A murder mystery set in the high court of a fairy tale land? Awesome!
Fantastic writing, Ava! I'd love to see it expanded!
I won't speculate about any of the possible endings, but—without saying too much—is it possible to be "more sure" one way or the other? I think I went through them all . . .
@Sharpe -- Thank you! The story cries for expansion. I may just do it... while juggling a visual novel that I'm transforming into a Twine 2 story because my graphics are just not up to a VN. (Not that this stops a lot of VN makers, but I took a hard look at mine...).
As for "more sure", there was something I wanted to say with this IF in particular, so it doesn't act like a typical IF plot, I think.
A short poem I wanted to add at the end, but couldn't figure out how to make work:
May your path be ever twisting
May your heart lie in weeds forlorn
May the storms obliterate your passing
And your fortitude rot between thimble and thorn.
As for what I wanted to say... I guess it was
Your intentions are for naught when you lie to yourself.
Sometimes I go too subtle though.
Edit: argh I don't know how to make spoiler tags work
No, no. I get it. I so get it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a branch.
Very cool.
A little tip for those seeking to get more words, just start killing white-space in your code. Might make it illegible, but oh well. We can all release different versions of our own accord outside the challenge. :-)
If anyone wants to resubmit (or submit another game), buy all means. :-)
I'm currently in the process of ripping out my simple combat system and replacing it with one more similar to the 1986 NES game, Dragon Warrior. Thankfully, the DW1 community has torn that game apart and know every inch of its code, so I can emulate it basically 100% if I'd like.
I just would love to use Harlowe 2, beta or release, so bad since it has a save/load function. However, I can't in the beta's current state.
I've been back to the easel again making more pixel art.
I think I've improved. Still using the NES palette. Drawn one pixel at a time on 25x25-pixel images, then expand them to 200x200. I updated a couple of the images (old vs. new):
Hello all! I found this thanks to Dominia's post on Twitter. Completely new to using Twine and well...completely new to this forum and site, but the challenge looked fun. Seemed if nothing else like a good opportunity to use a new game development language...my usual engine of choice is C# and Unity.
In any case, here's my submission: An Idiot tries for a First Date. It's not particularly amazing, but hopefully you guys enjoy it somewhat.
Gotta say, Twine seems like it can be a super useful language. May have to try it on another game sometime without the 1000 word limit and see what all I can put together. Perhaps I'll do a rebuild of the old DOS game Big Rig or something like.
I suppose this is my long winded way of saying hello. So TL:DR version: Hello everyone!
You may also want to see if you can find the story I wrote for the last 1000 word challange - it's a guide to sneaky things you can do with html to trick Twine 1's rather simplistic word counter... no idea how well they work with Twine 2.
Okay, procrastination complete. Let's get this posted before the buzzer.
Hey there folks. I'm also in the same boat as some others of having worked with Twine before but not having much experience with Harlowe, so this seemed like a good time to get into it. One thing that I specifically wanted to try was embedding a Harlowe story directly into an existing page, which as it turns out is more than a little fiddly at the moment but looks like it'll be easier soon.
I'm horribly wordy so getting this under 1,000 words was tough, and I think I just ended up with the prologue of an actual story, but it's something!
I tested in current versions of IE, Chrome and Firefox on Win7 so hopefully the fancy bits won't cause any problems for anyone, but apologies in advance if they do. There was a lot of experimenting for the sake of learning, which admittedly results in some strange choices - for instance, both my CSS and scripts have an external file, a story style/script passage, and some styles and scripts embedded directly in the output HTML. There's dynamic page content and embedded audio which could probably have been accomplished in an easier way, but I wanted to have a game-style engine running under the story as a proof-of-concept for implementing more complex content around a Harlowe story. I'm making this my One Game a Month project for this month, so I'll have a writeup with more technical stuff in it later on if anybody's interested.
Anyway, fun challenge, I learned a lot about Harlowe, and I discovered that embedding Harlowe in an existing page is kind of painful for now (but it looks like Harlowe 2.0 is going to fix one of the major issues with that).
Now I have time to go play everyone else's stories.
