This tutorial will teach you how to add sound to your Twine game.

The easiest way to do this is to first cache the sound you want to use. This means that the sound effect will be loaded ahead of time and used when you want it to. This will prevent any delay in it playing and makes it easier to keep things organized as it allows you to name your sound clips.

First, to cache the sound you must add the following code: <<cacheaudio “name of sound effect” “the URL of your sound effect”>> to one of your passages. It makes most sense to add it to the StoryInit passage so the effect will load asap, as seen below.

Next, put the URL of the sound effect you wish to use in the code where it says “the URL of your sound effect” and the name you want to give your sound effect where it says “name of sound effect”. Pretty self explanatory, but here’s a visual using “cats meowing” as the name and “http://www.ousob.com/wavfiles/meow.wav” as the URL for the sound effect:

Now you can use the sound effect wherever you please. To do so, choose a passage you want to have the sound effect occur at and put in this code: <<audio “name of sound effect”>>. Change the “name of sound effect” to the name of the sound effect you just cached. Following the example, I posted <<audio “cat-meowing”>>  into Untitled Passage 1.

And that’s it! Happy Twining!

For our project, my group and I will be focusing on how biking is currently being handled in Pittsburgh and how we can make biking a safer, more accessible form of transportation and recreation in the city. The addition of Healthy Ride Pittsburgh, a bike sharing system, along with the growing fad of “green” transportation, has made biking a hot issue in Pittsburgh. This biking movement has taken the city by storm, and its popularization has lead to criticism of how Pittsburgh is handling making the influx of bicyclists.

The death of the beloved Pitt teacher, Susan Hicks, along with many other Pittsburgh cyclists this year have caused an outcry that demands more safety measures be implemented to protect bicyclists. The road she was on had no bike lane, and it’s hard not to wonder that, if the roads were more accommodating to bikers, this tragedy could have been avoided.

Pittsburgh has plans to create more bike lanes on major roads that are clearly marked in green paint in the next 8 years. As the addition of bike lanes is happening, slowly due to the construction process and of a push-back by some, it is important that the people of Pittsburgh must be educated on how to share the road with cyclists. There are many already existing websites that deal with biking safety and accessibility, and ours will have that too, only it will be unique in that it was also invite non-bikers into the conversation.

The end goal is simple: to continue the ongoing conversation of biking safety and accessibility to the Pittsburgh population with a new focus on how teaching the community how how to respect and accommodate their cycling neighbors on the road. Biking is becoming an increasingly rewarding way to get around the city and the people who choose to use this mode of transportation should not have to fear for their safety. It is our responsibility as a city to be aware and educated of what we can do as individuals and as a community to prevent further tragedies and make the roads safer for all.

So, after playing The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo (UWN) and The Girl in the Haunted House (GHH), it’s safe to say I’ve had my fill of creepiness for the night. I want to talk about both games, but I played UWN until I unlocked all the endings so I will primarily discuss that game.

First of all, how freaking scary. From the lack of color, to the sounds, to when Uncle comes in and wrecks everything with his strange red text commands–this game is definitely one of horror. Using different drawings of the setting to help create a sense of place worked to make the story feel more realistic. The sounds creeped me out every time. I think having the option to check the grandfather clock while also having it chime to indicate the passage of time was smart, especially considering how important time is to the story. Honestly the way time works when it comes to “choosing your own adventure” in this game was probably its coolest feature.

One play-through is enough to understand that the dreaded Uncle is coming at 12. Many of the games options change depending on the time. For example, what games you play/watch your friend play changes depending on the hour you ask. Same with the talk option. Only after your friends’ mom brings you popcorn at 9 do you have the option of asking about the Uncle’s visit. If you don’t call your mom before 11, then you’re doomed to meet the Uncle.

Certain options are not only time-sensitive, but depend on other choices being made first. For example, if you wish to find out about the Uncle you need to first think about him. This causes the option to “think about your own mew” to appear. Choose that and be sure to click on the bolded red text (which throughout the game indicates a choice) to find out about the storm. Then ask your friend about their uncle and tell them you don’t believe them. Be sure not to punch them back or you will never get the choice to find out about the Uncle. After things settle, talk to your friend about the storm, and once they realize you remember, you’ll learn about the Uncle.

It was fun to find out what choices I needed make to unlock new ones, and what kind of endings would come out of my choices. The moments of choice mostly feel consequential, though a lot of them lead to the same next choice (like, for example, all the options you have when talking to your friends parents).

GHH was similiar to UWN in that options would appear only after other options were chosen, but I don’t think it was as effective as UWN. But then again, I definitely played UWN for a lot longer than GHH (only played through that one twice) so maybe there’s still more for me to discover.

The sound I decided to choose was the “creaking bed” sound because it immediately creeped me out when I was listening to it. It screams horror movie to me and I feel like it could be used in a multitude of ways to make a scene appear scarier and to build suspense.

I can imagine a scene where a character wakes up in the middle of the night to the creaking noise and then debates whether or not to go investigate the sound. Despite originating from a bed, the creaking noise could be manipulated slightly to sound like creaky floorboards, shutters, or maybe even a rusty door hinge. It can be anything, and that makes it scarier.

The character will decide to go investigate despite being on by themselves in the house, maybe talking to themselves as they go to try and remain calm. The house is old, and so the creaking noise could just be from that, but nonetheless the character is spooked. There’s no music–just silence, and the creaking noise, and the occasional “hello?” called out in fear as the character starts abandon their rational thinking and doubt their reality.

In the background of the sound I can almost hear someone breathing, if I listen closely. As the character gets closer to where the sound is coming from, they’ll start to hear that too, and it’ll be goosebumps galore for the audience. Could it be possible that they aren’t alone? Could there be a rational explanation for this?

Other additional sounds that could be used in this scene are other creepy sounding things including: the sound of lights flickering, a door slamming, the wind moaning, an owl hooting, and distant murmurings.

At the end of the scene, the character must make the choice to open the door to the dark room that contains the sound or to turn back and try and forget about the whole thing.

Radiolab used sound throughout the entire podcast to really emphasize the story that was being told. There were a few moments I particularly enjoyed.

I really appreciated how they took parts of clips and put them together. This occurred multiple times in the podcast, but I think it was done best in the beginning when it keep switching from bits of news clips about Gary Hart’s campaign to bits where the radio hosts/guests were speaking. The sound clips were short and, even though they were spoken by different people, mashed up extremely well and sounded like they were meant to be put together. It was a much more interesting way of introducing a person than just listing some facts.

I also really enjoyed how they used music and sound effects to emphasize the words being sad. One particular instance of this was when they were talking about Gary Hart entering a vortex, and then they played an audio clip of him talking mixed with an eerie, swirling noise that imitated his words being lost in a vortex. They also did this at a point where they were talking about how the reporters were lurking around (they played creepy, slow music in the background while this part of the story was being described) that made the story much more exciting. Whenever there was language that could be enhanced with sounds that are popularly associated with those words, the podcast took advantage of it and added the sounds.

Overall, I think the sound design really added to the podcast and helped to keep it interesting. I think that the story could have ended up being really boring if it wasn’t for the use of sound to keep people actively listening. In fact, the parts without sound effects really didn’t grab my attention like the parts that did.