character would, a pragmatic character might bribe the guard and then inform the queen that her guard is not trustworthy. The story that unfolds in the player's mind is bigger than the words in the passages and the great thing about it is that you don't have to write it, only feed it.

    When it comes to the writing process, I think it makes sense to first create an outline of the story branches before writing the actual text. This to avoid having to throw away a lot of text when it turns out a branch cannot be merged back into the rest of the story. The Twine story board is a useful format to visualize the flow of the story.

    I think that designing depth-first (start with creating at least one path leading to an ending) is more likely to succeed than breadth-first (always create the missing passage closest to the start), since with breadth-first you might get stuck in a situation where you have created so many branches that finishing the story becomes unfeasible. I don't have enough experience to back up this claim, so I'd like to hear from people who have actually finished one or more games.

    What might deserve a thread of its own is how to deal with feedback on a game. What is a good moment to first show the game to other people and ask for feedback? And how should you use feedback to change your game? For example, players might tell you they'd like "more choices", but does that mean the current choices insufficient or do they just want to see more content?
  • Must say I prefer something I can read inline - Twee is good, and, if you save it to a file, can be imported into Twine.  Links and downloads are all good, but fast direct access to the data makes things a lot simpler.  I'm much less likely to look at it if it's at the other end of a link.

    I tend to use 'keyframes' (keypassages?) in terms of plot - passages where different story branches are going to reconverge with a fairly well defined state, and the route between really doesn't matter.  For your example with the guard, the keyframes would be 'standing outside the gate with the guard blocking your way' and 'standing in a courtyard inside the castle'.  Other than a few behavior flags the rest of the story really doesn't care how you get from on to the next.  Bribe the guard, threaten him, pay a wizard to teleport you past him, go find someone you met earlier with a hot air balloon, pay a wizard to turn it invisible and get the pilot to fly you over the wall (although this may get you there a day later rather than a few minutes later).  The only thing you have to watch is the time of day and your overall state of dress and health.  Sometimes branches will have their own keyframes, while other branches may not.  Not a problem, just more play in the more detailed side branch.  I generally like to have a pretty good idea of the keyframe I'm aiming for before I start writing a branch.

    Going back to the apartment scenario, your top level keyframes might be:
    ::App1
    You are in bed, your alarm starts ringing...

    ::Off1
    You arrive at the office, park and head upstairs.
    Typically I'll add an extra exit keyframe for the end of the Apartment scene:
    ::AppX1
    You finally manage to get into your car and drive off to work.

    [[Continue|Off1]]
    Sometimes I'll need more than one exit keyframe, but usually it can all be channeled through the same one.

    The other important word I used above is 'scene'.  A scene generally has a goal, a purpose to advance the overall story (or, perhaps, to distract and misdirect the player).  Think of your story/game as a series of scenes, like a play or a movie.  Some paths you skip a scene, others you get a bonus scene.  Overall though, you head towards one or more ending scenes.  I used to do some PnP DM'ing, and I found that the stories I was writing for my players worked a lot better in terms of scenes rather than just as a flat description of what was there with a few notes about various plot threads.  Scenes focus the action on the story rather than leaving the player hanging with a miriad of options, most of which won't do anything interesting.
  • I agree on some points, disagree on most.  ;) I'm going to continue using the morning routine examples, so it may silly at times.

    I don't think it's bad when people create Twine projects that are essentially one single story that you click on to keep it moving. Twine lets you do so many different things, so I actually like how diverse Twine games and projects in general can be.

    As far as more game-like projects go, I don't believe all choices need to be informed ones. If you're making a meaningful choice, all it takes is for you to be forced to stop and think about which option you want to take, even re-play the game to get a different ending by choosing something different. In choose-your-own-adventure books, sometimes turning to another page and making the wrong decision killed off your character so you had to obsessively chase different paths to get an ending you liked. Or you just ended up understanding how things worked in that world and being able to make better decisions.