Your visuals are incredible! So far I have only written with Twine... the "game" aspect of it has eluded me. You can see the one I wrote for the challenge here.
However, when I import your game to check out how you accomplished all this... I couldn't get it to work. Only through YOUR link did it work.
However, when I import your game to check out how you accomplished all this... I couldn't get it to work. Only through YOUR link did it work.
Can you help?
Thanks.
—Sage.
At a guess without checking the underlying code it looks like the body and passage backgrounds are set to transparent and then there is a background div behind them that has an image of the window frame and then a repeating gif of the scenery passing overlayed on top of that.
That's how I'd do it, anyway. Looks lovely, but is fairly simple to do so don't be too put off.
@Claretta
Ha! Simple, he says! Does he not get that I am new?
Jk.
I know I have a million miles to go, but all of you have gotten there before, so... perhaps there is a map.
@gnustoboz
I AM DEFINITELY INTERESTED. If there is any part of this that you can share.. that would help. I know people can be protective of their code. I get that. But if at least you could show me how you got this one working? And then, yes... if there is a full engine, totally... but I'm thinking that much of that may be above my head.
Well, I did another story for the challenge, which was a challenge in itself... managing my time and all.
Unfortunatley, for some reason it didn't work properly when I tried to use my Firefox browser. It does work in CHROME. So please use Chrome if you can. I am not sure why it won't work in Firefox, and to be honest, I am in need of a rest, so I am not going to try to figure it out right now (and being a newb myself, I wouldn't know where to start... but that's another story).
Also, I tried using a fancy font, but I couldn't get it to work, and I am not sure why. I'll have to look into that later too.
However, when I import your game to check out how you accomplished all this... I couldn't get it to work. Only through YOUR link did it work.
Can you help?
Thanks.
—Sage.
At a guess without checking the underlying code it looks like the body and passage backgrounds are set to transparent and then there is a background div behind them that has an image of the window frame and then a repeating gif of the scenery passing overlayed on top of that.
That's how I'd do it, anyway. Looks lovely, but is fairly simple to do so don't be too put off.
@Claretta
How do I set that in the way you suggest? I assume in the story CSS
You want to add background-color: transparent; to both the body and passage elements.
Then you can add a background-image to HTML. Because the passage and body are now transparent, the html will show across the whole screen.
e.g.
html {
background: frame.png;
}
Overlaying another image on top of the html is probably best done as a new div though. You can add a div via javascript with:
var body = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0],
yourdivname = insertElement(null, "div", "yourdivname");
body.parentNode.insertBefore(yourdivname, body);
In 1.4.2 SugarCube I add divs by editing the header directly, which is the simplest way to do it, but Harlowe I think you might need JavaScript to create new divs.
Then once you have your new div you can style it in your css as before, e.g.
And use positioning and z-index elements to position it correctly. -1 z-index puts it behind the passage text.
You'll need to know some css to fine-tune the positions and such but that's the nuts and bolts of it the technique.
All this is assuming Harlowe uses traaditional body and html elements, otherwise you'd then need to adjust to match the elements in the Harlowe HTML structure format if it does.
Updated the second post with all three games! I'd say this challenge has been a success! :-)
When I get time, I can't wait to play them!
Yes, it's been a success in various ways. For myself, it inspired me to experiment, to learn new things and be creative.
The word limit helped to reduce the project to a manageable chunk. (I am now thinking of writing my larger project as smaller projects that connect with each other, which I think will make the task a little less overwhelming -especially when one has bigger-than-reality ideas).
I remember for one of the challenges, I literally uploaded mine at 11:59 p.m. That might happen again this time, to be honest . . . I've got so much to do and only about two hours to do it.
I'll probably play everyone's tomorrow, but tonight, I got my own to finish.
