Creating a Slice-of-Life Game with Twine

Hi everyone!

Perhaps you are like me and have been saying since you were very young that you dream of making video games. Over the years and through the courses I've taken, I've become an artist without ever learning programming, but with a constant dream of creating games and evoking emotions. After entering a new decade, I decided to see it as an opportunity to make the most of it, despite my insecurities. I wrote to SonderingEmily about narrative games, and she advised me to explore Twine, which I did with enthusiasm. Here are glimpses of my journey learning this software and creating my first small narrative game!

Exploring and Choosing the Idea

After opening Twine (Harlowe) and watching a video to quickly grasp the basics, I brainstormed an idea and started writing. My first concept was inspired by an animation idea I had long ago but never pursued. However, one evening while taking a shower (isn't that when the best ideas come?), I thought of creating a simple conversation among friends over a pizza (even though, truth be told, I have to admit I don't actually like pizza). The game would end softly when the pizza was finished. I wanted to capture a slice-of-life moment with a few relatable emotions and dialogues.

Narrative Development

I wrote the dialogues quickly in French and used ChatGPT to translate them into English, refining and smoothing them out here and there. I’m not trying to become a writer through these small games, but rather to convey ideas and emotions through the entire creative process. If you can use tools to achieve your goals, I sincerely believe it’s worth exploring different possibilities, as long as the majority of the work is done by you and remains authentic.

Art Creation

Since I'm already an artist and didn’t want to focus too much on this aspect, I decided to keep it minimal. I created a 3D pizza in Blender by following some YouTube tutorials to improve my techniques. I rendered several images showing the pizza decreasing slice by slice. I then edited these images in Befunky and Photoshop, experimenting with various filters and corrections. By changing the light to a cooler color over time, I aimed to convey the passage of the evening as the slices were eaten. I used ezgif to create the GIF, a site I’ve been using for a long time and always recommend. I also use it for the emotes I sell in my Etsy shop!

Useful Tips and Resources I Was Looking For

• Since I have no background in programming but wanted to implement features like reducing the number of pizzas with each click, I had to search for quite a while because many resources aren't very clear for complete beginners. If you have the budget, I recommend this Udemy course, which helped me a lot and made many concepts clear in a short amount of time.
• If you have multiple images that need to appear and disappear throughout the game, I recommend creating a dedicated passage for them and using {(display: "Passage Name")} in your various passages. I used this approach for the different pizza images.

 

• It also took me a while to figure out how to make the text appear in chunks. I achieved the effect I wanted using (link-reveal: "Clickable Word")[Text to Appear Here], but I'm still wondering how to make it fade without an unnecessary line break.

• I haven’t used it yet, but I realized late that there’s a Twine Discord where people help each other out! Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you're trying something and aren't sure how to proceed.

Final Thoughts

As simple as it may seem, I’ve learned a lot from making this small game. I’m excited to continue with the other idea I started and expand my knowledge further, possibly beyond Twine. I want to learn many things to make creating small narrative games easier and more achievable for me. I hope to demonstrate that it’s possible to realize your goals with time and effort, and I hope this motivates you to do the same because I’m eager to see what you create!