Twine Game: The Legend of the Mothman

Twine, as a medium, exists to support unorthodox narrative techniques. Similarly, the “podcast boom” of recent years has also assumed this role of unconventional storytelling. While there do exist quite formal podcasts, such as those produced by National Public Radio, there is a niche of “informal” podcasts.

A podcast that has basked in popularity as a result of its divergent methods is “My Favorite Murder.” While planning out my Twine assignment, I was listening to episode 183: “Here We Back Are,” about the myth of the Mothman: a chimeric monster that resembled both a man and a gargantuan bird that terrorized the towns of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, in the mid-20th century.

While there are now countless true crime podcasts, “My Favorite Murder” formats theirs entirely differently, and it revolutionized the “informal” nature of podcasting. I hoped to engage the player in true crime in a way that is not normally achieved — just as “My Favorite Murder” does.