    A bad game will add in those options you listed as an example for no real reason. There won't be any difference between choosing either option or it'll just tell you that because you overslept there was no game.

    A good game will make those things have a bearing on your story. It can be something immediate. Maybe if you wake up late you dodge an annoying incident on the street or it affects your options of what you can have for breakfast. It can be something more remote, maybe the story goes on as normal because you wake up late but you're not late to work but because you were in a hurry, you forgot something important you have to give to your boss at the end of the day so when that part of the story rolls around you see how a decision you made earlier has affected it.

    I suspect that a lot of people go with false choices for a simple reason. Most people using Twine are making their games on their own spare time and with an intention of sharing them with players. They have to make something that can be shared within a foreseeable future and that will hold their audience's interest.

    I also think that a lack of options or being clueless about your options can have an interesting effect on a game. I can imagine how certain genres could take advantage of the full potential of limiting a player's choices or keeping them in the dark about the meaning of their choices. I've seen Twine games that I loved, not because they were highly complex with many different consequences, but because they took advantage of the format's potential and did interesting things with it that made me more engrossed in the story, not less.
  • NotNintendo wrote:
    I agree on some points, disagree on most.  ;)


    Agency is a well established principal in IF. I didn't make this stuff up; Emily Short is a highly-recognized voice in the IF community. So, my convictions are pretty firm that agency is one of the most important aspects of interactive fiction.

    It's my opinion, that Twine games are particularly lacking in this regard. If you disagree with that, then that's your opinion and I respect that. :)

    NotNintendo wrote:
    I don't think it's bad when people create Twine projects that are essentially one single story that you click on to keep it moving.


    I wholeheartedly agree, but then we're not talking about the same thing. Like I said right up front in the third and fourth sentence:

    Sharpe wrote:
    For the purpose of this thread, loosely defined, I think a story is something someone reads and a game is something someone plays. In this thread, I'm talking about Twine games and not stories that just so happen to be written in Twine.


    NotNintendo wrote:
    As far as more game-like projects go, I don't believe all choices need to be informed ones.


    I agree. I didn't say all choices require copious amounts of agency. I'm talking about adding agency to a game as a whole, not every single choice in the entire game, which would be practically impossible.

    NotNintendo wrote:
    A good game will make those things have a bearing on your story.


    Right. "Agency." Again, as defined by Emily Short:

    Sharpe wrote:
    What is agency? Here's Emily Short's definition:

    [quote=Emily Short]Lets say, for now, that agency is the players ability to affect the world and story, and it depends, in turn, on whether the player can form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action.


    NotNintendo wrote:
    I also think that a lack of options or being clueless about your options can have an interesting effect on a game.


    Sure. That's another way an author can take direct control of how much agency a game has, by intentionally creating bewilderment for a certain affect.

    So, it sounds like we mostly agree to me. :)
  • @NotNintendo, I'd say that disagreeing "with most" would imply that you think the stuff Sharpe talks about works in a fundamentally different way. What I saw, though, was just you pointing out exceptions to the general principle and saying it should, on occasion, be disregarded.

    All of it is true. But it is tangential, I think.

    It really comes down to the player being able to formulate some sort of model f behavior within the game world, be it a role-playing model or a min-maxing one.  And that comes from the world giving the player enough feedback, as elegantly as possible of course. As much as I enjoy Porpentine's writing, we can't all be doing her thing, right? And as much as I enjoy Alan DeNiro's writing, we can't all be doing his.


  • Sorry for coming on this very late, just wanted to express an opinion.

    Op's point of view is very subjective. He doesn't want to read a story. He wants to play a fun game.

    ---

    A designer's job is to create a game that has an objective. Period. Whether that objective is creating an economic sim or a completely linear story, is the designer's decision.
    The freedom of choice starts in the designer's mind. Whether he wants to allow free roaming or not, it's his/her decision.

