Tool What engine do they use?

[Nine0h]

I've been thinking of maybe trying my hand at making a text based game, but because I don't know alot about development I don't know what engines are out there.

I've noticed that most HTML games seem to use the same engine atleast and was wondering if anyone know which engine that is? And is it new-user friendly?

 

[lodadsaq]

there are a few different engines.
twine being probably the biggest in usage, but there are others

 

[Studio Errilhl]

And, note, Twine is not "user friendly" - at least if you have little to no coding-knowledge. Basically, regardless of what engine you use, some coding knowledge is more or less required, at least if you want something a little bit more advanced than displaying text and a few images.

 

[Nine0h]

And, note, Twine is not "user friendly" - at least if you have little to no coding-knowledge. Basically, regardless of what engine you use, some coding knowledge is more or less required, at least if you want something a little bit more advanced than displaying text and a few images.

Yes, I do understand that. I've tried learning coding so I was figuring this could be a good way to try out what I've learned.

But thanks for the help everyone. Seems I'll try out Twine then and hopefully I can get something done that might be worth putting up here. We'll see.

 

[Droid Productions]

Some alternatives here:

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There are certainly visual alternatives out there, so just focus on finding a tool that fits your skillset and needs.

 

[3Bliksems]

And, note, Twine is not "user friendly" - at least if you have little to no coding-knowledge. Basically, regardless of what engine you use, some coding knowledge is more or less required, at least if you want something a little bit more advanced than displaying text and a few images.

Yeah, for text games Twine is probably one of the more popular options at the moment. Then there's also engines like HTML Tads and Adrift, but they also require coding know-how.

And I have to agree that having some coding knowledge when making a game, even a simple text based one, can be really helpful. Not only in creating the game, but the thought processes and logic you use while coding can be quite beneficial while building a game that's not a simple linear story.

 

[NandabaCanti]

If you want to learn programming while messing around with game development, I would suggest a few books from this page:

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In particular his

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and

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books. Python is a great and fairly simple language to learn, and PyGame is what Ren'Py is built on top of, so learning a bit about that along the way will allow you to expand your Ren'Py games into something deeper than simple VNs by directly tapping into the underlying engine's capabilities. That first book basically focuses entirely on text based game concepts, while the second delves into using PyGame to make simple games with graphics.

Twine does look like a solid option for text based games, but it would definitely help to have some programming and web development knowledge before hand if you don't want to struggle with it. But it does have a few good things going for it. I always liked the looks of its story layout GUI thing, where you can formulate your story in a flow chart structure. It is also nice being able to publish your games directly on the web to be played through a browser without any downloading or installing.

 

[HiEv]

If you'd like to write a Twine game yourself, first you'll want to download

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(if you haven't already) and grab the updated version of

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(follow the directions at the second link for how to update Twine with the newer version of SugarCube).

Next, the best thing to do is start by reading through the

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and the

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, just so you get an idea of what all they can do for you, and keep those links as a reference. Then, you can open any Twine game in Twine to take a look at the code in them to see how other people did it (you'll need Twine 1 to open Twine 1 games, and Twine 2 to open Twine 2 games).

Most of the rest is basic web design stuff and JavaScript. Check out

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and

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sites for help with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding if you want to do something trickier than plain text and images. Next, and I use this significantly less than the previous two links, but if you need it

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has some additional information you may find useful.

If you get stuck,

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is pretty helpful, as is the

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section of the

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forum (since the creator of SugarCube often hangs out there, and also I've posted a bunch of sample code there).

Finally, I'm actually working on a JavaScript inventory "plugin" for Twine 2 / SugarCube 2, called the Universal Inventory System (UInv), to make working with inventories easier, and I'm looking for testers capable of giving me good feedback on it. It's about 92% complete at this point, not including testing, sample code, and documentation. If you're interested in something like that, PM me and I'll send you a link to a pre-release version of it. You can take a look at the (still mostly bare-bones)

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if you want to get an idea of what it can do.

Hope that helps!

[EDIT: ...And I just realized I'm replying to a post from almost three months ago. Whoops! Oh well, maybe this will help someone else.]