495R Public Document

a short text adventure about finding what’s been lost. [[start searching.->start searching]] (set: $stone to false) (set: $asmr to false) (set: $gay to false) (set: $kim to false) (set: $diyg to false) (set: $diyg2 to false) (set: $new to true)

you’ve got a list of four games. (live: 1.5s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[you don’t have links, but you’ve heard people say they’re worth playing.](stop:)] (live: 3s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[all you have to do is find them.](stop:)] (live: 5s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[easy, right?->easy, right?]]](stop:)]

you type the title into google. you can hit [[search->sstone]], or search the [[author’s name->astone]], just to see what they’re about. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

you type the title into google. you can hit [[search->sasmr]], or search the [[author’s name->aasmr]], just to see what they’re about. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

you type the title into google. you can hit [[search->sgay]], or search the [[author’s name->agay]] just to see what they’re about. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

you type the title into google. you can hit [[search->skim]], or search the [[author’s name->akim]] just to see what they’re about. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

you don’t c—? ...c’mon. [[give me a chance.->easy, right?]] (set: $new to false)

<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o6E1xzKltb8/XNn1DaB2_YI/AAAAAAAAJaE/lY5InJHE5jwJBU6xs-sIIYz1vblKI6SRgCLcBGAs/s1600/stone%2Bsearch%2B1.JPG"> the first result(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "http://storycade.com/twine-everything-swallow-will-one-day-come-like-stone/")] is a rehosting of the game file. the first three results, actually. [[that was easy->search]]. you can [[keep scrolling->kstone]], if you want. (set: $stone to true)

<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gOId-a093yo/XNoCXjcDjZI/AAAAAAAAJcc/w2Fsp3MR04Mrr5JVESHSZFerVjcBEdEKgCLcBGAs/s1600/stone%2Bsearch%2B2.JPG"> she’s got a website(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "http://slimedaughter.com/")], a wikipedia entry(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porpentine_(game_designer)")], a twitter(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://twitter.com/slimedaughter")]… basically the rest of the results are interviews. [[(back)->stone]]

<img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h-TSrL0c6is/XNn0OazaYPI/AAAAAAAAJZ8/F8uCYipe0xAKiz-simG-zm7stpFRp3iOgCLcBGAs/s1600/google%2B1.png"> [[Everything you swallow will one day come up like a stone->stone]], by porpentine [[(ASMR) Vin Diesel DMing a Game of D&D Just For You->asmr]], by merritt k [[The Hunt For The Gay Planet->gay]], by anna anthropy [[Kim’s Story->kim]], by kim moss (if: $stone is true and $asmr is true and $gay is true and $kim is true)[that’s enough searching. time to [[make your own]].]

it looks like there’s a listing for the game on the interactive fiction database(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=z2fjxkqekicty73r")]. there’s also a tumblr post(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://porpentine.tumblr.com/post/82300516837/everything-you-swallow-will-one-day-come-up-like-a")] about it. [[(back)->sstone]]

<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0AzOPMTS8YM/XNn3ER7lxhI/AAAAAAAAJac/Jxk5Se2waewbQstG9nBrS39_1MkF-EZigCEwYBhgL/s1600/asmr%2Bsearch%2B1.JPG"> a handful of youtube videos(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%28asmr%29+vin+diesel+dming+a+game+of+d%26d+just+for+you+")] come up. there’s a surprising number of videogame journalism articles on this one. everything links back to the same link(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://a-dire-fawn.itch.io/diesel-dm")], though. and it’s broken. [[now what?->asmr more]]

