Unit 4: Story telling (Twine)

Plan

Plot

In a world where monsters roam free live humans with abilities which are superhuman and is your job to slaughter each and everyone of them. Hunters are given a level:

• S – Rank this is the highest ranking you can have.
• A – Second highest sent to S dungeon on a count of 3 of them.
• B – Not the weakest but this is where a strong regular human is.
• C – This is where regular humans are
• D – If you significantly lack strength

This is all controlled by a mysterious entity called the overlord which sets given tasks which must be completed or you will punished. You can level up your level however, it is luck based if you end up levelling up this is to create fairness within the game.

However, you can create your own party which can strength you as you go deeper within the dungeon as well as to make the player feel more involved as it breaks the forth wall.

This is a mood board of what I want to make and where I dropped my ideas down on the story. This helped because I could get a greater structure of what I wanted to achieve. I branched of things which are critical for a short story like this but I also had to think about the user experience in the progress. All though the user interface isn’t something that super important within the assignment I believe that it would make it more outstanding in what I want to do as it gives the reader a experience which is what I am trying to achieve.

Software

I am going to be using Twine which runs on a node based system with a lot of customisation as you can write your own java script and can also use a custom style sheet which is Harlow css. It is also good for variables and conditional logic which I can use for my story. Another benefit to twine is it can be both visual and text based as it allows you to import images. Twine publishes directly to HTML so I can add a sub domain so people can access it. https://twine.kingowen.fyi/

Target audience

My target audience is for those who want a simple text based RPG. This is for people aged at 7 or above. This is because of how simple the story line will be. I plan on detailing the fights but not to be over complicated and to encourage them to imagine it.

I am planning to make it enjoyable to read this is because of the interactive user interface which I plan on making to make it so that the reader feels apart of the story. To keep them interested I plan on adding philosophy within the story which is surfaced level but up for interpretation.

I am going to keep them engaged by using a variety of techniques that real authors use. I am wanting my audience to feel like they are within the story and not just someone clicking options just for fun. To tackle this I am going to be showing not telling writing technique.

My story main turning point can happen at anytime this is because of the philosophy within the story. For example you are responsible for your party therefore, responsibility scales with strength comes into play. Due to this being luck based.

This is my user interface that I designed in Figma and was aiming to get a clean solo levelling look which you can see in the mood board above. This is because I am taking heavy inspiration of system UI that solo levelling presents. I like the clean look and the gradient outline. I think a minimal user interface is good because it fits with the story.

Before I could start making the story I would need to make a block out containing the important parts of the story and how I want the story to flow. This will help me maintain focus on the project and not drift off. This was a massive help as it pointed to the direction I wanted my story to take. This had basic links within the nodes to better strengthen guide.

Time Management

Week 1 – I managed to create a solid plan on what I wanted to create which allowed me to get a greater understanding of what I wanted to do. This was good because I was able to start drafting a mood board of inspiration this is because it allows me to gain a idea of what I want to do.

Week 2 – I started to do my research as now I have a plan I can research into the topics which I need further information about. This is in order for me to get a better gasp of what my story is and how it can be impact in more ways than one.

Week 3 -I started to plan the user experience such as interface mock ups and how I wanted the branches to look like this was beneficial as it allowed me to follow a path and complete it that way.

Week 4 – Creating a modular style sheet in Harlow CSS. This was a challenge this is because compered to regular CSS which I am more a custom to Harlow had a slightly difference syntax to what I am use to. This new syntax caused a few issues such as body{} not working it was tw-story{} and there was others which was hard to do. I did use AI to help and learn Harlow.

Week 5 – After the style sheet was done I decided to use my draft plan from week 3 and to start adding it in. I believe that the method used in this week was inefficient but due to the deadline coming closer if it works don’t touch it. The alternative method I could have used was tags instead of hard coding it using divs.

Week 6 – This is the reflection week and feedback. But during this week I was also adding to everything and enforcing my work.

Week 7 – In this week I managed to get feedback and to refine my work to make sure that I have not missed anything out and that I have met the goals of the assignment.

How am I going to do the story

Structure – I am planning to be story branching at certain points with in the story this is because I want the player actions to also impact the story line to make them feel more involved in the story. I have also gone with this idea because it also doesn’t have to be a defined story line. However, there needs to be a consistent system of rules which I can do by asking closed question yes or no. This will help with the RPG style I am wanting to do.

