Dev Log #1
And so it begins.
Actually, I changed my test story to Best Friends which I recently reread (and liked a lot, wow).
I booted up Twine (online version) and it's surprisingly intuitive. Of course that I'm someone who is fairly comfortable with HTML and CSS and has created a couple of websites. Tabs like "Build" and buttons "Test" and "Play" just made sense what they were for.
What I was suprised was that it's quite Markdown and HTML friendly. It accepts Markdown for styling and I can copy my test fic (a copy I downloaded from AO3) in HTML format and it looked quite decent just dropping a chapter there.
Think I'll have a lot of fun choosing how to link pages (or whatever each name is). I was fairly pleased that I could rename text like so [[this is a test | title]] so that I could have chapter names and link between them without having to rely on this [[this is is a test that makes for an ugly title]].
I'm having a lot of fun translating Best Friends into a Twine project. I'm using whatever default it had, Chapbook 3 point something.
REALLY easy to get started!
As for coding, I would like to use the same trick I saw on HELL (18+) of giving extra details when clicking on text. I couldn't intuitively find how to do it! Using (hide)text(/hide) as a placeholder for now haha.
For styling, I would like to change the colors from the default. Again I couldn't do it intuitively. Tried tho! Wrote some CSS but it didn't work. Cross fingers it's not a macros thing. What the hell are macros even! I don't feel like learning about them quite yet...
I chose Twine for this project because I'm mainly a writer and I don't see this as a visual-heavy project. I was also greatly inspired by Hell which was made in this engine. I really enjoy interactive fiction and all the cool things that can be designed with RenPy but this is mostly a solo project (WITHOUT AI ASSISTANCE OF COURSE) and I just know how to write, code, and do some basic image editing. So Hell was exactly the kind of project that made me think, "hey, I can do this. I can totally do this."
Anyways, back in July when I found the yearly Yaoi Jam was happening it felt like a call from the heavens but I had other projects going on. Plus I let the outline of this story gather dust for like a month until I finished it yesterday past midnight.
So yeah, this is happening. I'm mostly playing around with the engine because I read the advice that it's good to learn the engine you want to work on before having the thing. And I see why! Just as a start I'm seeing how I can use engine's unique features to support storytelling, like which words to link with the next page.
For styling, I'm a big fan of real life images being heavily edited to serve as background and Hell also had this (quite the sparse use of it). I loved it on the original Higurashi release, I loved it on Umineko's. The images are all on the free domain. I. Can. Do. This. I just need the image of a coffe shop, an apartment, and a bar, I think!
I rambled about this project on my 18+ blog. I really like LBGT+ stories about characters who are in unsatisfying heterosexual relationships and cheat on their partners with someone of the same-sex. Then, the MC leaves the het relationship for the LBGT+ one! It's noice o˘◡˘o).
Anyways this story is about a pretty regular guy who is in a pretty regular het relationship with his highschool sweetheart. He thinks he's a normal guy all this time. Except he's not! He doesn't feel sexual attraction to anything crawling on Earth and not! So yeah the story's about Keima finding himself and leaving the world of cishetallos. Hooray for sexual liberation, or something!
I can't believe I can create something so self-indulgent that looks so "professional" (interactive novel). It should be illegal (lighthearted).
This should be called dev journal not dev blog HA.