Coding is no small feat for a brain like mine. I have enough difficulty as it is in trying to plan a few steps ahead in my day-to-day life. To work out a sequence of logical steps in a language that makes my head hurt? Hooo boy.
I recently picked up some old projects I had going on Twine. You can actually play one of them here—it’s short and (maybe not-so-) sweet, but it represents hours of writing, testing, fixing, writing more, and repeating.
Usually, I’ll jump feet-first into a new hobby. However, with coding, I’ve been forced to take small steps. That’s part of the reason why I’m so happy that Twine exists. I can scratch the itch to create something interactive without feeling daunted by learning a whole programming language, a game engine, and the jargon.
The frustrations of learning to code
Of the available languages for Twine, I like using Harlowe the best. It doesn’t require too much additional thinking beyond “how the heck do I get this to work??” I struggle with the documentation enough as it is—no need to add complicated syntax on top of that.
Is it just me, or do a lot of “beginner’s guides” out there assume you already have basic knowledge of the thing you’re trying to learn about?
Tutorial makers have knowledge, but they forget what it’s like to be a beginner. They gloss over important terms. They move way too fast and don’t explain important concepts. Or the “examples” they give don’t make sense without context.
Thank goodness for forums and Discord servers. That’s all I gotta say.
I might have to plan it out first
The problem with trying to plan a choose your own adventure (CYOA) story is the branches. You get lost in ’em. Maybe I can plan it out in Obsidian and figure out what my variables will be. I’ll note down what they’re for and where I use them; having that overview will probably help a lot, I imagine.
Eventually, once I get the hang of writing CYOAs in Twine, I’d love to learn how to format them as well. People create some pretty snazzy Twine projects that make me wonder if we’re even using the same program.
So, stay tuned, I guess? 🙂