Twine is an open source software project that lets you create and share beautiful paper crafts using a simple framework of user-friendly commands. This is one of those rare opportunities where you get something for free, something that's easy to learn and implement, and yet it can serve a useful purpose... because Twine is a community driven open source project. Now, everyone has access to the source code, which means everyone can write and contribute. All this leads to a number of different benefits, particularly for those interested in creating paper crafts using a simple markup language. In this article, we'll look at just some of these benefits.
Open-Source Software: The biggest advantage to Twine is its complete openness. Twine is written in JavaScript, so it's 100% compatible with all browsers, both desktop and web. It's cross-browser and cross-platform, so it works in both "real world" applications and web applications, on both Mac and PC. This is a big advantage, especially for those who need to develop HTML content and interactivity in the form of interactive stories, Flash animations, or any other sort of creative media. If you need such functionality in your web applications, then Twine is the answer.
Interactive Visual Storytelling Tool: By being an open-source tool, Twine offers another big advantage: you don't have to pay for usage. All that you need to do to get started is to download the entire software package and put it into a web page, where you can begin developing and displaying your Twine creations. This is a particularly useful tool for nonlinear stories, which many Twine users love to share because the beauty of the medium lends itself to visual storytelling.
