Player guide

You have a link to a story. You do not need an account, an app, or a download. Open the link in a browser and it plays.

This page is written for readers. Authors: hand it over with the link.

Getting started

The link opens a title screen with the story's title and a few buttons.

• Start begins a new playthrough. If you have played before it reads New game, and Continue appears above it to pick up where you stopped.
• Load game opens your list of saves.
• Settings is volume, text speed and a few comfort options.

Below the buttons, a story with endings shows how many of them you have found. Undiscovered ones are listed as "Undiscovered" and nothing more, so the list never spoils a branch.

If the story is marked for adults, a notice appears before the title screen and asks you to confirm you are 18 or older. It is taken on trust, and the answer is remembered in this browser.

Reading

Click the dialogue box, or press Space or Enter, to move to the next line. Clicking while a line is still typing shows the rest of it at once; click again to move on.

When a choice appears, click an option or press the matching number key, 1 through 9. An option with a padlock is locked: you cannot take it yet, and usually something earlier in the story decides whether you can. Some stories also let you click a character on stage to take the option addressed to them.

A choice may carry a countdown. If it runs out, the story picks the option the author marked as the default and carries on. You can slow those timers down or turn them off in Settings.

The controls

The small buttons over the stage:

Skip does not stop at a timed choice: it takes the default and keeps going. Sound effects it flies past are not played, so a fast-forward does not end in a pile-up of noise. Auto only advances lines, never choices, so it will never answer for you.

Some stories add two more buttons: Log, which slides out a transcript of everything said so far, and one per readout panel the author wrote (an inventory, a relationship screen). While one of those is open, Escape closes it instead of opening the menu.

A controller

Plug in or pair any standard controller and press a button. Nothing to turn on, and no setting to find: the story starts listening the moment a pad announces itself.

A ring is drawn around whatever the pad is pointing at, so you can always see where the next press lands. It appears while the pad is driving and goes away the moment you touch the keyboard or the mouse.

Arriving on a menu with a pad in hand lands the ring on its first control, so nothing has to be hunted for. On the saves screen that is the first button rather than the name field, because a pad cannot type; the field is still a stop, one press back up the ring.

A choice is always answered on purpose. A presses the option the ring is on, so move the ring onto it with the d-pad first; A on its own never picks one for you, the same rule the keyboard's Enter follows.

The mature-content notice hears nothing from a pad at all. A reflex button press is not consent, so that one takes a mouse or a keyboard.

The title screen is the floor for B. There is nothing behind it to go back to.

Saving

The story autosaves every time you make a choice, so closing the tab costs you nothing. Continue on the title screen loads your most recent save that still matches the published version of the story.

For a deliberate bookmark, open the menu, choose Save / load, type a name like "Before the duel" and press Save here. Each save lists the scene, when you saved it, how long you have played, and a small picture of the stage at that moment. Load or Delete on the right of each row.

If a save reads "other version", the author has published a newer version of the story and that save can no longer be loaded. The story itself still plays; you just have to start again from the title screen.

Endings you have found and anything the story remembers between playthroughs are kept separately from saves. Starting a new game does not wipe them. Clear unlocks and endings on the title screen does, and it leaves your saves alone.

Settings

Settings are per browser and apply to every Narratomi story you play.

Volume changes apply to whatever is already playing, not just the next cue.

Reduce motion takes a lot off the screen, and no story can put it back. The camera stops breathing and locks off, however unsteady the scene asked to be. Film grain comes off the picture, though the rest of the story's look stays. The lens stops racking between speakers and snaps instead. Scene transitions collapse to hard cuts, fades, dissolves and wipes alike; a scene written to hold on black still holds for its beat, because a pause is pacing and not motion, it just arrives and leaves on a cut. A camera push or crane lands at once instead of travelling, characters cut to their marks instead of walking there, and the lighting snaps between rigs. Interface animation goes too. Everything you can still read stays readable: this drops movement, never text, sound or story.

When something is wrong

• "Page not found" on the link. The author took the story offline, or changed the link. Ask them for the current one.
• A note saying the author has exceeded their plan's monthly plays. Nothing is blocked. Press Play anyway.
• Continue is missing. This browser has no save for this link. If you played somewhere else, or in a private window, the save is not here.
• Nothing responds to the keyboard. A panel or the log is probably open. Press Escape, or click the stage.