Storyliner.cloud — A book-oriented approach to branching game scenarios and interactive fiction.

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Storyliner.cloud — A book-oriented approach to branching game scenarios and interactive fiction

Hi everyone,

I’m the developer of Storyliner.cloud, a web-based platform I’ve been building for writing, organizing, and publishing books, including books with multiple plotlines and reader choices.

What if you could develop a branching game scenario as an interactive book?

Imagine writing a story where readers make decisions, explore alternative paths, and discover different outcomes—without having to build an entire game engine around the narrative.

That’s one of the possibilities I’d like to explore with this community.

The main idea behind Storyliner is to treat branching narratives as books with connected story paths.

Writers can create a new book or import an existing manuscript, organize chapters visually, and introduce alternative plotlines. Each path can contain its own sequence of chapters, with reader choices determining which direction the story takes.

This approach could be useful for developing the narrative structure of a game, exploring alternative scenarios, or publishing the story itself as an interactive book.

What Storyliner offers

  • Graphical story planning: Visualize chapters, alternative plotlines, and their connections. Organize complex branching narratives while keeping the overall story structure visible.

  • Character and world management: Use an enhanced Artifact Management Board to organize characters, locations, objects, and other story elements, link them to the manuscript, and track their relationships. Particularly useful for complex projects and series.

  • Collaborative writing: Invite co-authors, establish signed collaboration agreements, and work together on a shared project while maintaining control over individual contributions.

  • Integrated publishing: Publish free or paid books directly on the platform. For co-authored books, revenue is automatically divided according to the signed co-author agreement.

Storyliner focuses on narrative structure and book-oriented storytelling rather than game mechanics. It isn’t intended to replace systems such as Twine, Ink, or ChoiceScript, particularly for projects requiring complex game-state logic or scripting.

Instead, I’m interested in whether a book-first environment could complement existing IF tools or provide an alternative for authors creating primarily narrative-driven, choice-based stories.

A few practical details

Storyliner runs in a browser, with its writing tools currently intended for desktop or laptop use.

Reader accounts are free. Writer tools cost $40/month or $400/year, with a required 30-day trial before the paid subscription begins. The platform takes a 20% share of book sales.

AI-assisted text and illustration tools are available but entirely optional. Writers can use Storyliner’s planning, manuscript management, collaboration, and publishing features without generative AI.

See how it works

Here’s a short demonstration of creating a branching book:

Create a multi-plotline book — 2-minute demonstration

I’d appreciate your perspective

I’m particularly curious about three things:

  1. Would you consider developing a branching game scenario as an interactive book, either as a standalone publication or as part of your game’s narrative development?

  2. Could visual plotline management and integrated character/world tracking be useful in your existing writing workflow?

  3. What limitations or missing capabilities would prevent you from using Storyliner for such a project?

I’m not assuming Storyliner is the right environment for every interactive-fiction author. I’d genuinely like to understand whether this book-oriented approach has a place alongside established IF tools.

Thanks for taking a look. I’m happy to answer questions, and constructive criticism is very welcome.

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How does this compare to any of the other platforms for doing the same thing?

Search returns six of these tagged new-platform choice-based. And there’s Twine, Ink, and ChoiceScript beyond that.

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What killer new features do you offer that make this worth $40/month plus 20% of all revenue? There are all sorts of other systems that people can use for free, without platform lock or revenue sharing of any sort.

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This appears to be a commercial platform not just for IF, but potentially as a utility for prose books experimenting with interactivity, or education. I think there are a lot of people who could make use of this who wouldn’t know about Twine, Ink, or ChoiceScript.

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Storyliner use cases

Explore Storyliner

There is a library with some public domain works in it. I have to submit an email to take a look at them, but those would be good demos if not behind registration.

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There is open access to the single-line, regular publication Library | Storyliner. Multiplotlined books require a specific reader app that is behind a login to provide users with the full experience the author intended.

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The single most well-known, archetypal example of a branching narrative is already a type of book, specifically the “choose your own adventure” series. People already use the “CYOA book” mental model as a reference point when talking about other IF systems. So introducing a platform by saying “what if we treated branching narratives as books with connected story paths” comes across as really odd to me?

EDIT: Hell, the very term “interactive fiction” is already almost synonymous with “interactive book.” I really don’t understand how “considering a branching game scenario as an interactive book” is being proposed as a novel mental model.