    Why? First, it's his/her game. Can do whatever he/she wants. Second, you say "all games need agency" - so you're actually enforcing a rule that limits creativity instead of encourage it. While I agree that games with a good level of agency might make interaction more significant, it doesn't mean that the game will be good. What if the designer feels forced to add agency, then ruins a good story just for the sake of adding more options?

    Specially in a medium like interactive fiction, games should revolve around the story, not the story around the game. You're not making a Call of Duty which is 90% gameplay and 10% story. You're creating a story that uses your senses in a more limited way than that, letting your imagination recreate what you're reading.

    Another point that I completely disagree. You mention that at an RPG table "everyone should have fun" - well, this isn't an RPG table! So, "fun" it's an emotion/feeling that can be evoked with writing, as much as other feelings like sadness, grief, repent, joy, euphoria; and many others that are just as important as fun.

    What I'd like to leave on the table here, is that limiting your thoughts and forcing some actions without a context, will only hurt the creative process and overall hurt a game. Which is a medium that uses interaction, and clicking, as simple as it is, is an interaction.

    PD: Sorry if I sound harsh, it's not my intention at all! I really love this kind of discussions and observe what kind of arguments come back. Cheers! =)
  • You don't have to make games with Twine - lots of other ways to use it.  If you want to make a linear multi-media movie that's fine - but don't call it a game if I can't meaningfully influence the story.  If you want to protype a user interface - that's also fine - but don't call it a game.  If you want to make a multi-media presentation - that's also fine - but don't call it a game.

    To some extent the presence of agency is the very definition of a game.  You have to be able to interact meaningfully enough with the game world to be able to influence the progression of the story and the eventual outcome.  Even a simple game of sorry has agency - and chess is entirely agency.
  • While I understand your point mykael, I must say I agree more with notnsane.

    OP (Sharpe) says he wants to "play a game not read a story" and "some Twine games have almost no agency and that is a big problem." notnsane is pointing out that there are a lot of ways to skin a cat, so to speak, and giving a protagonist a lot of agency is only one of them. I agree with that. There are many different degrees of agency that could be expressed in a game, and a linear story is one way that could be expressed! Which is specifically a format that OP disavows.

    I do think OP is addressing what he feels is bad game writing within the genre or type of game that he himself enjoys, and I think on that level his post is effective. But he is primarily addressing just one genre of game that can be written with Twine.

    Partial aside, isn't the game The Stanley Experiment specifically about lack of agency? The illusion of agency in games? Even if you feel like you have agency when you play a game, it's a feeling of agency, it's not agency itself. You're in a sandbox that's been designed and has preordained results--even if those results are the results of the interaction of numbers and variables and has a lot of permutations, in the case of a more procedural game. Just a thought.
  • A good game is a chaotic system - it may have several outcomes, but you cannot predict the actual outcome until you play the game - and each time you play it, the outcome can be different.  Agency simply adds that your choices during the game can influence the play and the outcome.  Pachinko and slot machines are examples of games with very little agency.

    Chess is a good example - at the highest level there are only 3 outcomes - white win, black win, stalemate.  Look in more detail and there are a very large number of outcomes on the board - the final arrangement of the pieces.  Look deeper still and you can add all the possible evolutions of the game from it's initial state to the end state - and that's yet another massive set of outcomes.

    Same with adventure games - various paths multiplying their way through the game world.  Yes, it all, ends on just one or two screens, but it's the getting there that's as important as the destination.  As long as you enjoy the game and feel you have influenced it's development, then it's a good game.  Probably not going to have as many paths and options as chess, but there should still be enough that if you go exploring you can get somewhere you didn't last time - at least for your first few plays.
  • For sure. I don't disagree with anything you've said. What I'm agreeing with in notnsane's post, though, is:

    - the absence of agency to some or a great degree doesn't disqualify something from being a game or even a good game. As you point out, Pachinko and slot machines are both games with little agency that clearly lots of people enjoy.

    - enjoyment is subjective. Do people enjoy horror stories? Yes. But what emotions do they enjoy in that genre? Fear. Dread. Etc.

