Now Available on iOS: Yarn - a platform for mobile IF games

Edit 6/23:

Several months and missed ship dates later… the app is live!

[size=125]Check it out: https://appsto.re/i6YZ3JR [/size]

There’s currently 12 games and over 125,000 words if IF-awesomeness from some really talented authors and developers:

The Arboretum - by Matthew Burns
Arcane Intern (Unpaid) - by Astrid Dalamdy
Beneath Floes - by Kevin Snow
Campus Row - by Dylan Lockhart
Capsule - by PaperBlurt
Following Me (v2) - by Tia Orisney
Hana Feels - by Gavin Inglis
HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE - by Porpentine
Missive - by Joey Fu
[R]espawn - by Javy Gwaltney
RocketJumpification - by Seth Alter and Caroline Murphy
Save Merlin the Pig! - by Leigh Alexander

We have a few more coming soon and always looking for more great stories and games. Let me know if you’re interested in publishing on Yarn.


Original Post:
Hey everybody, I wanted to share what I’ve been working on for the past couple months. It’s a new IF platform designed for mobile. I’m planning to release the iPhone/iPad version on June 23 and then an Android version soon after that.

I was hoping to get some feedback from the IF community and I’m also looking for more games to publish.

Check it out:
https://www.useyarn.com

Thanks for reading :smiley:
-Ryan

Saw this on Twitter yesterday. It’d be really useful to have a demo game to show Yarn’s features. This is partly because in the website seems to be present Yarn as “Twine, but different”. (putting aside string-related jokes… done.)

(I get the impression that choices will only be put at the end of a text block, which actually is more similar to Choicescript! - in which case you could make the case that it was like Choicescript but for shorter-format stuff…) How is it different from existing platforms?

Also, I see in the mockups on the website that you’ve put existing Twine games on there - Arcane Intern, Beneath Floes and so on. How are they enhanced by adapting to Yarn? What bits of the styling is preserved? Do you envision it to be like Frotz (as an interpreter), but for Twine?

I’ve been following. This looks like a great platform and I look forward to the direct development tool!

You’re right on comparing it to Twine and ChoiceScript. I think of it as sort of “the features and ownership model of Twine with the publishing capabilities of ChoiceScript.”

Plus, there are a ton of other (smaller) platform differences. One that I’m really excited about is long delays and notifications. You can write stories that happen in real time with Yarn. So, for example if the main character goes to sleep, the story can stop and 8 hours later you’d get a push notification from the character that says something like “Good Morning!” or whatever.

Right again. I spent a lot of time considering twine-style inline choices. I even did some (very unscientific) usability testing with friends and family. In the end I decided not to include them. I’m considering adding inline links that work like footnotes, providing a definition or more info about a character, but any choice that moves the story forward is going to be at the bottom of the passage. I’ve spent so much time thinking out this, I could probably write an essay on it.

I think the biggest benefit is that any game ported to Yarn’s format will run natively on mobile. This might not sound like that big of a deal but consider that the same Choice of Games title on sale for $5 on the App Store is often completely free to play in your browser.

Yarn isn’t HTML/CSS/Javascript based so it really depends on the story and the style but the sort answer is all or most. I’d say Yarn can emulate just about anything you can do in CSS 2.0 and some of what was added in CSS 3.0.

The real goal of the project is to make IF games more accessible to readers and more rewarding for writers. The app is made of 3 pieces: a client for playing games, a library to store games and track progress, and a store for finding new games. The vision is that, authors will be able to publish with one click and their game will become immediately available on any device with a Yarn app.

To that end, I don’t want to limit it to just games made with Loom (the still in development tool for creating Yarn games). I have a plan to let authors publish games in (just about) any format on Yarn.

Did you randomly choose a few games to port, or did Astrid and Kevin turn over their files to see if they could be adapted to Yarn? Meaning, would the only games in the library be games people turned over to you, or would this be more like Frotz where you could upload all your Twine games to the library and take them with you?

I think the biggest benefit is that any game ported to Yarn’s format will run natively on mobile. This might not sound like that big of a deal but consider that the same Choice of Games title on sale for $5 on the App Store is often completely free to play in your browser.

