About

Twinetroid is based on Metroid: Zebesian Incursion, Volume 5 of the Famicom Adventure Game Book series published in Japan from 1986-1991. These are essentially Choose Your Own Adventure books based on Nintendo games. The original text was translated off and on over the course of several years before being converted to Twine in November 2018. The text remains loyal to the spirit of the original, with a few alterations. For instance, Energy Tanks were called Energy Packs, and you used to have to fire four Missiles to escape from a Metroid rather than use Bombs. The room that describes how to defeat the Metroids was originally a death trap; now the Bombs have been moved here from the Map Room. Other oddities, like Zebes being an asteroid, were maintained from the original. The mechanics have also changed. The original used dice rolls for combat, and players had to keep track of their progress and item collection by filling out stats sheets and crossing off entries in the book. Combat was extremely tedious because the player had to flip through the book every time they chose a weapon or rolled the dice, and then they had to calculate their health and missile count. Twinetroid obviously automates these mechanics. One interesting feature of the original was the secret passages system. The player was given a map and told where secret rooms were located, but the chapter numbers were incomplete. For instance, you might be told there is a hidden passage leading to Room B-47, but given the chapter number of 1X4. You would have to flip through the book looking at each chapter (104, 114, etc.) until you found the one leading to B-47. Even the author admitted it was tedious, but it was the best way of simulating finding hidden passages. Twinetroid uses a hidden passage system as well, but since it's a text-based game, I've implemented a number of mechanics that resemble a lot of tricks the original used, such as bombable blocks, hidden passages, and fake lava. I hope you enjoy discovering these secrets for yourself!