Make your own games and stories

Tell the Adventure Studio your story and it makes a game people can play on your land: characters who talk, choices, and different endings. It is three pages, and you can be playing your game in a few minutes. No code, no forms.

1. Your story

The Studio opens on Your story. Type an idea, paste a story or a whole book into the one big box, or press Load a book file... (a .txt, .md or .html file). One good line is enough:

A Wild West bank robbery where the players can side with the outlaws or the sheriff.

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   Step 1: Press Build my game.
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   Step 2: It tells you the cost in one line: Building this game costs about N credits (US $x.xx). Build it? Press Yes, build it, or No: nothing is charged and your story stays.
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   Step 3: When it is done your game opens on Your characters.

• A loaded book shows its name, its size and its first line; Remove the book forgets it so you can type something else.
• Your games are listed under the box, under Continue a game. From inside a game, My games brings you back here.
• Built it already? The button now says Rebuild my game: new boxes and characters come in, and what you changed yourself is kept. To rebuild from a book, load the book file again.

What it costs

You see the cost before anything is charged, every time. Building a game from a one-line idea costs a few credits; a whole book costs a few hundred. The number it quotes is also the most that build can spend. One credit is one US cent. If you are short of credits the Studio says so and offers Buy credits.... Later, each answer from the helper on Your story map costs a little; its column shows Today N credits. Placing boxes and Next place ▸ cost nothing, and written lines are always free. Only build from text you’re allowed to use: your own, or a book that’s out of copyright. That’s your responsibility under our terms.

While it builds

A whole book takes about ten minutes (the first step, reading the book, is the longest); a typed story takes a minute or two. The Studio tells you the time with the cost, before you say yes, and shows a clock and the steps while it works. You can close the window: the build carries on, and your game opens on Your characters when it is done, picking up where it left off. The card shows the step it is on and what it has spent so far. Stop the build stops it (it asks first; what has been spent so far is not given back).

2. Your characters

These are the people in your story, one card each: First name, Last name, Who they are, How they think and talk, First thing they say and What they never tell. Change anything you like; it saves as you go.

• Use what I'm wearing dresses them in your outfit (stand on the land the game runs on).
• Pick a voice and press Hear them to hear their first line. Only you hear it.
• Add someone gives you a blank card. Remove takes a character out: it asks first, and says no while a box of the story still uses them.

When they look right, press Next: set up your places ▸. ◂ Your story goes back.

3. Your story map

This map is your whole story. Each box is one moment, and the arrows show where the players can go next. A box that is not placed yet is amber; a placed one is green with its place’s name. Now walk your land with your helper:

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   Step 1: Press Next place ▸. It picks the next box that still needs something and tells you what to do there.
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   Step 2: Walk to where that moment happens and press Place it here. The box now happens where you stand.
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   Step 3: Press Bring <name> here (one button for each character in the box) to see them standing in place.
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   Step 4: Under What happens here? say what happens at this box in your own words and press Send. The helper changes the box and tells you what it changed; Undo that puts its last change back.
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   Step 5: If a box leads nowhere yet, press Leads to... and pick how it is finished and which box (or ending) comes next.
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   Step 6: When every box is placed, press Play it now to try your game from the first box. Only you are in it. If it can’t start, the reason is shown under the buttons.

Walk with me makes the helper appear beside you in the world and follow you; click it there to talk, or type in its column on the right. Helper, stay here stops it, and the characters it brought go too.

Click a box to read it: where it happens, what happens there, who is there and where it leads. Drag a box to move it. +, − and the mouse wheel zoom, Fit shows the map at its natural size, and Tidy up puts every box back in its automatic place.

What players see

Players find your game with Wolf World › then Games & Stories › then Adventures... (in WolfStorm: Wolf World › then Adventures...) and press Join. They click your characters to talk, see what to do next at the bottom right of their screen, and get cards with buttons when the story offers a choice. Players in other viewers can still talk to characters in local chat, within 10 metres. On across Wolf Territories (each region at its next restart)

Fine tuning

That is the whole game. When you want more, press More... on a box: A fight happens here..., Someone walks with them..., your own scripts (A script moves it on... and Tell my scripts it starts), Add a box after it, Play from here, Open the full editor and Remove... (in WolfStorm, Delete this box…).

The quiet line at the foot of Your story map has ◂ Your characters, Rebuild my game, My games, Advanced editing and Publish. Advanced editing opens the expert pages, which stay for people who want them: Outline, Cast, Places, Story, Rules, Lore, Import, Test Play, Publish, AI and voice, Cast talk, Book and assist, Run, and Start here (building with no AI). Publish is where your game goes live for players. The pages below cover each of these, one thing at a time:

• Characters: written lines or AIGive your characters written lines for free, or let them talk with AI paid from your WolfCredits.
• VoicesFree voices and premium voices for your characters, and what they cost.
• Battles: a fight in a boxMake a box a fight: enemies of anything or anyone, where winning leads and what losing does, and how players fight turn by turn.
• Companions: characters who walk with the playersLet a character join the players and walk with them from one box to another, and fight on their side.
• Adding your own scriptsDoors, buttons and traps of your own: scripts that move the story on, and scripts that hear what the story does.
• Publish itCheck for problems, ask for your regions, give people roles and publish.
• Change the story while people playUpdate a published game while people are playing it: see who is where first, then update, and undo if you need to.
• Run it live as a game masterStep in and run a session yourself, like the person running a tabletop game, then hand it back to the AI Director.
• Classes and teachingTeach with an adventure: classes with a join code, quizzes and reports in the Teacher Console.
• Rules: dice and statsPick a rules preset for dice, stats and checks, and change it to suit your game.
• Quests, items and rewardsObjectives, the Journal, choices, what the story remembers, honour and the rewards players take home.
• Places and ways onMark spots, areas and paths in the world by hand, and every kind of way on from one box to the next.
• Play it now and Test PlayPlay your game on your own before anyone else does, from any box, with and without AI.
• Build it without AIMake a whole game with nothing to pay: Start here under Advanced editing goes through nine short steps.
• Import and exportBring in a Wolf Story notecard or an adventure file, save your game as a file, and what is coming for Twee, Ink, Yarn and Character Cards.
• Safety and ratingsMaturity ratings, under-18 players, how AI characters are kept safe, and how conversations are stored.

Ideas to try

Stuck for a story? Paste one of these into Your story, press Build my game, then make it yours.

• Wild West

  “A Wild West bank robbery where the players can side with the outlaws or the sheriff.”

• Wild West

  “The mine payroll has been stolen. Sheriff Hale needs deputies to follow the trail from the saloon to the falls before the gang crosses the border.”

• Fantasy

  “The village asks the players to clear the crypt under the old chapel, where a bone warden guards a stolen bell. A rune door, a flooded hall and a fight at the end.”

• Mystery

  “The lighthouse lamp went out on the night the ship came in. Three keepers, one secret, and the players have until dawn to find out who did it.”

• Sci-fi

  “A silent space station. The ship's computer says the air runs out in thirty minutes, and it does not want the players to leave.”

• Ghost story

  “An old house on Hollow Lane where a girl who died in 1890 is still looking for her mother's locket. The players can help her, or run.”

• Treasure hunt

  “A treasure hunt round my island: a clue at the jetty, one at the lighthouse and one in the cave, and a chest at the end.”

• For a class

  “A history lesson about the first railway: the players meet the engineer, the navvies and a worried farmer, and answer three questions at the end.”

• For a game night

  “A saloon card night that goes wrong: a cheat, a brawl, and a choice to help the marshal or the gambler.”