Tools for narrative branching diagrams

[dfabulich (Dan Fabulich)]

I think you were thinking of this thread, from back in May. Suggestions for Narrative Tool Projects?

I hope it’s not too pretentious of for me to quote my own post from the thread:

@dfabulich

I’m very skeptical of “visualization” as a technique for understanding branching narratives (or code).

Visual aids can only really represent a few dozen things before they become as complicated as the thing you were trying to understand in the first place.

And when analyzing messy node diagrams, it’s not just the nodes we’re trying to visualize, but the lines connecting the nodes (the “edges”). We can only visualize a few dozen of those, and that typically means we can visualize only a handful of nodes at a time.

Visualization only works in trivial examples where you don’t need it; it fails in complex environments where you need it the most.

Instead, I claim that you want automated tests.

1. Are there no more sections marked “TODO” here?
2. Ensure that there’s a path from X to Y
3. Ensure that there’s no path from X to Y
4. Ensure that all the paths from X to Y meet certain criteria:
   • All paths from X to Y pass through Z
   • You can’t get from X to Y unless certain variables are high enough