Today I have something pretty special for you! It is Not Perfect, and some of the colors and things need adjusting. BUT! It ought to be exciting! When you click on the image below, you will be able to try your hand at being a Lighthouse Agent! You will go on a Monitor Mission, and see how you fare! You might return to The Lighthouse, you might die, and you might be stranded in The Past! Total Excitement!
Fun Fact: when I was almost finished making this, my computer crashed, and I had to re-write about half of the thing.
UPDATE! Slightly re-colored and also found and fixed an error! So the game is now Even More Playable Than Previously. Huzzah!
That was brilliant.
I genuflect in your direction.
If there’s any awards to be given, they should be winging their way to you. Pronto.
Stu
Tale Spinning
Hey Stu! And thanks! Also! A comment of yours gave me the idea to make this for my A to Z. I mean, there’s a rather lengthier and more complex Twine game involving Lighthouse Agents coming to this website at some point, but your question about whether I’d be giving you a Lighthouse Adventure for this A to Z made me think, “oh hey wait. I could totally make a mini-Twine game for Y. Send ’em to explore. Give ’em a couple of Meaningful, Game-Changing Choices, branch the narrative in just a few places.” So that is what I did. Thanks! I really enjoyed making this! Except for the part where my computer crashed and I had to re-write half of the thing. That triggered about a minute of steady swearing followed by a short, sullen silence. Still, it is actually a better game now, so… huzzah for crashing? Hm…
Again, you amaze me. I’m happy my suggestion led you here (not to the crashed computer and the steady swearing). Like I said, this was a fun experience that surprised me.
Glad you did this, and yes, Huzzah!
Stu
I totally loved it!
Is it difficult to write? I’d love to try my hand at writing one.
Hey Jazzfeathers! Twine isn’t necessarily difficult to use. In fact, it can be quite simple, if you keep your goals simple. It is lots of fun, too. Basically, it is a way of arranging linked passages in a sort of structure. At its simplest, therefore, you could just use your website instead of Twine to do a similar thing. Like, you could make a post that says, “You are standing in a place with two doors.”
And then below that, you could have two links, like this:
Open Door One
Open Door Two
…each link connecting the player to a different page on your website.
BUT! That gets weird, because the game isn’t separate from the rest of your site. So even if you want to do the simplest possible thing, with just branching choices and no variables, it might be a good idea to use Twine.
And of course, if you do want to track variables, Twine is a very good idea. Variables allow the game to be more responsive to player decisions. Like this:
“You are standing in a place with two doors.
Open Door One
Open Door Two
Put Your Helmet On Before Opening Anything.”
If the player selects “Put Your Helmet On,” you can record that data in a variable, and then present them with the door choice again. Then, if opening Door One goes down like this…
“You open Door One… from the darkness beyond the door, someone throws a rock at your head!”
You can have the game check to see if the helmet is being worn, and add this:
“…good thing you were wearing your helmet!”
or this:
“Your last thought before you lose consciousness is that it would have been a good idea to put on that helmet.”
Each of these can lead to a different passage, and thus send the narrative off on a different path.
It is pretty cool.
Basic tracking (as in the example above) is actually pretty simple. Things CAN get way more complicated, but they don’t have to. If you do want to fiddle around with Twine, and if you choose to use Twine 1 (which I know about, because I use it myself), I can be of some assistance to you if you get stuck. Do you have my e-mail address? I think you probably do, but if not, PM me on Twitter and I’ll give it to you. That way, if you do decide to play around with Twine 1, you can shoot me an e-mail if you get stuck, and I can try to help. I’m no Twine genius, but I do know the basics plus a couple of tricks.
text is bit hard to read against the L patterns in the background.
I choose a name and then it goes back to choosing a name again? and then the second option is the same thing so does that mean the first two options aren’t really options?
anyway, apparently I got hanged. guess that means I’m a terrible agent.
have a lovely day.
Hey lissa! Yes, I know the text and L thing is a bit hard to read. I have adjusted that slightly, and I hope it looks better now!
You are right about the names thing. You don’t really get a choice. 🙂
The Past is not necessarily fair, and it is, for Lighthouse Agents, Extremely Deadly. So being hanged does not necessarily mean you are No Good.
Thanks so much for playing!
This is my FAVORITE post of yours! (And I made it out alive!)
YAY! Did you make it out alive but morally compromised, or just alive?
Fantastic!
I even made it back alive, though I had a little ruffle with the man.
But I almost want to star again and see what happenes with Mary 😉
I did make the game re-playable, so why not have another go? I think there are… five?… different endings?