I'm . . . I'm giving up on the RPG for this. Too many technological setbacks. Even typing that, I almost cleared it out. I really wanted it to happen, but it's not right. I just have to admit that. :-/
My backup plan was to brush off a CYOA I wrote in Twine 1.3.5, but it's 4,000 words (I figured it was more like 400). So, I dunno. I'll get something out real quick. You know, I've got about an hour to pound 1,000 words out with no idea what I'm going to write at this moment. No biggie. ;-)
I'm . . . I'm giving up on the RPG for this. Too many technological setbacks. Even typing that, I almost cleared it out. I really wanted it to happen, but it's not right. I just have to admit that. :-/
My backup plan was to brush off a CYOA I wrote in Twine 1.3.5, but it's 4,000 words (I figured it was more like 400). So, I dunno. I'll get something out real quick. You know, I've got about an hour to pound 1,000 words out with no idea what I'm going to write at this moment. No biggie. ;-)
Sounds like a deja vu of "The Challenge" ! lol.
On a more serious note, sorry to hear about the frustrations you've experienced with your RPG.
Comments
Thimble and Thorn
Fantastic writing, Ava! I'd love to see it expanded!
I won't speculate about any of the possible endings, but—without saying too much—is it possible to be "more sure" one way or the other? I think I went through them all . . .
@Sharpe -- Thank you! The story cries for expansion. I may just do it... while juggling a visual novel that I'm transforming into a Twine 2 story because my graphics are just not up to a VN. (Not that this stops a lot of VN makers, but I took a hard look at mine...).
As for "more sure", there was something I wanted to say with this IF in particular, so it doesn't act like a typical IF plot, I think.
A short poem I wanted to add at the end, but couldn't figure out how to make work:
May your heart lie in weeds forlorn
May the storms obliterate your passing
And your fortitude rot between thimble and thorn.
As for what I wanted to say... I guess it was
Sometimes I go too subtle though.
Edit: argh I don't know how to make spoiler tags work
Yeah, they don't work.
Very cool.
A little tip for those seeking to get more words, just start killing white-space in your code. Might make it illegible, but oh well. We can all release different versions of our own accord outside the challenge. :-)
If anyone wants to resubmit (or submit another game), buy all means. :-)
I'm currently in the process of ripping out my simple combat system and replacing it with one more similar to the 1986 NES game, Dragon Warrior. Thankfully, the DW1 community has torn that game apart and know every inch of its code, so I can emulate it basically 100% if I'd like.
I just would love to use Harlowe 2, beta or release, so bad since it has a save/load function. However, I can't in the beta's current state.
I've been back to the easel again making more pixel art.
I think I've improved. Still using the NES palette. Drawn one pixel at a time on 25x25-pixel images, then expand them to 200x200. I updated a couple of the images (old vs. new):
In any case, here's my submission: An Idiot tries for a First Date. It's not particularly amazing, but hopefully you guys enjoy it somewhat.
Gotta say, Twine seems like it can be a super useful language. May have to try it on another game sometime without the 1000 word limit and see what all I can put together. Perhaps I'll do a rebuild of the old DOS game Big Rig or something like.
I suppose this is my long winded way of saying hello. So TL:DR version: Hello everyone!
Funny options there! Thanks for sharing that. I went through all the options. A wide range of bizarre situations!!
Hey there folks. I'm also in the same boat as some others of having worked with Twine before but not having much experience with Harlowe, so this seemed like a good time to get into it. One thing that I specifically wanted to try was embedding a Harlowe story directly into an existing page, which as it turns out is more than a little fiddly at the moment but looks like it'll be easier soon.
So what I ended up with is:
Night Crossing
I'm horribly wordy so getting this under 1,000 words was tough, and I think I just ended up with the prologue of an actual story, but it's something!
I tested in current versions of IE, Chrome and Firefox on Win7 so hopefully the fancy bits won't cause any problems for anyone, but apologies in advance if they do. There was a lot of experimenting for the sake of learning, which admittedly results in some strange choices - for instance, both my CSS and scripts have an external file, a story style/script passage, and some styles and scripts embedded directly in the output HTML. There's dynamic page content and embedded audio which could probably have been accomplished in an easier way, but I wanted to have a game-style engine running under the story as a proof-of-concept for implementing more complex content around a Harlowe story. I'm making this my One Game a Month project for this month, so I'll have a writeup with more technical stuff in it later on if anybody's interested.
Anyway, fun challenge, I learned a lot about Harlowe, and I discovered that embedding Harlowe in an existing page is kind of painful for now (but it looks like Harlowe 2.0 is going to fix one of the major issues with that).
