Twine
1 known investors
Twine is an open-source tool for authoring interactive fiction and story-based games without requiring coding knowledge, though it supports variables, conditional logic, and custom scripting for advanced users. Stories created with Twine publish directly to HTML and can be shared freely, including for commercial purposes.
Also known as Twinery
Founders & leadership
Investors · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Twine is an open-source authoring tool for interactive, nonlinear stories and text-based games. Its editor presents a story as a graph of linked passages, making branching narrative structure visible and editable without programming experience. Authors who want more control can add variables, conditional logic, images, CSS and JavaScript. Finished works are published directly to HTML files that run in a browser without additional software, so they can be hosted on any web host or shared privately, and anything created with Twine may be used freely, including commercially.
Twine is available in two forms: an installable desktop application for Linux, macOS and Windows, and a browser version intended for environments such as classrooms where installing software is impractical. The browser version stores work in the browser's local storage and can be installed as a progressive web app; documentation warns that clearing browser data destroys stored stories, that iOS users must add Twine to the Home Screen to avoid Safari's seven-day storage eviction, and that Safari on macOS should not be used for this reason. There is no Android or iOS application, and the interface is designed for larger screens with a physical keyboard.
The project publishes extensive documentation: the Twine Reference covers the editor interface, and the Twine Cookbook provides guidance on choosing a story format plus worked examples, available online, in print through booksellers and IngramSpark, and as a free EPUB under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Source code for the application, its file-format specifications and its story formats is maintained in public repositories.
Business model
Twine is distributed as free, open-source software with no purchase or licensing fee; works created with it are free to use in any way, including commercially. Development is supported by voluntary contributions: creator Chris Klimas maintains a Patreon, and donations can be made to The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports interactive fiction community infrastructure. Story format developers may accept donations separately. Non-financial contributions — answering community questions, writing documentation, fixing bugs and translating the interface — are also solicited.
The software is free and open source; funding comes from voluntary donations rather than sales, via the creator's Patreon and contributions to The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. A paid print edition of the Twine Cookbook is sold through booksellers and IngramSpark, with the same content available online and as a free EPUB.
Traction
Twine has been used to create thousands of works, with catalogues of them maintained on external sites such as IFDB and itch.io. The Twine Cookbook lists roughly a dozen named contributors, and community activity is concentrated in the Interactive Fiction Community Forum and a Twine Discord.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Twine is positioned within the interactive fiction and text-game tooling ecosystem alongside Ren'Py, Inform, Bitsy and experimental multiplayer systems such as Seltani, each of which its documentation recommends for use cases outside Twine's focus on branching, text-centric, web-published narratives. Works built with Twine are catalogued on platforms such as IFDB and itch.io.
Twine requires no coding to produce a simple branching story while remaining extensible through variables, conditional logic and standard web technologies. Its editor is built around visualizing narrative flow, and output is plain HTML that runs anywhere in a browser without a runtime or store distribution. The pluggable story-format architecture lets authors choose among Chapbook, Harlowe, Snowman and SugarCube, each with its own feature set, scripting style and separate documentation. The project's own documentation identifies areas where other tools may fit better, including heavy multimedia use (Ren'Py), online and multiplayer play, and works using world models or parser-based interaction (Inform, Bitsy).
Technology
Twine is a web-technology-based editor that outputs self-contained HTML. Stories are rendered by interchangeable "story formats" — Chapbook, Harlowe, Snowman and SugarCube ship built in — which function like engines determining available features and scripting syntax. Authors may embed images, sound, video, CSS and JavaScript. The browser edition persists projects in browser local storage and can run as a progressive web application offline; the desktop edition installs natively on Linux, macOS and Windows. The application, the file-format specifications and each story format are developed in separate public source repositories, and the Cookbook documentation is generated with MkDocs and the Material theme.
Go-to-market
Distribution is direct from twinery.org via desktop downloads and a browser-based version, supplemented on Linux by distribution package managers. Adoption is supported by free documentation (the Twine Reference, the Twine Cookbook and per-format online guides), community channels including the Interactive Fiction Community Forum and a Twine Discord, and open source repositories that invite outside contribution. A print and EPUB edition of the Cookbook targets classroom and offline use.
Writers and game makers creating text-focused branching narratives, including people with no programming or game-development background, as well as more technical authors extending stories with scripting; the browser version is aimed at constrained environments such as classrooms.
Geography
Twine is distributed over the web and used wherever its desktop or browser versions can be run; its interface is translated into other languages through community contributions.
History
Twine was created by Chris Klimas, who continues to lead its development. A 1.x version of the tool remains available through the IF Archive, while the 2.x line is the current release series, reaching version 2.12.0 on 10 April 2026. Community infrastructure hosted on twinery.org has been consolidated over time: the site's forum closed in 2017 and its Q&A section in 2019, both retained as read-only archives, and a Twine Twitter account was active from 2013 to 2021 with browsable archives. Discussion has since moved to the Interactive Fiction Community Forum and a Twine Discord. Documentation has expanded alongside the software, with the Twine Cookbook rebuilt on MkDocs from version 2.0 and version 2.1 published in April 2021.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 4
launches, deals, and filingsVersion 2.12.0 became the latest release of the Twine editor, distributed as a desktop application for Linux, macOS and Windows and as a browser-based version.
Version 2.1 of the Twine Cookbook documentation was released; the Cookbook is also available in print via IngramSpark and major booksellers, and as a free EPUB.
The Q&A section hosted on twinery.org was closed in 2019 and is preserved as a read-only archive.
The forum hosted on twinery.org was closed in 2017; a read-only archive remains available.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Twinetwinery.org · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Twine do?
- Twine is a free, open-source tool for authoring branching, text-based interactive stories that publish directly to HTML.
- Who founded Twine?
- Twine was founded by Chris Klimas.
- Who are Twine's investors?
- Twine's investors include GC Angels.