<img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eHq9RRF2TXM/XNn3zVPEu8I/AAAAAAAAJao/PT4xVxF-aqsIOg5Wl0vvfh1FLoEk61QawCEwYBhgL/s1600/asmr%2Bsearch%2B2.JPG"> the first thing that comes up is her twitter(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "https://twitter.com/merrittk")], although there’s basically no mention of twine on there. then her personal website(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://merrittk.com/")]. also no mention. her wiki page(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merritt_k")], on the other hand, mentions her twine games a lot. weird. [[(back)->asmr]]

you could check out the link on the [[wayback machine’s archive->asmr end]]. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

well, better than nothing… <img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-Ddz14oCHg/XNoCA5_7XWI/AAAAAAAAJcU/IVqcUSNnev0zn_tIHeuAwejtyPDvTMAewCLcBGAs/s1600/asmr%2Bsearch%2B3.JPG" style="width:800px"> no game, but the snapshot(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20180123212440/https://a-dire-fawn.itch.io/diesel-dm")] lets you see a description for the game, plus some screenshots. looks like you’ll just have to check out those let’s plays. [[bummer->search]]. (set: $asmr to true)

<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N2UUrSlSpFA/XNn4gFirg0I/AAAAAAAAJas/DGCtYjR8ib0GyL4MZWPFQqffUqMr2NSkACLcBGAs/s1600/gay%2Bsearch%2B1.JPG"> the first result is an electronic literature organization link that looks [[promising.->elo]] there’s also some journalistic coverage, and a listing on the [[interactive fiction database->ifdbgay]].

<img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hKuDHNbpiDo/XNn5JIsEqSI/AAAAAAAAJa8/hA01i07z914C1Sq7hZDctPaPiA3pj3RQACEwYBhgL/s1600/gay%2Bsearch%2B2.JPG"> the first result is anthropy’s itch.io page(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "https://w.itch.io/")]. plenty of games listed there, but [[not the one you’re looking for.->wbgay]] next is her wikipedia entry(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Anthropy")], then her twitter(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://twitter.com/adult_witch")]. plus, ton of interviews. [[that’s about it.->gay]]

it might be worth trying her itch.io page on the wayback machine’s archive. maybe the game had been listed [[in the past?->wbgay2]]

<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uCQDAvco7FY/XNn_GpSSlsI/AAAAAAAAJb0/FlRJAuwjy6QL120ixhJ2m5ECPYsa8awjgCLcBGAs/s1600/gay%2Bsearch%2B3.JPG"> nope. lots of others in the backup(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20181215084010/https://w.itch.io/")], but not this one. [[so much for that idea.->gay]] (set: $gay to true)

<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BDoIc9YZHdU/XNn_v_lS6sI/AAAAAAAAJb8/fKsxxVSE11Uu8AvmvG73uHCshHZPg6ZOgCLcBGAs/s1600/gay%2Bsearch%2B4.JPG" style="width:750px"> perfect! the game’s right here(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "http://collection.eliterature.org/3/files/hunt-for-the-gay-planet/hunt-for-the-gay-planet.html")]. check that one off the list. on with the [[search]].

<img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zY6hPnPlOQE/XNoAmbTU1nI/AAAAAAAAJcI/QLhjhGflMLMpPEeUtVfT5aEFzDRbN8v9QCLcBGAs/s1600/gay%2Bsearch%2B5.JPG"> hm. the listing(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=boeof1y11dr27wod")] has a link to the game—two, actually—but they’re both broken. [[(back)->sgay]]

this one’s a little trickier, since the title is generic. it takes a few times, but finally “[['kim’s story' twine game->skim2]]” yields some results.

<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4NIUgayPeo/XNn6vnQe6oI/AAAAAAAAJbI/K8a_owP_YVMACi-4g2-SfG_SlUnAhO68gCLcBGAs/s1600/kim%2Bsearch%2B2%25281%2529.jpg"> <img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-odseSsfUNM0/XNn6vp0T0UI/AAAAAAAAJbM/Q4Nle58Kj2QlrnhvGIURiNcvLNsBvn9qACLcBGAs/s1600/kim%2Bsearch%2B2%25282%2529.jpg"> ...i guess trying to find someone named “kim moss” with no additional info was a long shot, anyway. none of these results are the person you’re looking for. [[(back)->kim]]