    Lastly, I want to go back to the original post. Sharpe makes a distinction between stories, something you read, and games, something you play. Twine was built to make stories that you play. The distinction is false.

    He goes on to say "most Twine stories don't even pretend to be IF." That just seems completely wrong. If the story branches and has choices, its IF. What Twine story doesn't have that?

    Sharpe defined a game fairly narrowly, which is fine, but by doing so he throws out a lot of works that many people do consider games. I've played lots of Twine games that are, yes, linear to some degree, but a Twine game, a branching narrative in general, is both linear and non-linear. It's not just one straight line. It has branches. So I don't think a Twine work has to be highly non-linear or have a high degree of agency in order to be defined as a game or to be fun, immersive, or interactive.

    I think Sharpe is really talking about good writing and a preponderance of bad writing. He makes some good points. But there are lots of ways to make a good game.
  • Don't ever forget that what makes a good game for you, isn't a good game for someone else. Or what even is a game.

    So let's not go into this discussion of "what is a game", but instead let's go into discussion that games can be anything you want them to be.

    You might want to check this speak by Rami of Vlambeer, while I don't agree with all the points, he does have a good point that matter:
  • notnsane wrote:

    Sorry for coming on this very late, just wanted to express an opinion.

    Op's point of view is very subjective. He doesn't want to read a story. He wants to play a fun game.


    My original post is, at its heart, about agency in interactive fiction gamesa common subject in the IF community but one not often discussed here in the Twine forum. I also included my personal preference and taste in works created by Twine, correct.

    notnsane wrote:
    A designer's job is to create a game that has an objective. Period. Whether that objective is creating an economic sim or a completely linear story, is the designer's decision.
    The freedom of choice starts in the designer's mind. Whether he wants to allow free roaming or not, it's his/her decision.

    Why? First, it's his/her game. Can do whatever he/she wants.


    Please don't take this as evasive, but is this directed at my original post? I'm not making a distinct connection. Sandbox/open world versus dog-on-leash/railroad is not at all the issue. Agency applies to both those styles in interactive fiction.

    Also, I think I very clearly articulated that I'm not attempting to apply any delineation of agency to video games as a whole; I'm talking about interactive fiction, not SimCity or Microsoft solitaire or whatever.

    So, I'm not entirely certain where the above quote is directed.

    notnsane wrote:
    Second, you say "all games need agency" - so you're actually enforcing a rule that limits creativity instead of encourage it.


    That made me chucklenot at you, just lightheartedly to myself.

    Imagine a lead game designer walking into a meeting with programmers and artists and writers and saying, "Okay, let's make a fun and interesting game!"

    Then, someone yells out, "Don't stifle my creativity! I want to make a boring and dull game!"

    That's why I laughed.

    My original post is about a widely accepted and often discussed principle of good interactive fiction design theory. I suppose one could consider understanding and applying game design theory as limiting creativity.

    Perhaps the issue here is the definition of agency remains misunderstood. I've quoted Emily Short twice and left a link to her thoughts on the subject. I've paraphrased it in my own words as "meaningful choice" in interactive fiction. I just don't know what else to say.

    If someone doesn't feel that meaningful choice in games is important . . . I just don't have a retort to that.

    notnsane wrote:
    While I agree that games with a good level of agency might make interaction more significant, it doesn't mean that the game will be good.


    Applying any one single aspect of good design theory to a game will never guarantee its greatness. So, I agree.

    notnsane wrote:
    forced[/b] to add agency, then ruins a good story just for the sake of adding more options?


    "Agency" is most certainly not defined as "more choices." Choice is one necessary component of agency; agency does not exist in a traditional, linear story without choicesstories such as Lord of the Ringsbut some of the most profound choices in IF could simply be between "yes" and "no."

    notnsane wrote:
    Another point that I completely disagree.


    You say "another," but I still need to make certain I understand what has been disputed. It's your contention that games don't need agency?

    notnsane wrote:
    You mention that at an RPG table "everyone should have fun" - well, this isn't an RPG table! So, "fun" it's an emotion/feeling that can be evoked with writing, as much as other feelings like sadness, grief, repent, joy, euphoria; and many others that are just as important as fun.


