Hey people,
I finally have the time to write down how I see the future of Trueself Games.
I see this game studio as a digital space where writers and readers meet.
When I started building the mobile game, I never expected that the gamebook writing app itself would take a lot more time to build.
Why I built Trueforge
One of my biggest pains with other interactive fiction writing software was the interface itself.
I tried to write a story some years ago with Twine, but gave up entirely. I had no desire to spend more than a week learning how the software worked and how to write fluently in it.
With Trueforge, I have done my best to ensure that it is as intuitive as possible to use.
Every button and every screen element has been arranged and rearranged more times than I want to admit.
How I see writers using my software is simple:
The inspiration comes, you sit down, open Trueforge, and let the story flow out.
No "here's a quick 45-minute tutorial on how to use Trueforge."
A path from writing to readers
Writing is an intense process, and of course it is great to have readers support the writers.
This is the path I currently see:
Trueforge is free to use.
As soon as you have a 2,000-word story, you can publish it to the online Library.
You have the chance to set up your profile and add direct support links through which readers can donate to your work. For now, Trueself Games does not handle or forward those payments. The support links connect readers directly with the writer.
The other path begins once your story is live and players can say that it is a good story. I am more than happy to discuss whether it could be published in Trueself: Choice Stories, the mobile game.
The current model I intend to offer gives writers 60% of the revenue their story earns in the mobile game. This can include money from ads shown while people play the story and in-game currency spent to unlock its chapters. Exact publishing terms would be discussed and agreed individually before a story enters the mobile game.
That is how I see the project going forward.
You can contact me directly if you have questions.
What I expect from published stories
I know that other interactive fiction publishers have a long process of back and forth for new writers.
My main concern is simple: the finished story needs to be good. It should not be a random stream of words picked from an LLM and published without care.
Whatever tools you use, I care about the end result. If a story is full of generic scenes, broken continuity, or sentences that clearly do not belong together, it may be removed because it reflects badly on every story published here.
Using AI well can itself require a huge amount of labour. The writer is still responsible for shaping, checking, and standing behind the finished story.
That being said, you can start with Trueforge here.
Signing off,
Iosif