<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mkQbw6xATQ/XNn7wenr_wI/AAAAAAAAJbc/9G_d0uOdEJ4sYUjSQ3bKKxqgHjfXlhHbQCLcBGAs/s1600/kim%2Bsearch%2B1%25281%2529.jpg"> there’s a couple options: a site called adventure cow(link: " (external link)")[(open-url: "http://adventurecow.com/stories/669/kims-story")], a page listing twines in relation to transgender day of visibility(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://data.runhello.com/tdov/")], and a post from a site called freeindiegam.es(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://www.freeindiegam.es/2012/11/kims-story-kim-moss/")]. they all link to the same broken dropbox link(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://dl.dropbox.com/u/106579376/Kim%20Story.html")]. you can [[keep scrolling->kkim]], if you want. you can also [[look for another game->search]].

there’s another result here titled “[[webbed space]].” or, you can [[look for another game->search]].

whoa. <img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MqvbbXkPjLc/XNn82BXFApI/AAAAAAAAJbo/lSf7lV6dKhsPAEiRRy51Iq48Q4tvNH2bACLcBGAs/s1600/kim%2Bsearch%2B3.JPG" style="width:800px"> “This page lists all of the free, publicly available Twine games I am aware of. Last updated 21 January 2014.”(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://l.j-factor.com/twine/")] shoutout to leon arnott, huh? the game is here. you just have to download the “[[spool]],” it looks like. guess you can [[look for another game->search]]. (set: $kim to true)

...hang on. it looks like some of the [[other games]] on your list are here.

Everything you swallow will one day come up like a stone and Hunt For The Gay Planet are both in arnott’s collection, too. that makes things [[easier->search]]. (set: $stone to true) (set: $gay to true)

all right, you’ve got a twine game. where do you want to put it? [[personal website->diy1]] [[itch.io->diy2]] [[philome.la->diy3]] [[google drive->diy4]] [[all of the above->diyg]]

done. how do you want to [[share]] it?

done. how do you want to [[share]] it? (set: $diyg to true)

[[put it on a database->diy5]] [[tweet about it->diy6]] [[post it elsewhere->diy7]] [[all of the above->diyg2]]

done. [[let’s see how it goes.->see]]

done. [[let’s see how it goes.->see]] (set: $diyg2 to true)

(if: $diyg is true and $diyg2 is true)[[[time passes…->good ending]]] (if: $diyg is true and $diyg2 is false)[[[time passes…->bad ending1]]] (if: $diyg is false and $diyg2 is true)[[[time passes…->bad ending2]]] (if: $diyg is false and $diyg2 is false)[[[time passes…->bad ending3]]]

congrats! your game has stuck around, for now. you could call this the [[good ending->epilogue]].

a notification appears on your screen. ...[[huh]].

it’s a [[message]].

to: you from: [[tobias]] hey! if you’re reading this (and i programmed everything correctly), that means you’re almost finished. nicely done. before you go, though, i’d like to offer [[a few words]].

that’s me! hi. i created this twine as a part of my undergraduate english capstone in the spring of 2019. also, i use they/them pronouns. as of writing, i’m a third-year professional writing & political science double major and an aspiring librarian. in my free time, i explore podcasts, poetry, interactive fiction, and queer theory/theology. if you’d like to play something else i’ve made, feel free to check out tombs of earth and oak(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://www.philome.la/beqveath/tombs-of-earth-and-oak")] for something a little more fiction-based. but [[enough about me->message]].

first of all, thank you for playing. this certainly won’t be the last twine game anyone ever shares, so i hope you [[keep seeking them out]].

in a world so full of creative media, independently created or otherwise, it can be easy to internalize this assumption that the things people make and share online will always be around—that, if it’s on the internet, it’s there forever. [[this isn’t true]]. and believing it has [[consequences]].

sure, it might be a good thing to remember before you post an embarrassing photo, but on the whole it’s misleading. [[dangerously so->consequences]]. the internet is [[impermanent]]. it’s not an archive or repository for information. it’s a data-sharing hub that relies on individual human maintenance and upkeep to function. the web started out as a kind of messaging system(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web")], after all.

