Too rigid, or too complex

Most interactive fiction engines are either too rigid for real storytelling or too complex to build on top of. This one was built to grow — a foundation solid enough that adding an AI generation layer later wouldn’t mean rebuilding from scratch.

A Python interactive fiction engine, built on a clean three-file architecture, keeps story data, engine logic, and player state fully separated. Scenes are data-driven, variables substitute dynamically, and player progress autosaves to JSON without any manual intervention. A developer test mode makes it fast to build and debug new stories without replaying from the beginning every time.

Three stories, and what comes next

Three stories are currently in progress: The Summoned Mage, Space Walker, and Tech Hero. The engine is published and live on GitHub, with the next phase already scoped — an AI scene generation layer sitting on top of the existing architecture: structured output handling, stateful conversation, cost-aware generation triggers. The same instinct that shows up in the client work — build the foundation right so the interesting problem is easier to solve.