    It's totally fine if not, but is this about agency in interactive fiction? Or, is this off my topic and starting a new one about whether or not games should even be fun? Again, that's fine.

    I think games that can evoke emotions are fantastic. If they're actually boring (i.e., not fun) at the same time, I'm not going to play them. That's just me.

    However, I doubt games that are capable of evoking emotions would be boring at the same time. It's possible, but unlikely, I think.

    notnsane wrote:
    What I'd like to leave on the table here, is that limiting your thoughts and forcing some actions without a context, will only hurt the creative process and overall hurt a game.


    (Struck text addressed earlier.)

    Hey! Awesome! There we go! It seems we totally agree on 100% of all my points about agency in interactive fiction! Choices without context are oftentimes bad.

    Here I thought with all this discussion about "disagreeing" with me you thought IF didn't need agency. :)

    notnsane wrote:
    Which is a medium that uses interaction, and clicking, as simple as it is, is an interaction.


    One could define clicking as interaction in interactive fiction, but that alone doesn't make it a choice. A choice, by definition, requires alternatives, even ones under duress or without agency.

    loopernow wrote:
    There are many different degrees of agency that could be expressed in a game, and a linear story is one way that could be expressed! Which is specifically a format that OP disavows.


    Agency is not present in a game without meaningful choice because that's the definition of agency. Also, "a linear story" as you called it, is by definition not a gameit's literature. Regardless, it's certainly not the definition I used for the purpose of discussing agency in my original post.

    loopernow wrote:
    I do think OP is addressing what he feels is bad game writing within the genre or type of game that he himself enjoys, and I think on that level his post is effective.


    Great! Thank you! :)

    That is all I'm trying to impart. I'm not talking about stories. I'm not talking about video games in general. It wasn't even my original intent to talk about IF as a wholeI'll let Emily Short and hundreds of others continue to do that. I'm just talking about agency in games that just so happen to be created with Twine.

    That's all.

    loopernow wrote:
    Even if you feel like you have agency when you play a game, it's a feeling of agency, it's not agency itself. You're in a sandbox that's been designed and has preordained results--even if those results are the results of the interaction of numbers and variables and has a lot of permutations, in the case of a more procedural game. Just a thought.


    Oh, I agree wholeheartedly here. Earlier in the thread I mentioned End Boss and called it a case study on the illusion of agency.

    mykael wrote:
    Agency simply adds that your choices during the game can influence the play and the outcome.


    Mykael, you're making perfect sense and I can tell you understand what agency is and how it's used. In both your latest posts to this thread, you're echoing the message I'm trying to articulate. Thanks. :)

    loopernow wrote:
    - the absence of agency to some or a great degree doesn't disqualify something from being a game or even a good game.


    I think I agree. Controlling agency and intentionally creating a lack of the player's ability to, and I quote Short here, "form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action," is part of the process to making a good game.

    loopernow wrote:
    As you point out, Pachinko and slot machines are both games with little agency that clearly lots of people enjoy.


    Just so we're clear, my posts are about agency in IF, not about the entirety of games as a whole.

    However, one can "form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action" when playing a Twine game based on slot machinesI myself have made one.

    loopernow wrote:
    - enjoyment is subjective. Do people enjoy horror stories? Yes. But what emotions do they enjoy in that genre? Fear. Dread. Etc.


    Very true, but I am talking about implementing a well-founded principal of IF. Just so we're clear.

    loopernow wrote:
    Lastly, I want to go back to the original post. Sharpe makes a distinction between stories, something you read, and games, something you play. Twine was built to make stories that you play. The distinction is false.


    I made the distinction to discuss agency in IF. I quote myself:

    Sharpe wrote:
    For the purpose of this thread, loosely defined, I think a story is something someone reads and a game is something someone plays. In this thread, I'm talking about Twine games and not stories that just so happen to be written in Twine.


