Writing Interactive Fiction with Twine

4. Designing Puzzles

Puzzles have always played a large role in interactive fiction, and dozens of types of puzzles commonly pop up in interactive fiction games.

For instance, Brian Moriarty’s 1985 classic Wishbringer opens with you, the reader, standing on top of a hill with your boss, who is instructing you to deliver a letter to the Magick Shoppe on the other side of town. After you take the letter, you can head down the hill toward the cottage or the graveyard.

You quickly learn that your path to the Magick Shoppe is obstructed when you encounter the first puzzle in the game. A yapping dog blocks your path to town, and a creepy gravedigger locks the back gate of the cemetery before you can exit. How can you deliver the letter if every route ...