in 1994, there were fewer than 3,000 websites online. by 2018, there were over 1.6 billion(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/")]. And yet, historians and digital preservationists alike offer the same grim prediction: the early web, today’s web, will be mostly lost to time(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/")]. some go as far as to predict that we’re entering a digital dark age, where only a tiny portion of the digital record we’re creating right now will be preserved or even readable by future generations(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/09/tech/internet-may-be-a-repository-of-all-human-knowledge-its-not-reliable-storage")]. so [[what do we do?]]

i’m willing to bet that you’ve had some experience with the impermanence and instability of the internet, yourself. youtube videos are taken down; webpages are removed, their URLs yielding only 404 errors; blank boxes appear where images used to be. one way or another, things [[disappear->consequences]].

hopefully, this game has given you some ideas. for starters, there’s the wayback machine(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://web.archive.org")]. relying on one archive isn’t enough, though—we need redundance(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb")]. we need to back up our backups, then back them up [[again]]. and even then, that still might not be [[enough]].

a smattering of options: give the game file (and a link, for good measure) to the interactive fiction technology foundation’s interactive fiction archive(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://upload.ifarchive.org/cgi-bin/upload.py")]. cross-posting options include itch.io(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://itch.io/")], philome.la(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "http://philome.la/")], or even a personal site. next, share it. tweet it, pin it, whatever it takes. post it however you can. if you’d like an audience, consider forums like the twine reddit(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://www.reddit.com/r/twinegames/")]. for the love of god, share it. get it listed on the interactive fiction database(link: " (x)")[(open-url: "https://ifdb.tads.org/")]. leave as many [[footprints]] as possible.

it’s true. for all the effort, some things will still end up gone. and hey, if a “digital dark age” is indeed upon us, then there’ll come a day when none of this is around anymore, no matter what we do. i’m told the sun’s going to explode one day, too. talk about a dark age. but that doesn’t mean we just lay down and await armageddon. so, sure. we can’t save everything. but we can damn well [[try->again]].

to be fair, you could also… not. maybe that’s part of the experience—ephemerality. here and then gone. dust to dust, [[right?]]

if that’s what you want, i can’t stop you. (live: 2s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[but, do give it some [[thought]].](stop:)]

chances are, we’ll have cultural records of modern media for a while. even digital content—you can bet we’ll still have documentation of world of warcraft and call of duty, even if the games themselves have long since fallen out of circulation. why? because they have the blessing of the industry, and the attention of an expansive audience. a claim to widespread cultural impact. this is something most twine games [[are not going to get]].

again, why? because they aren’t as good? what kind of metric decides that? should society only retain what the majority favor at a particular time? [[what kind of world would that be?]]

here’s what i’m getting at: when we preserve something, there’s an implicit message sent out that says that this thing, whatever it is, is worth remembering. the voices that are represented in twine games are ones that are already marginalized. and while we have a thousand footprints from mainstream games like minecraft or resident evil, these stories are disappearing fast. i think we owe it to the world and to ourselves to hang on to [[every one that we can]].

fin. thanks for playing. want to [[try again?->intro]]

the bad news? soon—sooner than you’d think—your game is gone. a lapsed website, link rot, the host site shut down, your twitter got deleted… there are a million ways it could’ve happened. bottom line, this is the bad ending. good news? i’m gonna give you the [[epilogue]] anyway.

where do you want to start? (live: 1s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[Everything you swallow will one day come up like a stone->stone]], by porpentine](stop:)] (live: 3s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[(ASMR) Vin Diesel DMing a Game of D&D Just For You->asmr]], by merritt k](stop:)] (live: 5s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[The Hunt For The Gay Planet->gay]], by anna anthropy](stop:)] (live: 7s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[Kim’s Story->kim]], by kim moss](stop:)] (if: $new is true)[(live: 9s)[(t8n: "dissolve")[[[nah->nah]]. you don’t care about these games.](stop:)]]