bic

bic

Good and bad tools for creating branching dialogues

Hello everybody :slight_smile:

I’m making a tool with the goal to help creating branching dialogues for game development. I want to make it easy to use and intuitive with the ability to export the story into different output formats. So far I think I have a solid foundation: 2 basic views for story display, very structured and scalable clean code, basic functionality to add or delete story elements.

Now I’m a little stuck because I’m not a domain expert :slight_smile: In other words I haven’t worked with dialogues for games yet (except for looking into yarn spinner, playing around with unity and unreal engine for a while and testing twine). Basically my issue is that I don’t know what tools are great and what tools are less so. Knowing what works and what doesn’t for experts would help me out a lot in figuring out what feature to implement and how to make it as intuitive and helpful as possible. The goal is to make a tool that doesn’t stand in the way of the creative process.

Maybe some of you can kick my butt in the right direction? I would greatly appreciate that :slight_smile:

And thank you in advance!

Most Liked

AstonJ

AstonJ

Hey Bic, welcome to devtalk :023:

It’s not an area I’m personally familiar with but what about looking at these:

  • Twine
  • Yarn Spinner
  • Ink (by Inkle)
  • ChatMapper

Also I’m not sure if it’s worth looking at books from @Paradox927 and @herbert, which might also contain some useful info…

Eiji

Eiji

Maybe consider my Elixir package:

With a simple and extensible DSL you can write any story and easily translate it using po files. In recent release there is lots of extra code for a session management and so on. This way you can easily write a simple game or presentation by generating a new Phoenix (web framework) based project, adding your LiveView pages and of course using the DSL and optionally translating the content.

I have even created a simple project to demonstrate how a video talk have been transformed into a presentation. You can use for example a Rust NIF to do the GUI or use wxWidgets bindings for Erlang language or even Scenic for embedded devices.

Working on HTML-based game at the very start should be simplest option and it’s also worth to mention that we have a LiveViewNative project. Let me know how that sounds for you.

Scarlet

Scarlet

You’re off to a strong start—clean, scalable code and a solid UI foundation already put you ahead of many early tools in this space. To kick you in the right direction: focus on how writers think, not just how devs structure logic. Look into what makes Twine fast for prototyping, why Ink by Inkle is praised for writer-friendly syntax, and how Yarn Spinner handles conditionals and variables intuitively. Key features to prioritize: non-linear navigation, variable tracking, previewing dialogue flow, and export options to JSON, Ink, or Yarn formats. Talk to narrative designers if you can—nothing beats real-world pain points to guide what not to do. You’re building the bridge between creativity and code—just make sure it’s one they want to cross.

Where Next?

Popular Game Dev topics Top

bot
A new item has been posted: This thread was posted automatically, if you feel it could be in a better category and are at Trust Level ...
New
New
New
Norpoleon
Team JethKo - Knee Deep is a detective adventure with role-playing elements & turn-based combat. What started as a small project tur...
New
AstonJ
Inspired by this UE5 demo: Which has got to the stage now where simulations are more and more life-like -and where it feel...
New
Unknown_0O0
Welcome, fellow game enthusiasts! Allow me to introduce Scratchblox, a delightful blend of Old Roblox charm and Scratch creativity. Step ...
New
alexws
We are going to launch a new business based on gaming industry. but no time to build the games from scratch. but we have a small team to ...
New
scrut.hut
New game engine needs developers. Language is C++ and designs are complete for the project architecture. Anyone wanting to join a gamed...
New
RakanHaddadSoftware
The fate of deadly dynamite blowing up is in your hands! You must prevent dynamite from touching nasty fireballs, or else it will blow up...
New
etstaotn
Hi guys, we’re developing game systems for Unreal Engine and we need your feedbacks. Check our FAB Store and Assets we’re waiting your f...
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
483 11975 256
New
New
AstonJ
poll poll Be sure to check out @Dusty’s article posted here: An Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts It’s one of the best write-...
New
AstonJ
There’s a whole world of custom keycaps out there that I didn’t know existed! Check out all of our Keycaps threads here: https://forum....
New
AstonJ
Thanks to @foxtrottwist’s and @Tomas’s posts in this thread: Poll: Which code editor do you use? I bought Onivim! :nerd_face: https://on...
New
AstonJ
I have seen the keycaps I want - they are due for a group-buy this week but won’t be delivered until October next year!!! :rofl: The Ser...
New
AstonJ
Saw this on TikTok of all places! :lol: Anyone heard of them before? Lite:
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build efficient applications that exploit the unique benefits of a pure functional language, learning from an engineer who uses Haskell t...
New
First poster: bot
zig/http.zig at 7cf2cbb33ef34c1d211135f56d30fe23b6cacd42 · ziglang/zig. General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaini...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Fight complexity and reclaim the original spirit of agility by learning to simplify how you develop software. The result: a more humane a...
New