    There, I clearly articulated the ramifications for the purpose of discussing agency in IF.

    "For the purpose of this thread"That means I'm not making an all-encompassing definition. I'm setting ramifications for my topic in this thread so that agency can be defined and discussed.

    "Loosely defined"I'm double hedging my words here so that no misunderstanding can be made. I'm not making the One True definition of a story here. I'll allow dictionaries and literature professors to undertake that Herculean task.

    Sharpe wrote:
    He goes on to say "most Twine stories don't even pretend to be IF." That just seems completely wrong. If the story branches and has choices, its IF. What Twine story doesn't have that?


    If the story has "branches and has choices" I defined that as a game for the purpose of this thread.

    Sharpe wrote:
    Sharpe defined a game fairly narrowly, which is fine, but by doing so he throws out a lot of works that many people do consider games.


    Yes, I did. I did so in order that agency could be discussed without confusion as to what defines a game and what defines a story.

    Sharpe wrote:
    I've played lots of Twine games that are, yes, linear to some degree, but a Twine game, a branching narrative in general, is both linear and non-linear. It's not just one straight line. It has branches. So I don't think a Twine work has to be highly non-linear or have a high degree of agency in order to be defined as a game or to be fun, immersive, or interactive.


    While nothing in that quote disagrees with any of my points, again, I'm talking about implementing agency in my OP.

    Sharpe wrote:
    good writing[/i] and a preponderance of bad writing. He makes some good points. But there are lots of ways to make a good game.


    I certainly agree with all that. :)

    notnsane wrote:
    Don't ever forget that what makes a good game for you, isn't a good game for someone else. Or what even is a game.


    Let's not forget, in future discourse directed toward my OP, that I set broad ramifications for "what even is a game" for the purposes of the information I impartedusing agency in an interactive fiction.

    notnsane wrote:
    So let's not go into this discussion of "what is a game", but instead let's go into discussion that games can be anything you want them to be.


    Yes, please do so. Just not when directing comments at my OP because I laid clear and plain guidelines for my definition in relation to my personal topic.


    Now, all that said, let me point to a game I wrote where I strongly controlled the principle of agency to intentionally create a lack of the player's ability to "form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action": The Minotaur's Maze.

    I wrote it very quickly for a challenge under harsh deadline and with the strict limit of 15 passages and 1,000 words, so please forgive me if it's not the most excellent example of a game ever. ;)

    Mazes are places where confusion reins. They are a complex series of passages where one doesn't know how to proceed. Really, just about the only way to make one's way through a maze is by trial and error. So, in The Minotaur's Maze, at every turn, the player is presented with choices that don't have a decisive right or wrong path.

    Also included in that game is a three lever puzzle. One must set the levers in the correct order, then press a button. I actually included the solution hidden in the maze, but I wanted the outcome of the puzzle to be a mystery.

    So, that's an example of a game I wrote that doesn't give the player much information to make choices. It still strongly utilizes the principals of agencyI gave the player as much information as I wanted to create an effect that I desired. Also, the outcomes of those choices had a strong impact on the "world" or the game's progression. Chose the wrong path and hit a dead end. Chose wrong too many times and the Minotaur attacks. Also, one must make choices in order to first solve puzzles and find hidden items to make it out of the maze.

    Just throwing that out there.


    Happy Twine'ing everyone! :)
  • This is a great thread, and I apologize if I'm reiterating anything by chiming in.  RAMBLY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WARNING. 

    Agency does not necessarily equal Quality (or enjoyment or whatever).

    A Twine that just has one single choice in each passage is essentially an eBook.  Someone might argue that the reader is interacting by clicking to get to the next passage, but that offers no more agency or interaction than a person reading a regular book turning the page.  That doesn't mean a Twine like this can't be as riveting or enjoyable as a regular book, but I could argue that it's not at all interactive, and the player has no agency.  They are reading a linear story that won't change no matter what they click. 

