Storyloom is a node-based narrative design board: lay story beats out as cards, wire them into a branching flow, attach the cast and the world, gate paths behind variables, then play it, test it, and ship it to your engine. This page maps the features to use cases; the in-app ? help and guided setup cover the same ground interactively.
Every beat is a node: Scene, Dialogue (line-by-line speakers, emotions, string IDs for localization), Choice (options with their own conditions), Check (pass/fail branch), Unlock (apply effects), Random (weighted outcomes), Event (fire a named trigger for the engine), Ending, Jump, and Discoverable (optional side content found at a host beat). Each node carries the who/where/when/why, status (draft → approved), labels, images, and comment threads. Drag from the palette, link ports, group beats into acts with frames, and let the board keep itself tidy — nodes can never overlap; lower-priority notes slide out of the way.
Design notes (hover to fan out attached reference images), Narrative notes, and Tech notes attach to beats and toggle on/off per layer from the top bar, so each discipline sees its own annotations without burying the story.
File ▸ Import ▸ From a document turns a written outline into connected nodes — Word (.docx), PDF, Markdown, plain text, or a Google Docs download. You get a preview (beats, links, cast, variables, notes about anything guessed) before a single node is created, and a formatting guide plus an example outline live in the dialog. The same outline can be exported back (File ▸ Export outline) for editing in Docs/Word — a full round trip. Prefer generation? The skeleton generator builds a three-act flow from your title, cast, setting and key object by rules (offline, instant) or with AI (signed in, metered per plan).
Characters carry role types, species, factions, homes, relationships, traits, motivation, voice direction and reference voice clips — plus idle / revisit lines: things they say when the player talks to them and no story beat is due, picked by conditions (highest priority), exact revisit number, then priority. Locations sit inside nested regions; items double as inventory (has/lacks conditions, give/take effects); species, factions and lore round out the encyclopedia. Everything is taggable on beats and searchable.
Variables are typed (flag, int, float, text), grouped, and usable in any condition or effect — on nodes, choice options, and links. Mark variables as tracked 🔧 to follow them through the technical review and economy view. Boards can have multiple entry points (main start plus side-quest or chapter entries) that weave through shared beats.
Play steps through the story with live variables, an inventory, and every gate enforced — from the start, any entry point, or the selected node. Path explorer enumerates every route, counts endings reached, dead ends, never-unlocked options and unreachable beats, and can highlight any route on the canvas or open it as a script. Economy view charts every variable beat-by-beat along one route so balancing is visible. Story check lints the graph; Project targets tracks endings/dead ends/routes against goals with a live scoreboard; Technical review shows where every tracked variable is read and written.
Sign in (magic link — no passwords) to save projects to the cloud, group them into workspaces, and share either one: workspace sharing covers every current and future cloud project in it. Two people in the same project get live co-editing with cursors and per-field merging, plus a soft lock on beats a teammate is editing. Comments support replies, reactions, flags, resolution and @mentions; Request review routes a beat to named reviewers with approve / request-changes; Suggest mode turns edits into proposals the owner accepts or rejects — viewers can propose without write access. The ✉ Inbox collects everything addressed to you, with optional email digests.
Unity: a companion package imports the export, binds prefabs, validates, and generates a playable test scene in top-down, third-person or first-person style — dialogue UI, zones, inventory, discoverables, saves. Godot: a bundle with the JSON and a GDScript runner. Unreal: JSON plus DataTable CSVs and implementation notes. Ink and Yarn Spinner exports cover narrative middleware, and the raw runtime JSON works anywhere. Strings export (CSV) supports localization pipelines.
Storyboard prints the whole board as a PDF deck (three beats per row, notes and a technical appendix). Script view reads the story, or one route, as a screenplay. Beat sheet is the whole board as a sortable, editable table with CSV export; swim-lanes re-arranges the canvas into act rows. The outline export produces a Word/Markdown document writers can edit anywhere and re-import.