Swan Hill
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Swan Hill is a short choose-your-own-adventure Twine story. It is about two brothers who have grown to see their world in very different ways. It has a minimalistic presentation style and a unique color-based link system.
It was released on my website in 2013.
Play Swan Hill online here.
You can get Mac and PC builds of the game below. They are made with Twine App Builder.
The "source code" download contains the .html version of the game, as well as the game's cover image and the .tws source file, from which you are free to cannibalize any code you wish. This source file can only be opened in the "old" version of Twine, 1.4.2.
I originally posted this on itch.io because I have been contacted several times by people who want to use Swan Hill's color-based link system in their own games. It is actually extremely simple. You can find the CSS that controls the link colors by examining the final block of text in the stylesheet node of this game's .tws file.
At one time, I was working on a sequel to Swan Hill. You can play the demo for that sequel here.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
Comments
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I'm learning how to create my own Twine story, and Swan Hill has inspired me. I love the use of replace macro, this is my first time seeing that and I would like to implement it in my own project. It gives it a more immersive feeling, like I am thinking the chancellor's thoughts. Super cool technique!
Thank you! I was certainly not the first to use the replace macro in this way, nor the first to use colored links in twine, but this may have been the first twine game to do differently-colored links for the "advance" and "replace" links, to distinguish their functionality. I still want to do a collection of hypertext games someday where multiple link "mechanics" operate on the same page of text using different colored links... I think that deft and mechanistic uses of link types is a style that still has a lot of life left in it. It definitely wasn't fully explored during the boom of Twine games in the 2010s. Would love to see anything you do in that space!
Thank you for the reply! I will be on the lookout for your collection of hypertext games! Are there any Twine games from that 2010 boom that you view as essential to the development of Twine games today? I am curious to investigate existing effective mechanics and play around with the "link type style" in my work.
Years ago, this was the first twine I ever read. It was wonderful to go back to it and find it still holds up just as it did then.
this is so so beautiful. thank you for making this. I can't believe it's free
Thank you! Someday I hope to make and sell a short game collection using these mechanics, haha.
this is an incredible piece of writing.
Thank you!!
I'm really, really fond of this. Thanks for the experience! I enjoyed reading. :)
Thanks!