    The next level up is a Twine that continues forward with one link in each passage, but might have some additional links in the text itself that offer one-off descriptions or more information.  This is another linear story like above, but might be considered slightly interactive, in that the reader can choose to explore the extra information or not.  The analogue for this in a print book would be footnotes that the reader can choose to ignore or read.  This type of story has no agency though, because the plot will progress beginning to end without the player's interaction.  They are still just turning pages to advance.

    At a level higher is a Twine which pretends to offer the player choices, but they are no more than one-off links just like the aforementioned footnotes.  I can get out of bed, or I can hit snooze.  I can eat breakfast or not, but these choices make no actual bearing on the story.  Eventually I'm going to choose the direct link to the next part of the story, and the offered choices don't actually change anything.  This is faux agency.  This can be done really well and give the reader a sense of interacting and doing things, but will become blatantly obvious on repeated reads that it doesn't matter if I eat breakfast or brush my teeth; leaving my apartment is the only thing that's going to turn the page to the next scheduled part of the story.

    To create player agency in the above type, the choices have to do something to change the story.  If the reader chooses to hit the snooze button and take a shower and eat breakfast, they will receive a different passage later ("You're late for work!") rather than the one if they had gotten up and gone directly out the apartment door ("Your Boss admires your punctuality and gives you a raise!"  This is very simple agency; the player can affect the development or outcome of the plot.

    Sharpe's example of his random Minotaur Maze is another example of faux agency.  Although the player can experience different outcomes based on finding an exit code in a randomly generated maze, whether they find this information is not under their control.  There is nothing the reader could necessarily do to affect what happens.  The equivalent to this is a (so-called) game of War played with cards that are flipped by two players one-by-one against each other, highest card winning...which is truly not a game at all.  The winner is determined by the random shuffle of the cards, and no amount of player skill figures in.  Judiciously applied randomness can lend a story a sense of tension and perhaps make the reader believe they have agency even if they do not.

    To lend true agency to a reader, a story needs to have different outcomes (which are hopefully more extensive than unpredictable insta-death links) or wind through enough branches between a specified beginning and a specified end to make the how the reader gets to the finale variable.  Some people might argue that a story where the outcome is always the same does not lend the reader agency, but this can be a very effective plot structure where multiple resolutions wouldn't work well (You landed on the moon! or The puppy becomes your best friend! or The zombie plague takes over the world! as disparate finales in the same story.)

    Personally, I still call all of these stories rather than games because each plot development is scripted and arranged.  In my opinion, to call something a game requires more agency than choosing the left or the right door.  A game would require the player to manage enough moving parts that there could not be written a specific walk-through from beginning to victory.  This can be difficult, but is completely possible in Twine.

    I've used up my italics quota, so I'll stop now :D
  • Since I'm new to the forums, and more likely than not stick my foot in my mouth in some way, I just wanted to offer up an article that talks about Agency as well as having some tips on how to make fun and immersive "interactive fiction" games - and it comes from the ChoiceOfGames folks:

    https://www.choiceofgames.com/2011/12/4-common-mistakes-in-interactive-novels/

    The "delayed branching" idea is particularly interesting.
  • A few things to think about with delayed branching -and delayed choices.

    Inventory - picked up an object in scene 1? You get to use it, if you've got it in scene 4. If you've still got it in scene 6 though, you're in trouble.

    Knowledge - learn something in an early scene, recognize something - and maybe get some extra options - in a later scene.

    Reputation - help someone and they may help you later, be rude to someone and they may decline to help you in the future.

    Might also help to think strategy and tactics. Strategy is how you achieve your long term goal (the goal of the game), tactics are how you do short term stuff (the goal of the scene).  Sometimes you can distract a player from their strategic goal with some tactical decisions.  (The tinder dry mummy is advancing - run, throw the lantern, attack it. - Throwing the lantern will, predictably, set it alight - and spread to burn the building down, which is a problem if your strategic goal is to protect it or something inside it).
  • Sharpe has brought forward a topic that can be viewed with 2 perspectives.

