Introducing Item Types & Variable Stats

This update introduces two important new features: item types and variable display options. Items can now take on different gameplay roles (default, consumable, or equippable) giving stories more interesting inventory logic. Variables like health, sanity, or progress can now be surfaced directly to the player as visible stats.

Additionally, the Scene Editor got a larger usability pass, there are new event actions, better media handling, more helpful Story Player feedback, and a round of bug fixes based on what came up during the closed beta.

Version: App: v0.15.0 - API: v0.16.0-fea47f0

Variables can now be marked as stats, making them visible to the player. Stats display as plain text, a bar, or segmented values. That's useful for health, sanity, stamina, suspicion, relationship scores, chapter progress, resources, or anything else worth surfacing at a glance. The current display options are basic, but more control over how stats look and behave is planned for future updates.

Until now, every item in a story behaved the same way. That changes with this update.

You can now give each item one of three types:

• Default: Same behavior as before. Good for keys, documents, clues, collectibles, and anything that just sits in the inventory.
• Consumable: For things the player uses up, e.g. health potions, food, one-time resources, story-specific supplies, and so on.
• Equippable: For things the player wears, holds, or activates. For example: armor, tools, charms, weapons, or other persistent upgrades.

Your story can now tell the difference between something a player carries, something they spend, and something they equip. There are no equipment slots yet. Equippable items are simply marked as equipped or not. So this is a starting point for more complex inventory logic, that will be introduced in future updates.

If you've ever built a scene with a dozen or more elements, you know how much back-and-forth that involves. This update tries to cut most of that out. The elements list now sits at the side of the editor and can stay open while you work, so there's no more toggling panels just to find something. You can search elements by name or group, filter the list, rename things inline, and drag-and-drop to reorder.

Editing itself is quicker too. Double click or tap an element and the edit drawer opens right away. That should save a lot of clicks when you're tweaking several things in a row.

This update also introduces snapping. Elements now snap to the center and edges of the scene, which makes aligning images, text, and interactable areas much easier.

Scene Editor

• Added a search bar for scene elements. Elements can now be searched by name and group.
• Added drag-and-drop resorting for scene elements in the new scene elements list view.
• Double clicking or tapping an element now opens the edit drawer.
• Moved the scene elements list view to the side and made sure it can stay permanently visible.
• Moved the scene elements filter to the elements list.
• Scene elements now snap to the center and edges of the scene.
• Names of scene elements can now be entered in the elements list view.

Events, Actions & Triggers

• Added an action for replacing the background of the active scene.
• Added an action for replacing the image of a scene element.
• Detail scenes can now be closed by using event actions.
• All audio actions now allow loudness to be defined per clip.

Items

• Introduced item types: Default, Equippable, and Consumable.

Variables

• Introduced variable stats: Text, Bar, and Segments.

Media Library

• New media can now be uploaded in the story media manager.
• Folders can now be changed when attaching media to specific elements.
• Added a specific folder for scene elements.

Story Player

• Added an icon for inspectable items in the inventory.
• Narration is now always italic by default.
• Added more detailed event logging to the Story Player.

Characters

• Made sure character pose titles always include the character name.

Misc

• Added 10 tutorial videos covering two more sections of the documentation.
• Clicking on the backdrop does not close modals anymore.
• Tutorial videos are now displayed on all empty pages where available.
• Display all card thumbnails in higher resolution.

• Made sure default values for actions and conditions are set properly.
• Made sure story data gets refreshed properly when entering the dashboard.
• Fixed an issue where 0 (zero) was not accepted as a comparison value.
• Fixed an issue with the character elements pose selection logic.
• Fixed an issue where achievements would not trigger an alert.
• Fixed an issue where reordering actions or conditions was not saved properly.