Twine is a tool that video game artists have used to produce work that is inaccessible to the majority of the video game playing public because it breaks conventions of traditional gameplay. Rather than being fun, winnable, linear, and coated with visual complexity, Twine games are text-based interactive works that reject the commercialized aesthetic of mainstream video games. But Twine games are not competing with the mainstream entertainment industry; their audiences are much different. Twine allows artists to explore intimate themes and provides a platform for marginalized voices in the art and gaming communities—voices that many in the mainstream gaming industry feel threatened by.

I was particularly attracted to “Queers in Love at the End of the World” because I felt it was a perfect use of this time- and text-based interactive medium. Since the game only lasts 10 seconds each time it’s played, I found myself repeating the game over and over to try and find a way to avoid the end of time and keep my imaginary lover with me. The experience felt real and even gave me a little bit of anxiety. The fact that this text game and the the “game over” screen (Everything is wiped away.) in particular is dry and anticlimactic makes it so much more powerful because it forces the player to create an image in their mind of the implied destruction and loss.