How can I share my Twine game safely?

Question

I need to send my game to a stranger for betatesting and for obvious reasons I'm wary of sending them the offline HTML version directly. Philome.la doesn't seem to be working either - there is a bug that brings the player to a page that is not designated as the start of the game. Are there any other options that allow me to share my game without giving the stranger an offline copy (or allowing them to download an offline version, like Google Drive)?

Answer 1

The story HTML file generated by the Twine 2 application contains all the Passage data of your project, and anyone that views a HTML file within a web-browser can access that data stored within in that file.

This means there is no way to stop someone that views your story HTML file from being able to obtain the Passage data of your project, and this is true for both on-line/hosted copies of your file and for off-line / local copies of it.

This is just how HTML works, for all web-pages not just Twine story HTML files.

Comments

Thanks. I guess an online version is still safer because whoever views the Passage data still has to sort it out and convert it to a game if he/she intends to steal it, whereas the offline version can be used directly?

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No.  Anyone can download the HTML from an online version and just import that into Twine.

That said, I've seen tons of Twine games, and I've never heard of anyone "stealing" a game like that.  (Really, it's just copying, you're still the one who knows best how it all works and such.)

I wouldn't worry about it that much.  The same is true to one degree or another for just about any page you see on the web.