    1.  There is agency - It makes for good gameplay, good for IF competitions or the like, makes the game playable multiple times.  May compromise the story a bit.  You really need to be smart to balance story and multiple different endings.

    2.  There is limited to no agency, author leads you and reveals a story - Here, you are told a story and you come to know about something in life.  These stories are mostly autobiographical..things from the past haunting you or a dream or just frustration on past events or satire on the current way of life.  Here there is actually no need of agency as such and the writer just wants to give an interesting read.  It cannot be replayed as many times, but you can return to it 3 or 6 months later when you face a similar scenario, or maybe share it with someone.  It does not limit the author of his creativity and does not get him tensed to make him think of other pathways that might screw up the story.

    conclusive thoughts,
    I guess when the author wants to express and get satisfaction out of it, agency better be avoided, or else the author might give up the whole thing.

    Experienced authors might give agency a go...
  • Yeah, so...

    I think it's a bit problematic to make a prescription about agency from a post by Emily written in 2009, considering that Twine was just coming into existence then. When she's talking about interactive fiction here, it's mostly in the realm of parser-craft. In 2014 the variety of tools are much wider. "Agency" isn't fixed in stone.

    Even considering parser interactive fiction--with a consistent, object-oriented world model--there are games that have next to no agency. Not a lot, but they are there. Rameses (2000) is one of the classic examples. In my Deadline Enchanter (2007) I basically gave the player the walkthrough in the first turn, and there really isn't any way to deviate from it. The game's only real meaningful choice is one question, which doesn't especially change the outcome of the story. Whether it works or not of course is really up to the player's taste.

    With Twine we are largely dealing with works on a spectrum between 'game' and 'story'. Some veer more toward one or the other. But I don't know how valuable it is trying to split works into rigid categories, considering a person, in most cases, will play the game by reading.

    Incidentally once again this is nothing new and this hybridity is one of IF's greatest features, and its strengths.

    Keep in mind I'm not saying that agency isn't important for many projects! It can be a key feature of interactivity. But there are other ways to establish interactivity.

    Finally, people use different terms to describe their works. That's why 'interactive fiction' is such a useful term. Twine writers are going to call their works of IF "games", even if they aren't going to have a lot of agency, or even interactivity. And that should be fine. ...People should be able to call their projects what they want to be called, particularly if Twine is considered (and I do) an emancipatory tool of creativity. My main concern is for new authors to use the tools at their disposal to do whatever they want, and not have to deal with external 'is this a game or not??' meta-commentary. Which is, frankly, a drag.

    Anyway, those are my thoughts.

    EDIT: Ah, while I was driving home I remembered this very pertinent essay by Sam Kabo Ashwell, A Bestiary of Player Agency, which gets into the complicated issues regarding agency. Highly recommended reading.

    http://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/a-bestiary-of-player-agency/
  • @Sharpe,

    Thanks for setting this thread in motion!  This is a big topic for me.

    I became interested / inspired by the Twine platform a few years ago, but my consistent gripe has been the shortage of "actual" games.
      My preference is for genuine non-linearity, for game-oriented mechanics and for the kind of suspense & challenge I associate with traditional gamebooks. 
      When I look for new Twine stuff to explore, though, upwards of 90% of what I find are basically diaries, essays or short stories peppered with hypertext links.

    I've been pleased to encounter a few exceptions:
      My faves so far are Porpentine's  "ULTRA BUSINESS TYCOON III"  and  "Bloody Princess Farmer," and Anna Anthropy's  "Star Court."
      Each has a sort of implied "win condition" (even if it's not technically reachable, as in BUSINESS TYCOON) and gives the player a good deal of agency in directing their experience.

    So here are my two questions(!):
        Can you guys & gals recommend any Twine games that fit the above description, or at least feature some of those mechanics?

        Also, @Sharpe, have you published any Twine games / projects of your own that you'd recommend?  I have a feeling I would enjoy them...

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