Characters – This is going to be in a first person perspective. Which you can name yourself this is to make the reader feel even more involved within the story this is it is you the player playing not just a regular story. There will also be a chance for you to create your own party which can strength you as you go deeper within the dungeon during this time you can grow closer to your allies.

Imagery – This is going to be both easy and hard this is because with Twine my software of choice. Twine allows you to import both sound and images however, in doing so I will be limiting the the imagination of my target audience which is not what I want to do. Therefore, I will need to find a middle ground in order to do this.

Research

Types of narrative theories within the story

Meritocracy – This is when individuals are assigned to positions of power by the influence, or reward based solely on their abilities, talents, and achievements, rather than on their social standing.

My story will centre around this as you start of weak but can become the strongest in the world because of your reward based solely on their choices this reflects the theme of meritocracy.

Self-Determination over Fate – This philosophy focuses around the question of whether our lives are predetermined by external forces or if we possess the power to shape our destinies.

This will influence my story because you get to choose your fate but only based on the overlord command therefore, is it really you shaping your destiny or something completely different.

Responsibility Scales with Strength – People with a strong responsibility takes psychological ownership of what they say they will do. But when people gain strength the could lose the sense of responsibility but responsibility itself is a strength.

This will effect my story as if you gain strength will you become more arrangement or will you still be responsible for your team and story.

Campbell’s Hero’s Journey – Hero’s Journey encourages them to think about plot structure, character motivation, and theme. A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

This will help me convey are heroes born or are they made? With the luck based system on weather you can level up or not. As well as which path will they walk down.

Political or ethical parts

My story touches on the meritocracy this is political debate. This is because of how the hierarchy is formed within the story. Due to my story also involving killing this is normal classed as unethical however, in this story it is completely normal for death to occur but not to kill another man.

Type of stories

Movies – The advantage of film is that the visual image is conveyed directly to the audience. Different movie genres convey story telling differently as they have different formats and points they want to get across to the audience. Movies are very similar to games in that aspect however, unlike games they don’t have the intractability therefore they have to do something different.

Manga – Creates a story through the elements of both film and literature. This covered in in singular frames. Which can have a large impact on the audience as they don’t need to visualise what the characters or the environment looks like. Most manga is black and white but you can get coloured ones. Manga comes from the English word comic as in Japanese it translates to Manga it is a type of medium which is slightly different to comics as most characters in Manga are over exaggerated to show their personality this even applies to the speech bubbles. However, a disadvantage of Manga is that it often makes the reader to fill in the missing frames. Some Manga gets produced into Anime which is the Japanese word for a medium in animation which is like a movie or series.

Games – A video game narrative is what hooks the gamer and often is a main reason for people buying the game. This also allows a interactive experience for the player to feel like they are part of the world. Due to this advantage that they have this can make the player, experience things such as fear, excitement, or sadness. There are many ways that a video game can tell a story from a liner format to a branching format allowing the player to pick many options for different options. Some uses cut scenes which can be just as impact as movies but with more emotional impact as the player grows attached to there character.

Solo levelling

Solo levelling is an anime produced by A-1 Pictures and written by Chugong. Solo levelling is a huge inspiration for the plot. Solo levelling is in a world of hunters which are humans which posses supernatural abilities fight deadly monsters but one day Sung Jin-woo (main character) went into a unpredictable double dungeon and on a near death experience was chosen to be a player by the system who can level up and get stronger.

This is a huge inspiration because it is a dungeon crawler anime which is what my game is based on. It is also a inspiration for the system user interface. Having this heavy inspiration will help with me sticking to the original plot line and not going of script.

Persona 3

Persona 3 (P3) developed by P Studio and published by Atlus, is an RPG game. The story follows Makoto Yuki, a high school student who transfers to Gekkoukan High School and moves into a dormitory. At 12:00 a.m dark hour happens and most people are transformed into coffins and unaware of the time. It is your job to fight the shadows.

I like the the dialogue idea this is because as a student I struggle with large majority of writing as it is easy for me to lose focus therefore, I decided that a dialogue story stem would be better.

