This is my very 1st twine game. When I first started using Twine, I immediately thought of an important role in COC or D&D: the DM. The DM creates stories, provides choices for players, and weaves their destinies. I’m a big fan of games like Divinity: Original Sin, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Pillars of Eternity, where the text is rich, and the choices are numerous (sometimes even confusing). So, naturally, I chose to write my story in the second person.

I enjoy writing stories that are based on everyday life but go beyond it, so I decided to create a story with a slight “sanity-draining” element. In this story, set during the summer, the player (you) becomes obsessed with a currency introduced by the teacher—Edicoin. You need Edicoin to win the game, but becoming too obsessed might lead to a mental breakdown. This concept reminded me of Gollum’s obsession with the Ring in The Lord of the Rings, which became a key inspiration for the story.

Once the script was finalized, the biggest challenge was the English localization. Since this is a purely text-based game, I had to think about how to make the narrative flow smoothly for English-speaking players. Writing in Chinese comes naturally to me, but I wanted the English version to convey the same feeling. In the end, I decided to use some flowery language at the beginning to add a more dramatic flair to the script.

After the story finished, I started thinking about how to design the game’s cover. The drawing presented another layer of complexity—I spent nearly 10 hours on it, creating several versions, and almost gave up (laughs), but yeah! I managed to finish it in the end.