Could you fine folks please recommend good, preferably free software for making a flowchart for story progression? Much obliged.
Tool Good flowchart/storyboarding software
- Thread starter Ti'elby Mercedes
- Start date
- Dec 4, 2016
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Have you actually used Plot or Canva? I don't want to spend money on Plot unless I know it's useful, and Canva doesn't seem to be well suited to storyboarding.
- Dec 4, 2016
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No, I just remembered this link from a similar post.
- Jan 4, 2018
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Have you checked out
I'm using it right now for the rough draft pass of my side project text game and used it to create a text demo of my main game project. Between its ease of use and getting that handy visual overview of my project and the paths it takes make it one of my favorite tools lately. The only thing I can really fault it on is the lack of spell checking and to a lesser extent that it only outputs html so you can't easily make standalone games with it. It also uses JavaScript if you want to do more advanced stuff, which could be a plus or minus depending on how you feel about that language (personally not much of a fan of it myself).
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? That has a flowchart style overview editor. Each node represents a chunk of your story and adding new ones is as simple as adding a link in the text of a node formatted like this:
Code:
[[This is the text that gets displayed.->This is the name of the new scene node to be created.]]Little bit too busy at the moment to take it for a test drive, but it looks promising. Thanks!
- Aug 23, 2018
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I'm looking into this exact same thing right now and
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seems to be a good bet. It's supposedly free so I'm going to give it a test drive myself tonight, I'll report back with my opinion probably tomorrow.
- Aug 23, 2018
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Okay, so a day later and I think I'm gonna have to give this my seal of approval.
It has a very manageable learning curve, everything is pretty straight forward. All the nodes and connections can be recoloured and there are plenty of shapes to choose from to help you build easy visual references for organising routes or character interactions etc. You can add notes to connections beyond just the "yes" or "no" that you see in a lot of flow charts. Text on nodes is a given but you can also add URLs or descriptions to each node, making it easy to link directly to more detailed scripts etc.
Right now I've been adding scripts for interactions into the descriptions of a node, I'm not sure if it's going to remain efficient in going forwards since there isn't any good text formatting that I can tell for the text within a node's description and mousing over the node throws the description up on screen, a lot of text is going to get pretty invasive.
I like how there is plenty of flexibility with the snapping too. I'm a stickler for presentation so it ticks one of my own boxes for must haves I didn't realise I needed.
I haven't used images yet but apparently you can add images to your chart easily.
It being free means I have no hesitation in recommending people at least give it a try.
- Sep 12, 2018
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For the RenPy game I'm currently making, Twine (despite being a full engine of it's own) is turning out to be simply the best free storyboarding tool out there. It's just intuitive for all of the uses in @jerricho13's article
Thanks! I haven't decided if I'll be using RenPy. Would you recommend it even just for my internal use, ordering the elements of the plot and staggering the different stages of multiple, overlapping arcs? Or should I use something simpler if it's not going to lead to a RenPy game?
- Sep 12, 2018
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Specially for internal use, if your game is going to have any sort of plot with more than several story beats, having a storyboard is a great asset, and helps a lot for the overall development. Twine's incredibly simple to use too, I'd even say the simplest, so give it a go and let me know how it works out for you.
A mind mapping program can also be very useful for organizing ideas. As I still have less than 3 posts (this will be my second, I believe), I can't link to it, but look up Freeplane. (If someone else could post a link, that would be great!)
- Jan 4, 2018
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does look pretty interesting. I like the idea of a mind mapper program, but in practice I rarely ever get around to using them when I do actually install them. Just found out this one is in the Solus repos, so I might have to give it a spin and see if I get one to stick for once, heh.
- Dec 5, 2017
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Not trying to raise this thread from the dead, but ...
I am using Twine at the moment but have an issue which I hope somebody can help me with:
As different paths are taken through the story the player gets awarded different point for different stats. e.g. Say something nice to somebody Relationship += 1
Then later on, different paths are open depending on the values of these stats. e.g. If Relationship > 10 "Would you like to bonk?"
These are all static values though, for a particular route through the story there will be a fixed value for different variables. As story arcs rejoin the main thread then these stats start having a range of values from a theoretical minimum to a maximum. This is what I need to keep track of.
I need to know, when I write a new passage, what the possible values of different stats are so I can adjust the logic accordingly. Lots of authors must have similar mechanics in their games and computers should be able to keep track of these min/max values with ease but I cannot work out how to do it in Twine.
Is this possible in Twine or any other storyboarding software that people have tried?
Note: this is different to Twine variables which get altered at runtime, I need something that changes during authoring.
I am using Twine at the moment but have an issue which I hope somebody can help me with:
As different paths are taken through the story the player gets awarded different point for different stats. e.g. Say something nice to somebody Relationship += 1
Then later on, different paths are open depending on the values of these stats. e.g. If Relationship > 10 "Would you like to bonk?"
These are all static values though, for a particular route through the story there will be a fixed value for different variables. As story arcs rejoin the main thread then these stats start having a range of values from a theoretical minimum to a maximum. This is what I need to keep track of.
I need to know, when I write a new passage, what the possible values of different stats are so I can adjust the logic accordingly. Lots of authors must have similar mechanics in their games and computers should be able to keep track of these min/max values with ease but I cannot work out how to do it in Twine.
Is this possible in Twine or any other storyboarding software that people have tried?
Note: this is different to Twine variables which get altered at runtime, I need something that changes during authoring.
- Aug 23, 2018
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Maybe someone has a better way, but I've just been using a separate spreadsheet alongside my flowcharts to keep track of any possible stat ranges. I might end up running into problems later with side stuff, but for the most part in my project, the most important stats that will allow the main story to progress should be quite manageable.
Regrettably, although it seems as though the software could easily do that, I haven't seen any feature that does. I'm hoping someone else can comment on other platforms where it's possible, for future reference.
Storyboarder
FREE! Open Source and tons of features.
I realize this is an older thread but I am sure there are plenty of authors/devs out there looking for a solution to mapping out their scenes. Storyboarder is great software I found that bridges with many other applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Scriptwriting software, etc.).
Best of luck!
You must be registered to see the links
FREE! Open Source and tons of features.
I realize this is an older thread but I am sure there are plenty of authors/devs out there looking for a solution to mapping out their scenes. Storyboarder is great software I found that bridges with many other applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Scriptwriting software, etc.).
Best of luck!