articy:draft X vs ink and Inky
articy:draft X
articy.comink and Inky
inklestudios.comSide by side
| Figure | articy:draft X | ink and Inky |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €5.83/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 7 | 1 |
| Spec score · Game Narrative Design Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Headquarters | Bochum, Germany | Cambridge, United Kingdom |
| Purpose | articy:draft X is a narrative design and game writing tool for creating and managing interactive stories. | Ink is a narrative scripting language for writing branching game stories. |
| Support | Support resources include downloads, a help center, tutorials, training and consulting, community links, and technical support. | The site directs users to Discord and GitHub Discussions for questions about ink and its Unity integration. |
| Unity integration | The Unity importer provides automatic data import, object/property access, customizable flow traversal, script evaluation, localization support and Unity components. | The Unity plugin automatically recompiles ink files as they are edited and includes a previewer for playing stories in the Unity Editor. |
| Unreal integration | The Unreal importer supports dialogue and entity import, Blueprints, automatic dialogue traversal, custom editor elements and Unreal localization. | The page points to Inkpot, a container for integrating ink within Unreal Engine, created by The Chinese Room. |
Plans
articy:draft X
- articy:draft X FREEFree
- articy:draft X FREEFree
- articy:draft X Monthly subscription€6.99 a month
- Single User Monthly subscription€7.98 a month
- Team bundles€56 a month
- articy:draft X Annual subscription€69.99 a year
- Single User Annual subscription€79.99 a year
In their own words
articy:draft X
articy:draft X is a narrative design and game writing tool for creating and managing interactive stories. Its visual Flow Editor lets writers build branching, non-linear stories and nested flows. A Game Object Database keeps entities, assets, and related project content together, while scripting uses variables, conditions, and instructions to shape choices and game flow. Localization tools track project languages and translation status, with spreadsheet import and export. Unity and Unreal integrations connect the tool to those game engines; JSON, Excel, Word, and XML exports are also available. Multi-user licenses provide simultaneous project access, version history, and SVN or Perforce support, but not Perforce Stream depots. The free edition supports unlimited projects, though a project locks after it passes 700 objects until content is removed or the project is upgraded. The free plan is free, with a free multi-user collaboration trial lasting 14 days, requested through sales. Single-user subscriptions cost €7.98 a month or €79.99 a year. It runs on Windows, macOS, self-hosted environments, and through an API.
ink and Inky
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.