Navigating the Create Tab Stories
Here are some screenshots of the menus you’ll see on stories in the Create tab:
>> 10 lines: Jump ahead ten lines in your story - will auto-pick answers to any choices.
< 1 line: Jump back one line, and remake any choices that were there.
<< 10 lines: Jump back ten lines, and remake any choices that were there.
Update Script: Updates the script to the newest one on the portal. This is important if you are making edits and playing along.
Directing Helper:
- Zoom Helper: Helps with zooms, and adjusting focusing
- Switch tool: will toggle between Focus and Zoom
- To Zoom drag your finger up to Zoom In, and down to Zoom Out
- Note the helper in the bottom left script. It’ll let you know exactly where your camera is. It’ll look something like “@zoom on 457 406 to 222% in 0”
- Similarly, to Focus, drag your camera anywhere in the zone.
- Reset Zoom will put your camera back to the default
- > button will move ahead a single line (See < 1 Line at the top)
- Spot Helper
- Switch tool: will toggle between Move and Scale
- To Scale make sure you’re on the correct character (see the script in the left corner) and drag your finger up to Scale Up your character, and down to Scale Down your character
- To Move, make sure your character is selected, and then drag them anywhere in the zone
- Change Char cycles between the characters present in the scene. So if you’re in the tool, but defaults to the character you do not want to Move/Scale, tap this button to switch characters
- > button will move ahead a single line
- Bubble Helper
- Show/Hide Speech will show or hide all speech/thought/narrator bubbles in the zone.
- Cycle tail will cycle where the speech bubble tail are: bottom left, upper right, upper left, or bottom right
- Toggle Positions will toggle what side of the tail the speech bubble will be on
- Switch tool: will toggle between Move and Scale
- To Scale drag your finger up to Scale Up your bubble, and down to Scale Down your bubble
- To Move drag the bubble anywhere in the zone
- > button will move ahead a single line
- Overlay Helper
- Switch tool: will toggle between Move and Scale
- To Scale make sure you’re on the correct overlay (see the script in the left corner) and drag your finger up to Scale Up your overlay, and down to Scale Down your overlay
- To Move, make sure your overlay is selected, and then drag it anywhere in the zone
- Change Overlay cycles between the overlays present in the scene. So if you’re in the tool, but defaults to the overlay you do not want to Move/Scale, tap this button to switch overlays
- Filters Helper
- None <next> is the default button when your story has no filters set. Tapping this will pull up the option to add filters
- HSL <next> brings up the menu to see all your filter options. There are preset options, or you can create your own custom filters.
- Hue adjust the base hue of your scene. 0 being normal, maxing at -180 and 180. Drag your finger up /down OR left / right to adjust.
- Saturation adjusts the saturation of color in your scene. 0 is baseline, -180 is black & white, and 180 is oversaturation.
- Lightness adjusts the white/black balance in your scene. 0 is base, -180 is black, 180 is white.
- Colorize OFF/ON toggles a color filter on/off.
- Blend options refer to how the filter will interact with the base scene. Experimentation will help show which one if your preference.
- Normal
- Add
- Multiply
- Overlay
- Opacity refers to the transparency of the filter
Navigation: This helps you navigate within your story.
- Resume: close this menu and do nothing
- Reset Story Progress: This removes any choices you’ve made before this.
- Restart Chapter: Start this chapter from the beginning
- Scenes: “Scenes” happen whenever you change backgrounds. This will take you to the beginning of a scene (background change).
- Chapters: This lets you jump between the starts of chapters.
- Disable/Enable Picker: This turns the “Picker” on and off. Learn more about it below.
Using The Picker
The “Picker” is a tool to help ease testing your story, especially as it gets longer and potentially more complex. However, it can also get confusing to use, so you may want to turn it off on the menu.
Any time you use an “”if/else” branch in your story, if you have the Picker on, you will see that as a choice in your game. Do not worry, this is not a bug and live players will not see it. This lets you pick the path you’d like to test, without having to go back and play your actual choice. We STRONGLY suggest you test your story with this on, so that you can easily check every path. However, we also suggest you turn it off and play through one or two more times with different paths, to make sure they make sense narratively.
Playtesting Your Story
After you have successfully saved your screenplay and it is error free, play your story to make sure it looks good. You can find it under the “Write” tab in your app.
Readers must play from beginning to end in a linear fashion, but you can freely navigate in order to try out all the different paths of your story. During your playtest, the game will pause whenever you encounter an “if“ statement. This enables you to manually choose which path to take. Normal readers won’t see this of course, as the conditions are evaluated automatically.
You can also turn this off by tapping “Navigation” and tapping “Disable Picker.”
Problems to look for when testing:
- Are there any warning pop-ups while playing?
- Are all my characters appearing on screen correctly?
- Am I missing backgrounds or clothing items?
- Can I reach all the possible paths?
- Do any choices lead to bad paths or unfinished paths?
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