@ CressidaHubris

I initially reached out to a small group of authors/developers and asked for permission to host their games on Yarn. Once I finish building the authoring tool and self-publishing platform, anyone will be able to upload their game to Yarn’s catalog. In the meantime, I have to do all the conversion myself. It can be pretty time consuming so unfortunately, at the moment I have to be picky-choosy with what I convert and publish. (Shameless Plug: anyone currently interested in publishing on Yarn can submit their work here: https://writers.useyarn.com)

Allowing readers to upload their own favorite games to their private library is a cool idea for a feature though. I made a note of it on my todo list. :smiley:

(I hope it doesn’t feel like you’re being grilled before Congress somehow…:slight_smile:

On one of the blog posts, you posted a sample of the language that went like this:

#Kermit: is a #frog, is in #ThePond. #frog is an #animal. #Pig is an #animal. #MissPiggy: is a #Pig, is in #ThePond. #Kermit loves #MissPiggy. #ThePond is a #Place.

What does this kind of tagging/categorizing/relation-building accomplish in the language? If the interface is choice-based, when would these kinds of categories come into play?

Haha, no worries. I’m happy to answer questions. :smiley:

I think you may have me confused with a guy in Canada building something called “Yarn Studio.” Unfortunately, there appear to be two new IF projects with “Yarn” in their title.

I apologize for the confusion then, I’m not sure how I could have thought they were the same thing!

It sounds rather interesting.
When will the Android version be available for download? Also, will it be possible to implement statistics and such (similar to ChoiceScript)?

@Flathead

Thanks! I’m shooting to have an android version out by mid-late summer. Although, historically, I’m terrible at these sorts of estimates.

If by statistics you meant things like character stats and inventory, then yes. Yarn has support for variables so you can track all that stuff.

If you meant statistics for authors, things like “number of downloads” and “number of people who saw X ending,” then also yes. The self-publishing tool and writer’s portal will eventually include an anonymized analytics suite for authors.

But it will be out in iOS soon? It looks very cool; I’m just wondering the business model. Will the app be free or paid? Will the games loaded with the app be free or set up as in-app purchases?

Oh! Are there plans for a desktop/browser version of Loom?

@CressidaHubris

Yup, I’m aiming to have the iOS app out sometime in May. Currently the app and all the games on it are free. I have a few business model ideas but haven’t committed to any yet. Most likely, authors will be able to set a price for their stories and sell them as in-app-purchases.

@verityvirtue

It’s going to be browser based at first. Possibly a desktop version at some point. I’m more reluctant to give a time frame for it’s release. Optimistically, late-summer.

Analytics capabilities? You have my attention.

I’d particularly like to be able to drop that “percentage of people who saw…” analytic on things that aren’t endings. Two ways to pass a branch-and-rejoin - how many people went each way?

Ooh, like the stats in Buried. +1 to that.

@cvaneseltine That’s an awesome idea. And it wouldn’t be too much work to build it on top of the analytics stuff I already have. I added it to the features backlog!

@CressidaHubris I’m not familiar with “Buried.” Are the stats public? Like can you see “50% of player made choice 1?” That’s also a cool idea for a feature.

Yes, at the end of a segment, it tells you how many other people made the same choice in Buried. It’s interesting to see where you fall with the stats.

Hey everybody! Just wanted to let you know that the Yarn app is finally up on iOS!

[size=125]https://appsto.re/i6YZ3JR [/size]

I got to work with some awesome writers and game developers over the past few months. Huge thanks to all of them!

You can play all these game on Yarn::
The Arboretum - by Matthew Burns
Arcane Intern (Unpaid) - by Astrid Dalamdy
Beneath Floes - by Kevin Snow
Campus Row - by Dylan Lockhart
Capsule - by PaperBlurt
Following Me (v2) - by Tia Orisney
Hana Feels - by Gavin Inglis
HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE - by Porpentine
Missive - by Joey Fu
[R]espawn - by Javy Gwaltney
RocketJumpification - by Seth Alter and Caroline Murphy
Save Merlin the Pig! - by Leigh Alexander

I’m really excited about getting feedback from the IF community on this. If you get a chance, check out the app and let me know what you like and what you’d change about Yarn!

Congratulations!