The interface for adding variables is now conveniently located within the passage window, streamlining your workflow.
We’ve simplified the process for adding “variable checks,” making it more intuitive.
The AI Wizard has been relocated to its own panel within each passage, inspired by the design of other successful writing tools to provide you with a more intuitive interface.
New Sneaky Side Feature:
Remix Links: This sneaky new feature allows users to easily share their projects with others. Whether you’re collaborating on a story or showcasing your work, Remix Links make it simple and efficient to share your creative endeavours.
We’re excited for you to try these updates and look forward to your feedback!
I played with this and had a lot of laughs letting the AI generate a very weird story. Unfortunately I couldn’t share the story link - the story link wanted me to log in even though I created the entire story before I even registered, and I was logged in another window. I assume if someone is not “remixing” or collaborating on the story, they should be allowed to view the story without an account?
The tools are fun and I mostly figured out how they worked by experimenting. Everything seemed to work fairly consistently. I let the AI write the passage text, and I wrote the passage and choice titles and let AI generate a whacky image of each passage. The AI part seemed like it would be a lot of fun for kids and made it extremely easy to experiment without needing to write the story myself. I noticed how it tried to pull suggestions from my passage and story titles.
I probably wouldn’t use this for a serious work of IF without a lot more customization options. And I definitely wouldn’t use the AI image generation for anything seriously. I like the clunky “button” sounds that happened sometimes in the UI, I wish making choices while playing also gave satisfying audio feedback and maybe also felt like tactile buttons instead of just text links.
Thanks for pointing this out. There are probably ways we can detect for being logged in when you click on Remix link e.g. you’ve logged into another tab.
Might be wise for us to trigger a save and / or a check whenever the remix link is clicked.
Appreciate the honesty here. I’ve actually been designing mock ups for some of these ideas. We could be on the same page. Do you think this would be enough:
ability to have buttons as links
ability to style buttons
ability to add bold, italics etc + emojis to story passages
adding start screen to stories (this could have a settings option to turn sounds on or off for page changing)
a new default theme based on CYOA covers and vintage art
Would love to hear your thoughts. Oh and glad you enjoyed the AI side of things. It’s meant to be fun. The unexpected side effect for me with this feature was that making the passages with AI was satisfying in the same way reading a CYOA is somehow. Does that make sense to you?
Glad the feedback is helpful! I really enjoyed playing with it and think others would as well as I said.
Depending on what your goal is - do you want to create a fun educational toy in a closed garden, or are you looking to create a serious IF tool for the dedicated IF community? Both are valid and can co-exist. Right now it feels educational for novice users or for a quick short IF story which is great, but advanced features would make it more useful.
To use StoryMate legitimately, here is what I would look for:
Can I potentially download my completed game as a standalone distribution where I could give someone a zip file with an index.html that plays it offline, or upload to a game site like itch.io or to a competition like IFComp? And if the game is downloadable, someone skilled with CSS should hopefully be able to mega-customize it.
If the game has to live on the StoryMate website, can I publish to a front-end “game” page I could provide a direct URL to for players who don’t have to log in or create an account or fiddle with any of the StoryMate creation tools except perhaps a “Made with StoryMate” link on the title page.
For illustration see Texture - there is a library and story creation tool page, but you can link to just a specific game:
Library Link: https://texturewriter.com
Direct Game Link: Black Rock City
which is https://texturewriter.com/play/jimmunroe/black-rock-city
Personally, (blue sky asks)
I want to be able to upload my own art and sound files that can be cued by the game that aren’t created with AI. This could be limited to save space/bandwidth per account for online play (or limited to just a cover art graphic) but if the game is downloadable I should be able to add more multimedia since it doesn’t use up the website resources.
I want to be able to style the game somewhat. I’m not saying crazy customization, and it looks like this is available with themes, but hopefully it should be possible for the games to NOT be immediately recognizable as “one of these games from this website”.
I would like to be able to mix text links and buttons in the same work if possible.
Longshot but awesome: I would love “modal windows” where if you click or hover a link in the body description a box with more text pops up to read and then goes away without changing what passage the player is in. (Essentially an “examine” or “read more about this detail” type of construction.)
I downloaded the source code for a texture writer demo story and boy there was a lot there in one file. I think what we’ve done is easier to code with but we’ll know for sure once we’re live and people are giving feedback.
Do you want to have a quick look before we release the update sometime later this week?