Both solo levelling and P3 talks about the awakening to one’s abilities which is a point that I also want to get across. This is because of the luck you could unlock a good ability.

Star Wars franchise

Star Wars franchise George Lucas and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Star Wars follows the concept of good (Rebel Alliance) vs evil (Galactic Empire). It follows the

Star Wars franchise an inspiration as I want to add the crawl effect that star Wars does this is because I think this will be good for the prologue as that will have the most amount of text displayed at one time. It will also help to build a background on the story setting.

Production

User Interface

Tools used during the user interface design was ChatGPT 5.2. I managed to get the more premium version as it had a one month offer which I thought would have been good to help with Harlowe CSS. In the end I wanted AI to do all. This is also because I realised that I was falling behind on my work and not in the place I wanted to be in. Therefore, I copied and pasted it in hopes that it would work and described issues which was happening and asking for full css so I can just copy and paste it in whist I was creating the story.

This was my first design and although it looked good I wanted to go with something more basic and would have fitted the mock up design that I made originally this is because I felt that the first attempt was too diced up into sections with multiple text boxes.

I didn’t want to use a image as my main interface this is because it lacked consistency and didn’t always work. I also noticed when trying a image the scale of device matters and as I would like to add mobile support in the future a image was not the write way to go about this. Due to this the user interface has to change which personality I think was better it looks a lot more softer. One change I did have to do is positioning this was normally very off when the AI did it.

This new design is very good this is because it doesn’t look to boxed of and fits better with a simple design. I was quite happy to do this. However, I didn’t like the amount of blank space therefore, I got the AI to fix this. I think blank space would make it look too empty and low effort. Which led to the final design.

This was my final design on all different variants. As each serve a different purpose and action.

This is what the User Interface look with it’s HTML code. This was a simple way of doing it and I think I should of made every node like this instead of changing it.

During the production of the story I heavily focused on the visuals however, this was my downfall. I should have focused on the story before planning and playing with the visuals this is something that I was warned about but still did anyways. However, I do think that if I expand the story it would have been better.

To play my Twine story visit the link below ↓

https://twine.kingowen.fyi/

Reflection

In future I would focus on the story first and learning how to put my thoughts into words. As I had big ideas but didn’t know how to put them into a software which I have never used before. I could of also worked on my English confidence this is because due to me having low English skills I was worried about Spag and typos and therefore, tried to lower the amount of words used. Due to me doing this I lowered it to an extent where it didn’t feel like a story to me but instead of a multiple choice mini game. I also should have stuck with a liner format this is because I struggled creating the multiple choices that the player had but wanted to achieve multiple choices as to me a liner story would have been too boaring.

Personally I really struggled with this unit and making sure I maintained any English skills such as structuring and wording. I was also didn’t full understand the software I’d be using. However, I would like to work on my story telling in the future. Therefore, I had to ask for external help with my wording to get it as good as it is.

I would also do my plan better this is because just having bones of what I wanted to create didn’t help that much and should of been more in depth to what I wanted to create. Due to this I think that I missed my narrative theories that I wanted to include.

However, I do think that I managed to get a greater understanding on how story telling is and how it can be used in multiple different ways. This was a nice learning experience as I know where I went wrong and how I would improve next time. I would also change the software used into something that I would of been able to understand more with software such as PowerPoint I would of also changed my work flow as I started with the design first and not the story itself. This was a huge mistake and was a great learning experience to teach me that planning can in my ways.

Based on my feedback I can see that the people agreed with the points I made above and therefore, I will work on that in the future. On which tasks are more important.

References

Bodo, D.V. (2023). Fate vs. Self-Determination: Exploring the Age-Old Philosophical Debate. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@dr.victor.bodo/fate-vs-self-determination-exploring-the-age-old-philosophical-debate-6124d009dbd1

Costa, D. (2024). meritocracy. [online] http://www.britannica.com. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/money/meritocracy.

Strengthsmining.com. (2017). Responsibility | StrengthsMining. [online] Available at: https://www.strengthsmining.com/gallup-strengthsfinder/executing-strengths/responsibility/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2025].

Hamby, Z. and Hamby, R. (2022). Teaching Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. [online] Creative English Teacher. Available at: https://creativeenglishteacher.com/pages/teaching-joseph-campbells-the-heros-journey.

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Role-playing game. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game.

‌