Anyone using Articy or an alternative?

[DynamiteJoe/RenMan3DX]

Hi!
I'm using Twine to design the story for my game, keep track of characters and so on, but considering it doesn't have a particularly great UI (imho) I'm starting to see how it could get very confusing trying to keep track of multiple paths and whatnot.
So, before getting too deep into writing scenes and dialogues and then having to write it all again, I was wondering if anyone here has experience with Articy or knows an alternative better than Twine and closer to Articy. Mostly about Articy I'm curious if the free version would be enough, like how big a game would need to be so it isn't enough.

 

[GNVE]

Can't say that I have used it but it seems interesting. With a price of free what is holding you back from playing around with it a little. I'm gonna try tbh. The worst that can happen is you lost an afternoon of work. 660 free objects seem on the low side if you want an expansive game but for a smaller/kinetic project it is more than plenty. The full version costs 115 USD so if you know you might have to buy it you can start saving up for it so you can upgrade when you hit the limit. it's the price of two AAA games.

 

[DynamiteJoe/RenMan3DX]

Yeah, I probably wouldn't mind buying it, especially if I don't have to do it right now. I cut back a lot on games and stuff so I can use that money on stuff I'll need for game making. I think CP2077 was probably the last game I bought at full price =P
But yeah, you are right, going to download it now

 

[GNVE]

Just reporting back should anyone stumble upon this thread in the future. After having used it for a while I must say I like it. The learning curve isn't too steep and once you (sort of) know what you are doing it is quite a powerful tool.
I've used it in a few projects. Mostly just jotting down a few notes here and there for game ideas I have so I can try out the tool. I won't say I've necessarily done what the makers had intended but hey, users gonna break stuff.

What I've used most is the flow. While I still wish you could just make multiple flow screens outright the possibility to nest flows within flows is good enough. Only real nit-pick I have is that the jump only has an inflow and not an outflow so it can't be used as other flow items.
I've used the flow to create a tech/upgrade tree and as a storyboard. Both are very much suited to work with a flow.

The character sheet is great to keep track of your characters wants, needs and drives. While a base template is available. it can be customized to your hearts content. It can be combined with the flow for storyboarding purposes.

While I haven't fully explored the map function I was able to make a basic town map. It is not as quick as I would like but it will generally do.

Importing assets works like a charm though and is easy to do.

All in all I highly recommend this tool. Until now I used multiple tools to do what this does. (A wiki tool, database tool, mindmap etc.)

Storyboard example:


Partially adapted character sheet


Tech Tree example (probably not the best way to do this)


Map example

 

[Deleted member 2282952]

Articy kinda reminds me of the Dialogue System plugin for Unity, which I use a lot, and is awesome.

Without answering your question (haven't used the software, but GNVE covered it in a detailed way) - I find spreadsheets to be the best way to keep track of story, data, branches, my pet food, my porn, my work ... and then inputting it into whatever system you create through data processing protocols. At some point, you reach a point where you want to minimize number of systems used for increased productivity, but there are a lot of factors in play.

 

[GNVE]

Articy kinda reminds me of the Dialogue System plugin for Unity, which I use a lot, and is awesome.

Without answering your question (haven't used the software, but GNVE covered it in a detailed way) - I find spreadsheets to be the best way to keep track of story, data, branches, my pet food, my porn, my work ... and then inputting it into whatever system you create through data processing protocols. At some point, you reach a point where you want to minimize number of systems used for increased productivity, but there are a lot of factors in play.

Yeah I use spreadsheets a lot but they have their limitations. And for game development I have found that it is just not enough. For my workflow at least. (Or it has to be an extremely simple kinetic VN but then I don't need a spreadsheet as I can hold the info in my head just as wel.)

 

[Deleted member 2282952]

Yeah I use spreadsheets a lot but they have their limitations. And for game development I have found that it is just not enough. For my workflow at least. (Or it has to be an extremely simple kinetic VN but then I don't need a spreadsheet as I can hold the info in my head just as wel.)

Agree, very use-case dependent.

Working on up to AA games, at least in my experience, spreadsheets, and GDocs (+ Figma, of course) tend to be enough to keep things streamlined before jumping into Unity, then using whatever plugins/architecture is built. For 5+ people teams, we typically integrate spreadsheets into the workflow so that creatives can add content straight into the engine to cut on development costs.

Might just be my teams, big fan of spreadsheets.

Edit: for VNs or any interactive/kinetic things, you can skip a step and keep stuff in your head as a solo dev to cut on dev time and work stuff straight into the engine with Figma as your guide

 

[anne O'nymous]

Yeah I use spreadsheets a lot but they have their limitations. And for game development I have found that it is just not enough.

I second that.

When the game is massively story driven, like it's the case for most games on the scene, spreadsheets reach their limits. They are good to keep track of the main flow, knowing scene by scene how the story progress and what are the story variations.
But to have a good story you need to also have variations inside a single scene ; by example depending if you are in a romantic relationship with a girl, or if she's just a friend. And here they can quickly become overwhelming, because you can easily have tenth short variations inside a single scene.

Yet they are interesting since they also double as a storyboard. This permit you to see if the current progression make sense, change this scenes order to test a new progression and, what is the most important, keep track of the known information depending on the path followed until there.