inklewriter update

We announced on Twitter recently that inklewriter is now entering a status of "permanent beta". We wanted to clarify here what that means for users, and for the stories you've made using the system.

A little history

Inklewriter was one of our first releases - a neat idea for a simple-to-use, web-based drafting environment for choice-based stories. Our original intention was to use it to run an annual competition for stories from new writers (which we did, with our Future Voices app, but we never ran a follow-up).

Since going live, we've had hundreds of thousands of stories created by hundreds of thousands of users; we've won awards from school and library associations; and hopefully we've helped kickstart a few interactive writers careers. We've used inklewriter internally for sketching out plotlines and prototypes, and for obtaining writing samples from potential new writers (including 80 Days' Meg Jayanth). It was used by bestselling author Kelly Armstrong to write content for the Cainsville Files app we made with Penguin, and by Stoic Studios for the in-game dialogues in the Banner Saga games.

So what's happening?

Inklewriter is mostly stable, but has never been entirely stable - and with browers changing all the time, it's real work to fix the issues that arise. Inklewriter is, and always has been, entirely free, and with our games getting ever bigger and more ambitious, we simply don't have the time to investigate and resolve inklewriter issues.

Unofficially, we've moved away from developing inklewriter for a long time. Our decision to publically shelve it has been prompted by an increasing frequency of persistent bug-reports: in particular two large, known issues that we will not be fixing.

The known issues

The first issue is that shared stories can no longer be read over unsecured connections: that means that "https" links work, but "http" links don't. In practice that also means you can't read stories unless you're logged into inklewriter, so stories can no longer be easily shared.

The second issue we've seen is writers losing stories due to save errors. This seems to be due to drops in the network connection, possibly when too many connections come in from the same source (such as a school classroom). The issue is unpredictable, and we don't know of any work-arounds that ensure work is never lost. Obviously, if this happens to you, it's pretty bad.

The server is staying online, for now

Inklewriter will remain online for the next year. You'll still be able to make accounts, write stories, and read them. However, as browser requirements change, some features might disappear or break, under strange conditions, with very little notice. So you should probably think twice before creating anything permanent using inklewriter.

Does this affect ink and inky?

No. Ink is a completely different technology stack - it's something we've used on every project we've made, and we still use it every day. In fact, part of moving away from inklewriter is to encourage people to shift over to ink: it's more powerful, more useful, and it's stable and going to be supported for some time to come.

Can I rescue my story?

Yes. If you visit the share link of your story, you can use your browser's "Save Page As" (in the File menu) to save off a copy of the playable web page - with all the story data included. That page is entirely standalone, and so will be playable by anyone (avoiding the https issue mentioned above) - and it'll continue to be playable even if inklewriter does eventually go offline. You can also easily edit and alter the layout and presentation of the page, if you know your way around HTML and CSS.

Can I rescue my data?

Yes. You can capture the raw .json file that stores your story, but to use it elsewhere you'll need to write code to parse and run it. (The format is pretty straight-forward, however.)

Any other questions?

If you've got a question about this, please drop us a line via the comments below, and we'll do our best to get back to you.

Finally, apologies if this is disappointing to you! Speaking personally, we love the inklewriter flow and wish we could keep it spritely and alive.