The narrative production platform.
Writers author. Developers integrate. Producers ship. StoryBonsai is the engine underneath.
Request AccessStoryBonsai is a licensed conversation engine for narrative games, paired with a desktop authoring tool. Writers build branching dialogue, scenes, locations, time of day, items, and skill checks in a visual editor. Developers ship the same engine into Unity, Godot, or any .NET-capable host with a typed event API, with single-player and multiplayer support built in. Producers verify the whole story holds together with a built-in test suite and an automated path tester before it reaches QA. FMV, audio, and timed captions are supported out of the box. StoryBonsai is currently in private beta, in use on a working FMV game production.
Dialogue systems treat conversation as a scripting problem. StoryBonsai treats it as a production problem that covers authoring, reviewing, recording, testing, and shipping. One tool, all disciplines, without the spreadsheets.
Visual node graph at any scale
A custom canvas editor with level-of-detail rendering. See the whole narrative at a glance, or zoom in to work on a single node.
FMV out of the box
Video, audio, images, Unity content, timed captions, linked media. Authored, tested, and shipped without bolting anything on. Built-in simulator with messaging-app playback including video and captions. Rewind to any past decision. Placeholder text for un-recorded lines.
Automated path testing
Play thousands of versions of your story to catch broken paths before players find them. Coverage heatmaps show where the narrative is under-tested.
Expression language with autocomplete
Syntax-highlighted tokens, context-aware autocomplete, and a quick reference one click away. Conditions read like sentences.
Real-time error surfacing and Project Validator
Every broken reference, unreachable branch, and out-of-bounds variable flagged inline and listed in a single validator panel. Catch problems at edit time, not at playtest.
Single-player or multiplayer. Built into the runtime.
Choices belong to players. The runtime tracks per-player state. Your game handles networking. StoryBonsai handles the narrative.
Platform support
Unity, Godot, MonoGame via .NET Standard 2.1 for maximum compatibility. Tested on PC, Mac, and Steam Deck today; mobile and console coming.
StoryBonsai is built by Michael Garforth. Building games since 2006, with seven years on narrative simulations for healthcare and education and four years at Meta prototyping on unreleased AR hardware.
Request Access
StoryBonsai is currently available to select studios. Leave your details and we'll be in touch.