Features List

Once you have reviewed the features list, you can go back to the StoryStylus features page.

book_blue Story Info

  • Create and name your story.
  • Set a custom name for your story setting if your specific setting does not yet exist.
  • Create your own visual theme for your UI interface.
  • Create multiple introductions for your story.
  • Create different starting clues for your story based on which introduction is shown to your players.
  • Set multiple translation languages for your story.
  • Customize the overall UI of which buttons will be used in your story.
  • Set any social links for your story: link to your amazon page, facebook link, goodreads section, or your own personal website from the overall information of your game.
  • Turn your story into a demo and allow your players to “try before you buy” and then you determine where the demo ends and the pay wall begins.
  • Hook your players by showing them what will happen after the demo if they purchase your story.
  • Create your own product keys and give away free access to your story through emails, promotions, bookmarks or other marketing campaigns.

Media

  • Upload your own graphics and sound.
  • Categorize your graphics to help organize your media files.
  • Attribute any media file to the artist, illustrator, photographer, or web-site for fair-use.
  • Link to the source artist, illustrator, photographer, or web-site to help cross promote their work.

Chapters

  • Tell your story using multiple chapters that can branch depending on your player choices.
  • Create your own clues/messages that go into your player’s notebook.
  • Create messages that only trigger once, or that ALWAYS appear.

People

  • Create as many characters as you need in your story.
  • Characters can start the game in a location, or as hidden, missing, or dead.
  • Create completely branching dialog that is mapped out for you in a flowchart.
  • Playtest your character conversations in a debug window.
  • Assign any number of requirements to a conversation response that limits which character can use that response.
  • If a player fails that requirement check then that response can either not be listed or can lead to a failed response.
  • Create multiple looks for your characters that changes as you talk to them.
  • Create responses that answer key character questions, so that once that question has been answered then no other responses designated as that question will appear as an option.
  • Create multiple relations between story characters.
  • Each relation can have a different term that identifies a person in that relation: e.g. a relation between a husband and wife, or another between a sister and brother.
  • Relations can be hidden in that you know that two characters are related, but are unsure of the exact nature of that relation.
  • Relations can be assigned between two characters, but later revealed to be false.
  • A character can be linked to an “unknown person” that is later replaced with a real character: e.g. a character could be blackmailed by “someone”, who is then later revealed to be X.
  • Relations can have any amount of description text that summarizes the nature of the relationship between two characters.
  • Any story entity (person, relation, location, clue, topic, item, or event) can be the subject of an infinitely deep conversation with a character.

World Building

  • Upload any type of graphic that can represent an in game map.
  • A game map could be one of three different types of maps: city, building, or point-of-view.
  • City maps can have multiple neighbourhoods that help organize locations.
  • City maps can have nested maps that have greater detail in a given region.
  • A nested map region can be hidden until later revealed to be important to the storyline.
  • Maps can be marked as an Open Street Map or Google Map so that authors can reuse existing map systems and automatically link to these systems for fair-use.
  • Buildings can be marked as a “dark map” so that players have to explore the map before the room details are revealed.
  • Buildings can be marked as “dungeon maps” so that once inside that building the player cannot leave unless they leave by the exit.
  • Maps can contain any number of locations for players to explore.
  • Locations can have any amount of text that describes them.
  • Locations can have any number of “looks” that changes their graphic and text description based on in-game events.
  • Locations can either be hidden or visible to players.
  • Locations can be nested and lead to a nested map which could represent a building or region.
  • Nested locations can be represented by unique icons rather than the default push-pins.
  • Any location can be converted into a room (for building or POV maps) that is linked to other rooms through doors.
  • Rooms can define square or any oddly shaped regions on a building map.
  • Doors link two locations.
  • Doors can be one way, and lead to locations on different maps (e.g. trapdoors or stairs).
  • Door regions can have different cursor graphics when you hover your mouse on top of them.
  • Doors can have a graphic and description associated with them.
  • Doors can have different looks which can change the description and graphics.
  • Doors can be visible based on the setting of a flag variable.
  • Doors can be usable based on the setting of a flag variable.
  • Rooms can have any number of clickable hover regions.
  • Hover regions can have a graphic and description associated with them.
  • Hovers can have different looks which can change their description and graphic.
  • Hovers can have different cursor graphics when you hover their mouse on top of them.
  • Hovers can be visible based on the setting of a flag variable.
  • Hovers can be usable based on the setting of a flag variable.
  • Neighbourhoods can have different descriptions and graphics.
  • Neighbourhoods can have different looks which can change their description and graphic.
  • Locations can be assigned any number of types which can help categorize locations for your players.

Items / Topics

  • Create any number of items (viz. props) in your story.
  • Items can have a graphic and description associated with them.
  • Items can have different looks which changes their description and graphic.
  • Items can be turned into “topics” which means they do not exist in your story except as a topic of conversation.
  • Items can be hidden, in the player’s inventory, or in a location.
  • Items can be “quantities” which means that they exist in the player inventory as quantities (e.g. money, fuel, bullets, shield level) that are determined by flag variables.

Events

  • Create any number of events in your story.
  • Events can be a specific moment, or can occur over a period of time.
  • Events can have a description and a graphic.
  • Events can have different looks which change their description and graphic.
  • Events can have vague start and end times which means that they become more specific as the story progresses: e.g. time of death was between 2AM and 6AM, which later becomes 2AM to 4AM, and finally calculated to be 3:20AM.
  • Events can be revealed to be false (red-herrings) that you though occurred but are later revealed to be false.
  • Events can be hidden, or revealed to be at a location.

Notes & Hints

  • You can create any number of notes that can help indicate what the players have to do when they get stuck.
  • You can have any number of sub-tasks in a task to help describe the sub-steps that a player must make to complete a task.
  • Any task can have any number of “hints” to help players figure out what to do next.
  • A task can be plain text, bullet point, or a checkbox to indicate when it is completed.

Solutions

  • Create any number of endings for your story.
  • Create quizzes for your story so that the player has to figure out “the answer” before they can go to the next chapter or even finish your game.
  • If set for a chapter, then the answers that a player gives for a quiz can determine the next chapter of the story.
  • Questions can have five different types: pick an option, multi-option (checkboxes), pick a person, pick a location, pick an item/topic, or pick an event.
  • If the question is a pick an entity (person, location, item/topic, or even) then a player cannot pick that option unless they know about that entity.
  • If the player has not encountered that entity then the option will only appear as “???” and cannot be selected as an answer.
  • Quizzes can branch to different questions based on previous answers.

Flags

  • Create any number of flag variables that remember the current state of the game.
  • Flag variables can have a description that helps you remember what the different values mean when using them in scripting or as use/visible flags for doors or hovers.
  • Flags can have different minimum, maximum and starting values.

Scripting

  • Create any number of scripts that guide and control the flow of your story game.
  • Use intellitype and hover help on any script effects or entity parameters.
  • Perform global searches on your script codebase.
  • Create any number of in-game hyperlinks in the description text of your entities.
  • Use different code states to help organize your code based on the overall story state.
  • Sort the entity list to easily find which entities have script code attached to them.
  • Use any of 182 script functions to help check/control the flow of your game, all with help describing how to use them.

Once you have reviewed the features list, you can go back to the StoryStylus features page.