Hey. Different kind of update this time.
The last stretch of work wasn't on the editor, it was on the website, and I went back and forth on whether that belongs in a devlog at all. I decided it does, because the choices we made writing it say more about how we want to do this than another feature would.
We filled in the parts of the site that were still empty: a roadmap, a pricing page, an about page, and a set of pages comparing us to the tools people already use. The comparison pages are the ones worth talking about, because they were the most uncomfortable to write.
The Comparison Pages
The easy version of an "alternative to X" page is the dishonest one. You list your strengths, hide the other tool's, and quietly crown yourself. We did not want to do that, partly because it is gross and partly because the people we are building for can smell it from a mile off. So we wrote them the other way. We praise the tools we are measured against, quote their own words, and say plainly where they beat us.
On the Ren'Py page we say Ren'Py is free, open source, and runs on more platforms than we do, because it is and it does. On the Twine page we did not claim "no code" as our advantage, because Twine is no-code too for a simple story, by its own description. On the articy:draft page we point out that it has a free tier and that it is the deeper tool if you are a studio with a real engine behind you. Every comparison table on those pages has rows where the other tool wins, and we left every one of them in.
Best Narrative Design Tools Guide
The tempting move there is to put yourself at number one. We are pre-alpha. We have not earned the top of anyone's list. So the guide groups tools by what you are actually making, opens by telling you that we publish it and one of the tools is ours, and says outright that if you are writing a text adventure or shipping with a studio team, something else on the list will serve you better.
The Pricing Page
The pricing page was the other one that mattered, because we put the promise in writing. Free use is free forever, and you can share what you make anywhere at no cost. We will never charge hobbyists, people who are learning, or educational work made outside a company. If you sell your story one day, we ask for a small one-time Pro, never a subscription.
That is not a launch tactic. It is most of the reason this thing exists. A lot of us could never really justify the tools, and drowned in the technical side of them even when we could, so we would rather hand the free tier to everyone and only ask the people making money to chip in.
One thing I will own. While writing the pricing into those pages, we put an actual number on Pro, then pulled it back out the same day. The figure is not final, and putting a price we might change in front of you is exactly the kind of move we are trying not to make. So there are no numbers on the site yet, only what each tier is for.
Looking for Feedback
None of this is settled, the tool included. We ship early and write in the open because we want the people who actually use this to tell us what it should be, and that goes for the words on the site as much as the buttons in the editor. If something on there reads wrong to you, say so. The harsh stuff especially.
If you want to see the pages I'm talking about, they're all on the site: the comparison pages, the best-tools guide, and the pricing page. Find us on X as @ChoiceStoryDev, in our Discord, or by email.
Next we are back in the editor, on the part that actually makes the stories. More soon.
