This week we learnt about performance and branching stories. To begin with, we played a couple of different Twine games on itch.io and, from the list, I chose The Temple of No, Even Cowgirls Bleed, and The Master of the Land.

The Temple of No

I did not enjoy this game unfortunately! I did like it at first, but to be completely honest, it just ended up annoying me for many reasons which I won’t get in to. I kind of felt like I was in control, then at the end I didn’t as it just seemed like it was making me click specific things, and that there were no consequences for my actions. A lot of the time I got the feeling that no matter what I chose, I always would end up at a certain place.

For example, ‘thought about some shit, sang a little song, and considered the possibility that life was futile’ bit, no matter what order I clicked these options, I always had to click all three. Nothing I clicked here changed my path, nor did it help advance the narrative at all. Same with the three doors part (also why are we emphasising this so much before the choice???), you needed to click all three before you got to click the actual door. It would have been much cooler if there were consequences for picking the ‘wrong’ room, not just going straight back out to pick another door. 

No matter what you chose throughout the story, you would always find the Great Leader’s Chamber (and why was the only option to kill him), and the narrator would always end up being your character - the two options at the end didn’t mean anything.

Even Cowgirls Bleed

This one was confusing to me but maybe I just missed the point. It felt similar to the first game in that there was no reason for the choices, it was just like reading a book. The were no consequences to your actions and I didn’t feel like it had a branching structure, although I did only play it twice so I possibly missed something.

The Master of the Land

This one must have taken forever to make! There seemed to be so many different paths that you could end up going down depending on what you clicked and even when you clicked it (in what order or at a certain time of the evening). The fact that every path was completely up to you really immersed me in the world of the game! When I have time, I would love to play this a few more times to see what different endings I get.

After completing these online Twine games, my mum coincidentally found her old pick a path books that I used to read as a kid! I had a few goes at ‘Adventure at Camp Schoonover’, ‘The Magic Top Mystery’, and ‘The Ballerina Mystery’.

We then had to identify one core opposition in one of the stories we played and make a matching Greimas Square. I chose freedom and control in The Master of the Land. I am still not confident on making/understanding these so after watching a few explanation videos, I hope mine is correct. There is quite a theme in this Twine around the main character you play as having expectations on her to uphold her status and image etc. Depending on the choices you make, you can make her character fit any of these 4 ‘roles’. There is an option in every room to “do nothing and stay here”, making her an observer, or you can roam all the rooms of the palace making her an explorer.