Twine

Twine
Authoring system
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Links	Home page Download Run online
Developer	Chris Klimas
Format	HTML
Interaction style	Choice
Systems	Browser, Windows, macOS, Linux
System details
Latest version	2.9.0 / 16 Jun 2024
Status	Stable
Uses interpreter
Multimedia support	same as HTML5
License	GPL-3.0
Notes
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Twine is an authoring system for choice-based interactive fiction, developed by Chris Klimas. It outputs stories as HTML/CSS web pages.

Twine 2 is a browser-based app, while Twine 1 is a desktop app. Source files are not compatible between the two versions. Only Twine 2 is in active development as of 2023.

Twine 1 story files have a .tws file extension; output files are saved with a .html extension. Twine 2 uses HTML files as both source files and playable output files.

Twine 1 is also released with Twee, the command-line version of Twine. This allows Twine authors to use their own editors instead of Twine's interface, if they prefer. In 2019, the Twee 3 specification was released as a draft. Twine 2-compatible HTML files can be compiled from twee 3 source using tweego.

Story Formats

Twine requires story formats in order to produce playable HTML files. Story formats provide different ways to display text and links in the browser, and special markup (or macros) in the source code to aid authors.

The default story formats for Twine 2 are:

• Harlowe
• Sugarcube
• Snowman
• Chapbook

See also

• Choice-based interactive fiction (has a brief section on the Twine Revolution)
• Category:Twine authors
• Category:Twine works
• Category:Twine
• Writing Interactive Fiction with Twine - a book by Melissa Ford

Links

• Twine homepage
  • Twine Wiki
  • Twine Cookbook
  • Twee 1 docs
  • Twee 3 specification
  • Twine Q&A (view-only)
  • Twine Forum (view-only)
• Twine on Wikipedia
• Twine is Rolled Out - Announcement on Nick Montfort's Post Position blog; July 1, 2009.