Now I have time to go play everyone else's stories.
Your visuals are incredible! So far I have only written with Twine... the "game" aspect of it has eluded me. You can see the one I wrote for the challenge here.
However, when I import your game to check out how you accomplished all this... I couldn't get it to work. Only through YOUR link did it work.
Can you help?
Thanks.
—Sage.
At a guess without checking the underlying code it looks like the body and passage backgrounds are set to transparent and then there is a background div behind them that has an image of the window frame and then a repeating gif of the scenery passing overlayed on top of that.
That's how I'd do it, anyway. Looks lovely, but is fairly simple to do so don't be too put off.
@Claretta
Ha! Simple, he says! Does he not get that I am new?
Jk.
I know I have a million miles to go, but all of you have gotten there before, so... perhaps there is a map.
@gnustoboz
I AM DEFINITELY INTERESTED. If there is any part of this that you can share.. that would help. I know people can be protective of their code. I get that. But if at least you could show me how you got this one working? And then, yes... if there is a full engine, totally... but I'm thinking that much of that may be above my head.
Still.... I'd like to try.
—Sage.
Unfortunatley, for some reason it didn't work properly when I tried to use my Firefox browser. It does work in CHROME. So please use Chrome if you can. I am not sure why it won't work in Firefox, and to be honest, I am in need of a rest, so I am not going to try to figure it out right now (and being a newb myself, I wouldn't know where to start... but that's another story).
Also, I tried using a fancy font, but I couldn't get it to work, and I am not sure why. I'll have to look into that later too.
It's called DESTINY
Attached to this post is a zip file with the images, etc.
PLEASE PLAY IN CHROME (if you can, as I can't guarantee it will work in other browsers... and I am not sure why!
I hope you enjoy the story.
Oh... if you don't ever get to type in your name during the story.... let me know.
And that's when it hits me
Excellent
How do I set that in the way you suggest? I assume in the story CSS
Then you can add a background-image to HTML. Because the passage and body are now transparent, the html will show across the whole screen.
e.g.
html { background: frame.png; }Overlaying another image on top of the html is probably best done as a new div though. You can add a div via javascript with:
var body = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0], yourdivname = insertElement(null, "div", "yourdivname"); body.parentNode.insertBefore(yourdivname, body);In 1.4.2 SugarCube I add divs by editing the header directly, which is the simplest way to do it, but Harlowe I think you might need JavaScript to create new divs.Then once you have your new div you can style it in your css as before, e.g.
And use positioning and z-index elements to position it correctly. -1 z-index puts it behind the passage text.
You'll need to know some css to fine-tune the positions and such but that's the nuts and bolts of it the technique.
All this is assuming Harlowe uses traaditional body and html elements, otherwise you'd then need to adjust to match the elements in the Harlowe HTML structure format if it does.
When I get time, I can't wait to play them!
Yes, it's been a success in various ways. For myself, it inspired me to experiment, to learn new things and be creative.
The word limit helped to reduce the project to a manageable chunk. (I am now thinking of writing my larger project as smaller projects that connect with each other, which I think will make the task a little less overwhelming -especially when one has bigger-than-reality ideas).
So, good work Sharpe!!
IT'S QUARTER AFTER TEN AND I DID IT
Play "land's end"
Yep! That was the biggest reason for setting the limit!
Glad you enjoyed it, and glad you participated! :-)
Ha, ha! Congratulations! Good job! :-)
Thanks for participating!
I remember for one of the challenges, I literally uploaded mine at 11:59 p.m. That might happen again this time, to be honest . . . I've got so much to do and only about two hours to do it.
I'll probably play everyone's tomorrow, but tonight, I got my own to finish.
My backup plan was to brush off a CYOA I wrote in Twine 1.3.5, but it's 4,000 words (I figured it was more like 400). So, I dunno. I'll get something out real quick. You know, I've got about an hour to pound 1,000 words out with no idea what I'm going to write at this moment. No biggie. ;-)
Sounds like a deja vu of "The Challenge" ! lol.
On a more serious note, sorry to hear about the frustrations you've experienced with your RPG.