An introduction to Twine and Hypertext Literature
Did you ever open a library book and see a little note scribbled in the margin “Go to page 96”. So you turn to page 96 and see another little note that says, “Your grandmother foot is caught in the toilet. You can help her if you turn to page 55, or if you’d rather go to the beach, turn to page 300”. And you make a decision – and go on a little adventure. Well this is an analogue example of hypertext literature.
The first web-art art was entirely text based and structured on the ‘hyperlink’. Just like the margin notes in the example above – Hypertext literature redefines the linear literary experience into a nonlinear exploratory experience.
Computer based interactive versions of hypertext started with simple text-based role-playing games, like William Crowther and Don Woods' 1977 Adventure. Here is a “reconstructed version”. Try it – its pretty clunky by today’s standards, but was cutting edge in its day.
http://iplayif.com/?story=http%3A//www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/Advent.z5
MIT computer professor Joseph Weizenbaum's faux psychoanalyst software, called Eliza from 1966. Tell it your most personal secrets. http://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/eliza_chat.html
The Jew's Daughter" by Judd Morrissey (2000) is an interactive, non-linear narrative that progressively weaves itself together as the reader clicks highlighted words that trigger transformations on a single 'page' of text.
http://www.thejewsdaughter.com/
Raymond Queneau's One Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets
http://www.growndodo.com/wordplay/oulipo/10%5E14sonnets.html
(Hopefully someone will remind me to bring along my analogue version to class on the day of discussion so we can compare it to the digital versions) In English http://www.bevrowe.info/Queneau/QueneauRandom_v5.html
For more interactive literature, check out The Reading Room.
http://www.eastgate.com/ReadingRoom.html
As the web increasingly shifted to platforms and social media rather than individually authored pages, hypertext works became less prevalent, but the rise of the user-friendly hypertext authoring software Twine in the early 2010s brought the format a new surge in popularity. Trans people, in particular, have embraced the genre, using it to challenge traditional narratives, model alternate social realities, and build empathy, and as a form of personal expression.
As in introduction to interactive storytelling we will use Twine to build a hypertext document.
You will consider how to use the hyperlink for creative ends. The ability to hyperlink web pages together allows for all kinds of complex new readings.
Allow for user choice, branching structures, loops, etc… The linking does not need to follow conventional linear sequence.
You will ad this document to your individual website and it will become part of your class portfolio.
Examples:
Twine on adventure cow
http://adventurecow.com/tags/7
Howling Dogs adventure
http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/howlingdogs/howlingdogs.html#2o
More on Twine