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I may not have explored enough into it, but I suspect it’s the “everyone can log in and share your content and collaborate” type of model. I know some people really like that. Unless I was in a closed workplace, school, or team project scenario I’m not interested in open-sourcing my work with random people on a website.

From the description it sounds like it would be useful to collaboratively build interactive documentation and instruction manuals.

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To be blunt, the massive limitation for me is that I don’t see a single thing I can do with Storyliner that I can’t do with Twine, and Twine is free rather than $40 a month.

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That’s a fair question, and I appreciate you raising it.

I agree that many excellent IF tools are free, and I wouldn’t claim that Storyliner is the cheapest option or the right choice for every interactive-fiction author.

The idea behind Storyliner is to combine the entire book-production workflow - from initial planning to publication and revenue distribution - rather than offering only another branching-story editor.

Here’s roughly how I see the comparison:

Activity Using separate tools With Storyliner
Plan and outline Twine (free), Plottr Pro (~$10/month) Visual planning and connected branching plotlines
Write and edit Google Docs (free), Scrivener (~$60 one-time) Manuscript editor linked directly to the graphical structure
Manage characters and world Separate notes, spreadsheets, or specialized software Artifact Management Board with relationships and chapter tracking
Collaborate Shared documents; agreements and revenue splits handled separately Shared writing projects, signed agreements, editing permissions, automated revenue sharing
Illustrate Canva (free or paid), illustration or AI services Illustrations managed within the project; optional AI generation at additional cost
Publish and sell Separate hosting, storefront, and payment arrangements Integrated publishing, reader experience, sales, and author payouts
Access and storage Local files, cloud storage, synchronization and backups Hosted projects accessible through a browser, with export options

Of course, someone can assemble much of this using free software. I’m not suggesting otherwise.

What I consider valuable is the integration.

For example, a character record isn’t just a note stored somewhere. It can be connected to the manuscript, associated with chapters, and tracked across a complex project. Likewise, the graphical plan isn’t a separate diagram—it represents the chapters and paths of the book being written and eventually published.

For collaborative books, writers can establish their rights and revenue shares in a signed agreement, work within the same project, and have the platform handle earnings distribution automatically.

On platform lock-in, that’s a legitimate concern. Storyliner supports manuscript and ebook exports, as well as interactive HTML export that preserves clickable branches. I wouldn’t claim every aspect of the authoring environment is portable to other tools.

I see Storyliner as potentially useful for authors working on complex, book-length or collaborative projects who value having planning, writing, publishing, and administration connected.

For someone primarily interested in building a standalone IF game, free systems like Twine may be a more appropriate choice.

That’s exactly what I’m hoping to understand through this discussion: Does having these capabilities integrated into one environment solve a meaningful problem for IF authors, or is that integration less valuable than the flexibility of separate tools?

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I think that’s a fair assessment, particularly if your primary goal is to create and distribute interactive fiction.

Twine is an excellent tool, and I wouldn’t suggest paying $40/month to reproduce functionality you already have for free.

The difference I’m exploring isn’t so much what you can build, but how the entire process is managed.

For example, Twine doesn’t natively provide electronically signed co-author agreements, contribution-based editing permissions, automated revenue distribution, or a publishing marketplace with reader feedback attached to manuscript passages. Storyliner integrates these with its visual planning, manuscript editor, and linked character and world management tools.

Of course, you can accomplish many of these things using Twine alongside other software and services. The question is whether having them integrated is worth the subscription.

For an individual IF developer, perhaps not. For authors creating complex book series, collaborative publications, or commercial narrative projects, I’m hoping there may be value.

And if the answer from this community is that these capabilities don’t address its needs, that’s useful feedback too. It’s one of the reasons I introduced Storyliner here.

I appreciate the direct criticism.

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I’m not really asking what new features the platform offers, I’m asking why it’s being pitched in the initial post as “what if we thought about games as interactive books?”

Sounds like the actual pitch being presented now is “a single platform covering every aspect of the brainstorming/writing/editing/publishing pipeline,” which is totally different from the initial post, and also not how conventional, non-interactive books are usually written?

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This feels like something that you’d market to companies who need to build interactive resources and education for their employees like training manuals, or educational materials for schools and students to be creative and help each other collaboratively.

Companies are into this. Every year I have to complete a required training course for work and it’s basically a visual novel where you get to choose your avatar and train and level up to be a detective finding the hidden objects around an office as examples of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. It’s very linear but hilarious how it mimics an adventure/hidden object game - there’s an orchestral score and a money system (you can’t buy anything but I guess it’s positive reinforcement?) and mid-level voice acting, and you can choose whether to enable cinematic/smoke effects or not because it seriously grinds some people’s bandwidth.

