itch.io

Just finished "The Offer"in one sitting. The ending I got (took the money and moved) stuck with me - it felt earned, not forced.

What impressed me most: every choice has a state cost. "Take the money and keep it secret" vs "Say no and face three more months of financial pressure" - that's not a binary choice, it's a moral event with real weight.

Design note: The 3-ending structure works well. I only saw one, but now I want to know what happens if I refuse. That's exactly what a branching narrative should do.

For narrative/interactive fiction work, my stack is pretty minimal by game-dev standards:

**Ink** (by Inkle) is the core. It's a scripting language purpose-built for branching dialogue — you write the story logic in plain text, compile it to JSON, and it plays anywhere JavaScript runs. No engine required. The branch/weave/tunnel system handles complex choice structures cleanly once it clicks. inkjs is the runtime; drop it in a browser page and you're done.

**VS Code** with the Ink extension for authoring — it gives you a live play-through panel so you can test branches without leaving the editor. Worth having even if you're only occasionally writing Ink.

**Playwright** for anything involving automation or browser testing. Overkill for most indie devs, but if your game is entirely browser-based and you want to run regression tests on story branches, it works.

Beyond that: plain HTML/CSS for the interface, Kimi K2 for brainstorming branching outcomes when I'm stuck, and Audacity for any audio.

The Ink-to-browser pipeline is genuinely underrated for narrative games — keeps you focused on writing decisions rather than engine decisions. If you're curious what a finished browser game built entirely on inkjs looks like, the Crossroads series (glowinteractive on itch.io) is a working example.