Arcweave vs ink and Inky

Arcweave is a collaborative platform for designing, playtesting, and shipping games, training scenarios, and branching narratives. Its node-based editor organizes story flows with reusable character, location, and item components. Authors can run choice-based versions, debug story logic, and publish playable links that work on any device. Teams can edit synchronously, comment and reply, and assign roles and permissions. AI tools include a text generator, design assistant, and text enhancer. Free open-source plugins connect projects with Unity, Unreal, and Godot, with real-time sync and localization support listed for each. Exports include JSON, CSV, XLSX, Markdown, and PDF. The REST API offers read and write access to project content on Team workspaces. Arcweave stores customer data and media on Google Cloud Platform and says production databases are backed up every six hours. The Basic plan is free forever but limited to three projects, 200 items per project, and non-commercial use. Pro starts at $15.00 per member per month with yearly billing.

ink is a text-first scripting language for branching game narratives, with logic and code placed within the story text. It is designed mainly for professional game development, though it can also be used to write and share choice-based interactive fiction. The companion Inky editor lets writers create, test, and export stories in one app. Its play pane updates while a story is being written, it highlights errors as they appear, and it can jump from a divert to its target. Inky exports stories as JSON or as a web page ready for customisation. The editor runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. For Unity, an integration plugin recompiles ink files during editing and provides a previewer inside the Unity Editor; the maker also points to Inkpot, a container for using ink within Unreal Engine. ink, Inky, and the Unity plugin are free under the MIT license. Help is available through Discord and GitHub Discussions.