A lot of us just do this for fun. I have personally paid for resources I like and find helpful - I’ve purchased Final Draft more than once.

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Thanks for pushing me to make the comparison more specific.

Looking back, I think my original introduction was somewhat misleading. Treating branching narratives as interactive books isn’t a new idea, and I wasn’t trying to suggest otherwise.

Storyliner is primarily an integrated environment for creating, managing, and publishing substantial books, including branching ones. Its distinction is less about inventing a new IF mechanism and more about connecting activities that authors often handle in separate tools.

Some concrete examples:

  • Managing complex books and series: Graphical planning is connected to actual manuscript chapters. Character references can be tracked across chapters, and characters and artifacts can have linked versions across books in a series, with access to their earlier descriptions and history.

  • Collaborative authorship: Beyond sharing a manuscript, Storyliner supports negotiated agreements covering intellectual-property rights, attribution, and revenue distribution. Authors sign the agreement within the platform, have contribution-specific editing permissions, and receive their agreed shares through the platform’s sales and payout process.

  • Publishing while writing: Authors can release draft books and receive feedback attached to specific passages from eligible early readers. This feedback remains connected to the manuscript for discussion and revision.

  • Branching book publication: Authors can offer access to all narrative paths or, where the story structure allows it, sell a single-path experience with an option to upgrade. Readers also have a Living Story Map showing their journey without revealing unexplored paths.

  • Import and export: Existing manuscripts can be imported, and authors can export manuscripts in Markdown, HTML, DOCX, ODT, TXT, and EPUB formats. Supporting artifacts and media can also be exported. Interactive HTML export preserves clickable branches, although not every part of the authoring environment is transferable to another system.

There are additional features for illustrations, poetry, teaching, reader assistance, and optional AI, but I don’t think these are central to the IF comparison.

I recognize that platforms such as Storyfall already integrate authoring, collaboration, and publishing, and that Twine, Ink, ChoiceScript, and others are highly capable—often free—alternatives.

I’m not claiming that every individual feature is unique.

What I’m offering is a connected book-production environment, with particular emphasis on long-form planning, story-world continuity, contractual collaboration, publishing, and reader interaction.

Whether that combination is worth $40/month plus a 20% share of books sold through Storyliner depends on the project. For a solo IF game, probably not. For a complex book series or a commercial collaborative project, I believe it may be useful.

That’s the audience I’m trying to identify, and the discussion here is helping me understand where the distinction matters.

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There is also open access to the single-line, regular publication Library | Storyliner. Multiplotlined books require a specific reader app that is behind a login to provide users with the full experience the author intended.

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So you’re presenting yourself as a publisher of IF, not just the maker of an authoring tool? And playing the games you publish requires people to install a separate application; before that, all they see is AI-generated covers?

That is not, historically, a market that people have been very successful in. The one standout exception is Choice of Games, which launched with some clear selling points, can be played in a web browser, has free demos, and doesn’t require authors to pay anything.

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Thanks for raising this. You’ve identified something important that I apparently haven’t communicated clearly enough.

First, readers do not need to download or install a separate application. Storyliner’s Reader is a browser-based application. Some books can be opened for guest reading, while the full reading experience requires a free reader account.

Looking at the wording on our public Library page, I can understand why you got a different impression. That’s something I need to correct.

And yes, Storyliner is both an authoring environment and a publishing platform. But I wouldn’t compare our publishing operation with Choice of Games in terms of established readership, editorial services, or market presence. We are a young platform, and building a reader community is still ahead of us.

Our model is different: writers subscribe to an integrated authoring environment, can publish free or commercial books on Storyliner, and can export their work for distribution elsewhere. The 20% platform fee applies to book sales through Storyliner.

Your observation about the covers is also fair. The public Library currently contains many conventional books, including public-domain classics, and it doesn’t do a good job of demonstrating the interactive-fiction experience.

A playable branching story that visitors can explore immediately would be a much better introduction than a collection of covers. I agree that’s something we should prioritize.

I appreciate the criticism. This discussion is helping me identify not only questions about the product itself, but also problems with how we’re presenting it.

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You’re absolutely right. I phrased that badly.

Choose-your-own-adventure books and branching narratives have been around for decades, and I certainly wasn’t suggesting that treating interactive fiction as a book is a new concept.

