Resources to accompany the book *Critical Making in the Age of AI* by Emily Johnson and Anastasia Salter
You have several options for user-friendly platforms to create powerful interactive narrative experiences.
In Twine, Bitsy, and Omeka, you can create different possibilities for your reader/player, you will be rather deeply considering different perspectives, scenarios, etc. for a given topic and narrative.
All of these tools ask you to think deeply and differently about what a narrative is, what it means to tell a story, and how the author and the reader/player can share roles.
Decide what topic your narrative will target- this is the critical making aspect. What 'ism' or theory or literary perspective might your story, game, timeline, or collection use to make an argument about the world?
What types of genres and perspectives might be best suited for a choose-your-own-adventure style interactive narrative? What choices will your reader or player need to make? How will your user interact with your project?
Scope alert! Beware of scope creep. You do not want 1,000 choices! Begin with the overall experience you want your audience to have. A feeling, a concept, etc. Plan out the general beginning, middle, and end points. Then fill in the details.
An interactive, polished narrative that:
Twine: https://twinery.org/
Twine is a text-based interactive narrative platform. It has gotten more and more user-friendly over the years, to the point that the tutorials for courses I taught a few years ago are not really useful!
To create a Twine narrative, you just type your passage into a word-processing box, then link that passage to the next passage. Each passage can have one or many options--and each option can go to a different passage or the same, or a mix of these.
Note: There are several versions of Twine, so if you come across a tutorial that doesn't seem to match what you are seeing on your computer, this is probably why. It's helpful to search for the specific type of Twine you are using.
Want the most simple, in-browser option? That's Twine 2.
Bitsy: https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy (click "run tool")
Bitsy is a game creation platform that has unique constraints. The graphics are "retro" style, and options are somewhat limited as far as what games in this platform can and cannot do. If you are someone who struggles with options, this may be a perfect fit for you!
My daughter made her first Bitsy game when she was 7 years old, so don't be intimidated!
Omeka: https://omeka.org/s/download/ (you have to download this one)
Omeka needs to be downloaded, but once you have done that, it is a user-friendly way to create curated collections that tell a story. Consider what times of images, videos, texts, memes, gifs, etc. you have access to and how, when viewed together or one after another, they may convey something in a new perspective.