Interactive and Game Stories

Interactive and game stories

Interactive features let a story remember reader choices, change available branches, and place controls or formatted story interfaces directly inside chapter text.

Start with Reader and Game Variables to understand the two kinds of saved values and the six available variable types. Then use Chapter Conditions and Game-State Changes to control which choices are available and what happens when a reader enters a chapter.

Use Interactive Chapter Elements to choose a focused guide for reader choices and controls, value displays, puzzles, and formatted story interfaces. Each element topic explains what readers see, gives its authoring syntax or steps, describes its behavior, and includes a publishing checklist.

The other topics explain how to:

• show different text with {if ...};
• display reader and game values inside prose;
• calculate Game State values with formulas;
• choose automatic random values in chapter changes.

Authors should test interactive stories from a fresh game as well as an existing save. Also test going back through earlier chapters, because saved state can affect both chapter text and the choices that follow it.