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Wyrdwright Contributor Docs

What is Wyrdwright?

Wyrdwright is a community-sourced text-based life simulator. It's made out of the dreams, fears and stories of people - like and unlike you.
Write your first fragment Language reference

Why?

Section titled “Why?”
  1. For love of interactive fiction. I’ve cherished it since a young age - whether that was CYOA books, narrative games or TTRPGs.
  2. To hear your stories. Reality’s often stranger than fiction. What’s a situation you’ve been in that you still turn over years later, wondering how it could’ve played out differently? Here’s the place for you to share and explore.
  3. To live many lives. Life’s short and we only get to experience a fraction of its limitless possibilities. Have you ever wondered how life could’ve turned out differently, had you made different choices, been born under different circumstances?
  4. To tell a story. Maybe you want your character to undergo a journey, good or bad, triumphant or tragic. Maybe you want to heal the world, or see it burn. The choice is yours.
  5. To make money. Aspiring writers are having a tough time. They have AI to compete with and the barrier for entry into paid work is higher than ever. My goal is to turn Wyrdwright into a subscription-based platform where contributors get paid a share of the proceeds according to metrics such as the playtime of their contributed content. This lowers the barrier to anyone with skill and imagination. More on that

What can you write about?

Section titled “What can you write about?”

Basically anything. Life contains virtually every adjective and Wyrdwright is meant to reflect that. Any genre, mood or setting is fair game (with a few notable exceptions).

Keep in mind that currently, trigger warnings and content filters are not a thing. That means that until then, particularly spicy content might only find its way into the game later despite fulfilling the game’s quality standards. Content filters are part of the roadmap, though.

How Wyrdwright works

Section titled “How Wyrdwright works”

A player creates a character and lives a life from childhood to late life. At each step the game selects a fragment: a short, self-contained scene with choices. Choices move stats, set story variables, and branch the prose. Stats gate what future fragments and choices are available. A life is the sum of its fragments.

Fragments are written in a plain-text format called .frag - designed so that writers, not just programmers, can author them:

=== childhood_stray_dog
phase: childhood
title: The Stray Dog
tags: animals, empathy


*declare
    local flag has_pet
*enddeclare


A scruffy dog follows you home. {if HAP >= 60}You smile.{else}You hesitate.{endif}


> Take it in
  *set: has_pet
  You carry it inside.
  *effects: HAP+8, WEA-4


> Chase it away
  *effects: MOR-4
  It slinks off. You forget about it by dinner.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”