Finnish / US Embassy / Interactive Storytelling with Twine, Pixel Art and Game Design with Bitsy

To start off the new year, the Skins Team facilitated a workshop in collaboration with the Finnish / US Embassy to host a Game Jam where participants used Bitsy and Twine as a way to explore narrative-driven games. Working in three different time zones, Skins Instructors in Montreal taught the workshops through Discord to participants in Finland, in addition to a guest speaker (and former Skins Workshop participant!), Pōhai Panoke who tuned in from Hawaii.

The first day of the workshop, participants were given a crash course on Twine and used the second day to create their own games. Together we played through them together, and explored stories of dream loops, a salmon experiencing Eurovision, and how Twine can also be used as a way to tell stories like Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure.

The third day consisted of the Bitsy portion of the workshop. With only one session to learn how to use Bitsy, the participants caught on quickly and made games about salmon talking to fish, cat potions, and murder mystery.