VisualInk

Even great stories start from humble beginnings. In the first session of a new round of Coding Games with a Story, some of our authors (9-11 year olds) successfully got a story up and running with a scene, background music, images of the person speaking... and a decision point.

#writing #interactivefiction

You can play through the exercise that's shown in the screen shot here: visualink.mavnn.eu/published... . Use the menu at the top to switch between the two types of view.

VisualInk now lets you swap seemlessly between cinematic and our new illustrated screenplay format while you're playing your #visualnovels . This allows readers to quickly check the history of the story so far, and authors to view parts of the story with context. And it just looks pretty snazzy (in our opinion).

Starting next week, we'll be hosting a writing club for under 18s doing something a bit different: writing interactive fiction. This is a space for people who want to actually write a piece of interactive fiction, so it does assume you'll be putting in time between sessions so that we can all share our progress each week.

More details at thinkersmeetup.com/service-p...

#writing #fiction #interactivefiction

Prototyping a new view for allowing readers to view their history, and authors to quickly got an overview of the script.

It's not quite ready for release yet, but it is starting to get there. Just needs a bit more love to get it formatted more like an actual movie script, and to include scene change markers for when the background changes.

#visualnovels #interactivefiction

Know someone 9-18 who loves stories? Week starting 23rd February is the next round of "Coding Games with a Story", a five week introduction to creating #visualnovels using our very own VisualInk. We're also hoping to host a writing club for under 18s who have decided to build a full game now that two cohorts have already gone through and enjoyed the course (writers using other #interactivefiction tools are also welcome to join the writing club).

Read more about the person leading the courses and their content at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

Now that's the kind of content it's heart warming to see as a developer!

I’ve become sidetracked by the Visualink system. It’s very promising for students to edit and offers just enough asset options to give choice without overwhelming.

One more session to go on the current round of #interactivefiction writing courses, and the older teens have asked for the final session to be a deep dive into expanding a conversation because they felt it didn't have enough narrative depth.

So that's pretty awesome. And now I get to have a play with dialogue rather than the very different process which is #writing examples of functionality which are interesting but small enough to not obscure the thing being taught.

Hello people who enjoy #writing! I've had some interest in a 5 week online course for adult non-coders to try their hand at #interactivefiction - i.e. stories that include branching narrative based on the readers' choices. The course would cover some of the mechanics, but also advice on structuring interactive plots with managable complexity, looking at emotional hooks that work better or worse when readers have active agency, using interactive fiction tools to capture options to show editors and beta-readers in non-interactive works, and some examples of expanding existing writing into an interactive experience.

If you like this idea, I'm putting together a mailing list of potential course members who are keen enough they'd like to have a voice in the scheduling of the course. Send me your email via DM or email me at [email protected] and I'll let you know when there are updates on the course and nothing else; this is not a general purpose "get spammed by Michael" email list. Costs will likely run at around 55 GBP per person.

If you're interested in the course but don't want to give your email away, just follow this account and I'll post when public tickets become available. Just be aware that by that stage time of day and dates will already be set.

Hello people who enjoy #writing! I've had some interest in a 5 week online course for adult non-coders to try their hand at #interactivefiction - i.e. stories that include branching narrative based on the readers' choices. The course would cover some of the mechanics, but also advice on structuring interactive plots with managable complexity, looking at emotional hooks that work better or worse when readers have active agency, using interactive fiction tools to capture options to show editors and beta-readers in non-interactive works, and some examples of expanding existing writing into an interactive experience.

If you like this idea, I'm putting together a mailing list of potential course members who are keen enough they'd like to have a voice in the scheduling of the course. Send me your email via DM or email me at [email protected] and I'll let you know when there are updates on the course and nothing else; this is not a general purpose "get spammed by Michael" email list. Costs will likely run at around 55 GBP per person.

On a totally related note, if you're looking to get into coding or fine tune your skills I'm currently able to take on a few more people/small groups teaching web programming (frontend and backend), basic game development with #godot, or narrative game creation for non-coders. I've got enough experience with the UK school system I can also help you present evidence to the local authority for home educators.

I've started doing some mentoring with general coding skills as well as the online VisualInk courses, so to avoid any privacy concerns (waves at current world situation) we now have a private code server where mentees can share their code (using #forgejo).

Given I now have the server, it also makes sense to start moving the rest of my open source code there. The first public repository? VisualInk itself: code.mavnn.eu/mavnn/VisualInk

I decided to try out an experimental design for ordered data in Ink, and learn more about the run time in the process.

I've blogged about the results with a bunch of examples, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Been looking for ways to include prioritization or limited resources like magic runes in Ink? This might be a good inspiration.

blog.mavnn.co.uk/2026/01/22/...

#visualnovels #interactivefiction

We got mentioned in a forum where someone was looking for a simple tool to create a #visualnovel, and the next reply was:

I tried this out a while back. It’s pretty cool!

So proud :sniff:

Next week, we'll be looking at how to track character attitudes in #visualnovels using Ink. To see the techniques in action, we'll be starting with a rendition of one of the famous fictional first meetings.

What do you do when it's 1880 and you've just been shipped home from Afghanistan? Look for someone to share the cost of lodgings, of course!

Play the example here: visualink.mavnn.eu/published...

And we're off! First class of 2026 saw three pre-teens starting their first #visualnovel with its first choice point, visuals for the speakers and scene backgrounds, and background music. Not bad for one hour!

To my considerable surprise, we're launching an adult introduction to #visualnovel writing courses here at VisualInk. Someone has offered to pay my 1-1 mentoring rates for an introduction, so now we’re at the stage of seeing if other people are interested at times that can work as this is the kind of thing that is most fun in a small group setting - and to share out the cost to something more reasonable!

So if you’re interested or know anyone who might be drop a message and we can talk.

I'm running courses for under 18s on creating #interactivefiction (specifically, #visualnovels ) but I just had a request from one of the parents for an adult version of the course.

Would you, or anyone you know be interested in a short course on writing interactive fiction? Would probably run at around 5 hours over 5 weeks, homework optional, costing around 55 GBP.

More about me/the existing courses at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

(Please share if this seems even vaguely interesting)

So - week starting the 12th I'm starting a new run of Coding Games with a Story, a five week course teaching young people how to write interactive fiction (in the form of visual novels, using Ink). Build stories that change based on the player's choices while learning about both good story telling and telling computers to do what you want - and then publish your experiments for other people to try.

For people who already know the mechanics of writing interactive fiction (taught at one of my courses or not) and who want the encouragement and structure of a writing club to build a full game, I'm also starting the Interactive Fiction Writing Club.

So - know anyone 9-18 who wants to tell stories that are also games? Nows the time for them to sign up!

You can find the courses I'm running here: thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...