Articy:Draft is a must have product for anyone interested in game design. Make no mistake; there is a learning curve to this tool as with any professional grade software. Once you've learned it, the productivity you'll gain will more than make up the initial learning time. I used the team version of Articy:Draft 2.1 in my Game World Creation class, and what it enabled the class to create is beyond anything I was expecting. Pros: It can handle just about any game design task you can throw at it. Complex branching dialogs? Easy. Detailed NPCs with complex relationships? No problem. Have a massive game world with many areas interconnecting? Have at it. And once you're all done, hit the export button and get a nice XML file with all your text content ready for use in your game engine of choice. Cons: * Price. You get what you pay for, but you will pay for it. Regardless of how awesome it is, $200 is a steep price to pay if you're doing this as a hobby. Knock that up to $300 i...

This is one awesome tool which I use to detail my RPG campaigns. I can create character sheets & monster sheets with ease, detail the flow of the campaign using Flow Fragments, and using the nesting feature, I can detail the scenarios with supporting documentation. The best and most important feature for me is cross referencing. This allows me to link my maps, NPC locations, NPC images as well as monster images to all the campaign information previously created. Audio & video can also be linked, providing previously recorded dialogue/movies to be used as a gaming session is played. During game play, I constantly refer back to the articy: draft campaign document to keep me grounded in the campaign design while allowing me to create and record impromptu additions to the story and plot lines, as rquired by the PC's actions and motivations.

This is a very powerful tool if you at all interested in video game story writing. You can create branching dialogue paths with ease, or if you want a script version of the story, this can do this as well. I would recommend getting the "DLC" for this software for the extra utilities that this brings. For as high of level of program as this is, and as much as you get, $100 is really not a bad price tag for a professional level design tool.

The 1.5 version is the "HALF" version. What i wanted to mean with half? Well, the SE2 comes with a text editing feature, WOW. So, something that is simple and BASIC in any function and program, is just avaible on the "newest version" of this software, and i really can't accept features like this to worth another Articy Draft whole price. It's just like some other games you have already knowned. They make a whole game, fragment it into a 70 and 30 portion, than sell the 70 as the whole part and then the 30 as a DLC for a nice amount of cash claiming that this last one are a new version, program or DLC Steamers aren't stupid, we are already veteran in the art of "knowing what is really a new feature". I'm not complaining about the price, i'm complaining about a feature that should have been added in the most basic version. Text editing is basic everywhere. One thing is you sell a full car and then a turbo charger as a dlc, another, is to sell a car without doors and then sell the ...

TL;DR: This tool has been amazing to work with and has really helped organize my content but is laggy on lower spec'd machines. I had a system to managing my content, flows, and notes with a hierarchy of folders and files and that system was working to a degree. But it was still more effort than I wanted and keeping track of all the different files and documents was becoming a daunting task. When I saw this tool I wasn't sure what it would do different for me, but even having a single organized source of all the data was a selling point. Then I looked more into the customizable templates, data validation options, visual maps, character maps, and most importantly the journey flows that you can create and was thrilled at the features. That said, I use this on two machines; my dev machine while developing and a laptop when I am out and about and want to log thoughts/ideas. On the dev/gaming machine it runs incredibly smoothly, no issue whatsoever, but on my laptop it is laggy. I won't ...

A very useful tool, especially for creating branching quests. But is too expensive for indies.

This software has been developed with great care and effort. At first I didn't really like it for planning out my game but now I've come back to test out the new features and I must say this software is awesome. If you're a game studio or indie game developer then this software will help you to lay down and plan out your ideas. I recommend this gem. Well done devs

Absolutely love this software. Makes game creating and story writing a breeze! Seriously, forget Word or mindmaps, this is where it is at!

Very awesome software.. highly suggest it if you want to write a story. The node networks are very useful

The power of this tool is limited, however it is a nice instrument to organize your thoughts. P.S. It must be noted that one should have GDD on hand before attempting a game gesign. P.P.S. If you uncertain what GDD means, look here: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JasonBakker/20090604/84211/A_GDD_Template_for_the_Indie_Developer.php