Playing a scene

A scene is a conversation in writing between you and one character, in one place.

A scene: the character's actions in italics, their words set apart.

Writing

Type what you do and what you say in the box at the bottom and send it. The character answers in role and remembers what happened earlier in the scene. Their actions are set in italics and their spoken words are marked with a line down the side.

Don't like an answer? Draw another one, and page between the drafts. You can also edit a line, yours or theirs, or rewind the scene to any earlier point and take it somewhere else.

If you set the scene to reply choices, you pick from a few suggested replies instead of writing your own.

Voices

Every character has a voice. Press Speak under a line to hear it read aloud, or switch on automatic speech in the scene's menu.

Pictures and film

The + next to the text box holds what you can show. Render this moment makes a picture of what is happening right now, with the character as they look at that point in the scene. You can also offer the character a different outfit, pick a pose or choose a picture style for the next picture. Turntable lets the character turn on the spot, so you see them from every side.

The + menu: outfits, poses, styles, a picture of the moment, and the turntable.

The picture appears in the scene, under the moment it shows, and the newest one is also kept on the stage at the top. Under a picture, New take makes another version and Animate turns it into a few seconds of film. Click it to see it large.

Rendering the moment: a minute later the picture is in the scene.

Sympathy

Characters have feelings about you, and those feelings change with how you treat them. After every turn the character's sympathy for you rises or falls a little: kindness, humour and interest in them warm them up; rudeness and pushing too fast cool them down.

Sympathy changes how they behave. A guarded character opens up as they warm to you. They may tell you what they want or what they are hiding, and with some characters closeness becomes possible that they would refuse to a stranger. Cool them down and they become more careful again. Nothing about this is a score to grind. It works the way trust does.

You never see a number. The small dot in front of the character's name, and the Cold, Neutral or Warm in the scene's menu, tell you how they feel about you right now.

The scene's menu

The ⋯ button at the top right opens the rest: the character's and the place's cards, what the character is wearing, the place backdrop, automatic speech, focus mode (hides everything but the story), the scene's language, and an export of the whole scene as a page or as text.