software investigation
as i'm currently working on a narrative game, i'm trying to find a good spot to write branching dialogue before i start doing anything in-engine. i've already decided to go with godot for the final product as i've been meaning to learn it and this should be a simple enough project that it'll help me get my bearings.
i think i may have spoiled myself by checking out the articy x free version as it seems to be one of the only software with a super seamless writing experience. the ability to create dialogue nodes for characters without having to manually assign a fresh dialogue node to each character is genuinely so good for the workflow. unfortunately, the free version isn't going to be able to hold my whole game, despite it not being that big, and i would literally never pay $115 a year for any software no matter how good it is or how much money i earnt, so i can't continue on with articy. there is the previous version which i could still use with the one-time payment, but $120 is still a massive investment for something that's never going to be updated and had all it's documentation wiped from the internet.
there's quite a few other software i've looked at, but it seems that the articy features are not ones i'm going to be able to find in another program so now it just becomes a case of finding the best one i can and dealing with it. currently i've looked at:
- storyflow editor - seems decent but can't tell if i should purchase without a demo available. unreal-style ui gives me flashbacks but that's personal lol.
- monologue - no ability to see character profiles (or that i'm aware of, i couldn't seem to locate any documentation). it seems solid though and looks like it'll get updates in the future
- drafft classic - unable to get this version working. new version seems to have good reviews but as a hobbyist i don't like subscriptions
- dialogue designer - good layout but hasn't been touched since 2022 and there are too many bugs reported in the reviews for me to bother
- twine - first choice that comes to mind, but obviously no character visualisation in the graph
- sprouty dialogs - seems good, very current, i was initially keen on using dialogic to implement in godot but since this has the graph view and dialogic doesn't i might swap...
- arcweave and loomgraph - both subscriptions, seem pretty similar overall
and well i'm getting tired of looking at all this software and just want to start working, so i may as well just go ahead with sprouty. i'll be going to the alt: games expo tomorrow which should be fun, not sure if i'll meet any devs (they'll probably be there but whether or not i actually talk to them is another question...) but will be good to see what people in sydney are up to in the games world regardless. i didn't go to beer and pixels this week (i've been not-going to beer and pixels for years now), who knows if i ever will... maybe if i get enough of this game working at some point i'll take it over, but i also don't think a narrative game is right for that kind of setting lol.