What I was trying to introduce is a different authoring and publishing workflow, not a new way of thinking about interactive fiction.

Storyliner was originally developed for conventional and complex multi-plotline books, with visual chapter planning, linked character and world management, collaboration, and integrated publishing. Branching narratives are one of the types of books it supports.

I thought some of these capabilities might also be useful to IF authors, which is why I introduced the platform here.

Looking back, I should have explained what the software actually offers rather than framing it around a concept already familiar to everyone in this community.

Thanks for pointing that out.

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Is “character record” a term you’re inventing here? I don’t understand what it is or why I’d want one. Has anyone used a character record to develop an admirable work of interactive fiction? If so, which one? How did it provide them with any value?

It’s impossible for me to imagine anyone wanting to pay money for “character records” when they’ve never had a character record, or even know what one is, and nobody has ever used one to make something that other people like.

Also, it seems like you’re imagining that the status quo is to “assemble” a bunch of tools to develop interactive fiction, but that’s not true; most Twine authors develop directly in Twine, distribute their works for free, or sell them on Itch.io, which makes it easy to sell HTML files.

In particular, authors are not writing their stuff in Google Docs or Scrivener and then copying and pasting into Twine, etc. (Did you think they did? Have you tried developing any interactive fiction yourself?)

More generally, we’re getting kinda inundated on this forum by people submitting AI-generated IF platforms, people with no experience developing IF, making wild guesses about what authors want/need, and then asking us to patiently explain it to them. This is no way to attract users. Instead, you need to make a work of IF in your system, and preferably in the other free systems, and decide what makes it easier to develop in your system than in anyone else’s.

(Remember, anyone could do what you just did. Why shouldn’t they just generate their own system rather than use yours?)

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Ah, so the fact that you repeated some variation of “what if you could treat branching narratives as a book” or “book-oriented approach” in bold, four times, including in the title of the post, was actually meant to communicate the concept of an end-to-end integrated pipeline.

Forgive me if I am beginning to suspect that the words in your post (and subsequent replies) were not actually chosen specifically by a human being with coherent communicative intent.

Like, for example, the sentence “some of the books here can’t be read in a browser alone,” which apparently wasn’t intended to mean the thing that those words literally, straightforwardly mean.

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Let me explain what I mean by a “character record.” In Storyliner, we call it a character card. It’s essentially a character reference that remains connected to the manuscript, rather than a separate document of notes.

Imagine writing a large novel with 50 characters and 80 chapters. You work on it for three years, sometimes taking months between writing sessions. When you return to a character who last appeared 20 chapters earlier, how easily can you recall their appearance, background, relationships, and what you’ve already established about them?

Of course, you can keep this information in notes, or simply search the manuscript. The character card is intended to make that process easier.

Here’s how it works in Storyliner:

  • Character information: You create a card containing the character’s description, appearance, images, and other relevant information.

  • Connections to the manuscript: You can link the character to relevant text and chapters. While writing, you can access their card directly from the manuscript.

  • Graphical tracking: The Graphical Storyliner shows which chapters contain linked references to that character. You can see their distribution throughout the book and navigate to the relevant chapters.

  • Relationships: Characters and other story elements can be connected visually in the Artifact Management Board.

  • Continuity across a series: When writing a sequel, you can refer to the character’s information from the previous book, create an updated version, and retain the connection between them.

For example, suppose a minor character introduced in chapter 7 becomes important in chapter 65. Instead of searching through the manuscript to reconstruct everything about that character, you can consult their card and navigate to their earlier appearances.

This isn’t an AI system that automatically discovers plot holes or guarantees consistency. The connections are based on references established in the manuscript. It’s an organizational tool that helps the writer maintain continuity.

And you’re right about Twine. My earlier comparison involving writers assembling Google Docs, Scrivener, and other tools was too broad. That’s a workflow some conventional novelists use, not necessarily how experienced IF authors work. I shouldn’t have presented it as the IF status quo.

I also can’t point to an acclaimed IF work developed with Storyliner’s character cards. We’re still trying to establish whether these capabilities are useful to this community. I don’t want to claim validation that doesn’t exist.

For someone creating a relatively short IF work entirely within Twine, character cards may provide little additional value. For someone writing a substantial narrative over several years, especially across multiple books, they may be more useful.

And I agree with your broader point: demonstrating a completed work created with Storyliner, rather than explaining features in the abstract, would be much more convincing. That’s a fair challenge.