When working on my 3-Passage story for our Twine final project, I became a bit absorbed in Twine itself. I really delved into its documentation to explore all of the options for creating links and usingmacros to modify hooks. I wanted to figure out the best way to piece together my story. It wasn’t until I had a few passages all linked together when I truly started to notice how interconnected everything is. I began to imagine small clusters of links off to the side of the main storyline, similar to the Gauntlet style we saw when looking at CYOA books. Twine allows the user to create side branches that add to the story, but these side branes aren’t necessary to get through the story. In fact, Twine works get a shoutout as “friendly gauntlets” in Ashwell’s post.
When looking at Her Story, we see something similar. Because there is a large database of videos and you are limited to 5 videos per search, it’s is hard to see every video when playing the game. Yet, with enough videos, you can typically put together the story (story being the actual chronology of events). Although you might not have a fully fleshed out story, you have a basic understanding, which implies that the videos you don’t encounter are not crucial to understanding the overall story.
In both Twine works and Her Story, the plot is different for everyone. In Twine, you can see text in different orders depending on how you click the links similar to how you can see videos in different orders depending on how you search the database. Furthermore, the player’s interactivity determine which details are included in the plot. Players are free to click on as many or as little links/videos as they please. In their own ways, both accomplish being disjointed yet very connected.