A little while ago I used a platform called Twine to try writing a branching narrative as a practice exercise for game writing. It’s a pretty good tool for mapping out the branches visually, and I can see it being really helpful to use behind the scenes when planning larger narratives. Since then I’ve discovered Downpour, a mobile app that lets you build similar story games using photos and doodles you make on your phone. Most of the interface is labelled with icons, and although this took me a minute to get used to I expect that makes it accessible to people who don’t know much English (or who find the deep and cryptic menu systems of many game editors confusing).
I decided to use the same story as before (based on my comic Good Faith) because I could reuse the character designs and other elements, but I redeveloped the story to include more choices and more branches. Some of the options don’t lead to new branches, they’re just there to give the player a greater feeling of control and engagement compared to just clicking through to the next page. There are three endings in this new version, compared to two in the Twine game, and I repainted my character to better fit the story beats. Please check it out here, I hope you enjoy it!
