Trigger Warning Screen

We’re updating our trigger warning screens with the app’s look and feel, along with updating their messaging.INT. WARNING - BOTH  

Auto suggestion based on style and story projects

Previously, you may have had had trouble figuring out whether the animations from the auto-suggestions bar would actually work for your char...

Zoom Scrolling + Autocomplete + Copy/Spotting

 Zone Scrolling We’ve heard you, and we’ve brought back multi-zone scrolling We’ve added an additional Focus within Zone option fo...

11 Tips to Writing a Hit Episode Story!

11 Tips to Writing a Hit Episode Story!By Angela Han Whether you’re a first-time creator or have written countless Episode stories, you...

Getting Started with Gem Choices

The most flexible gem feature for adding unique experiences into your story is Gem Choices. You get to determine what content you want to pu...

Getting Started with Gem Features

On Episode, your reader can engage with your story in more ways than just reading! One of those ways is for them to use gems on specific mom...

Creative Tip: Designing Realistic Characters

Our art team has put together a helpful visual guide of some basic Episode character design to help you widen the casts of your stories!&nbs...

Advanced Directing: Directing Horses

Using Horses in EpisodeHorses in Episode are Limelight characters, and are treated the same way in the Writer’s Portal as human characters a...

Basic Directing: Script Comments

To include a comment in the script that should be ignored by the computer, start the line with a pound (#) sign. You can use comments to giv...

Basic Directing: Adding an Overlay

Sometimes you may want an item in the foreground of a background, maybe a table, tree, car, or a desk, for example.  You can find the u...

Basic Directing: Save & Test Your Story

Once you have something you want to test, be sure to save it!Tap “Save” in the upper right corner of the script. This will give you any erro...

Basic Directing: Script Format Overview

Your script will need to follow a strict scripting format: CHARACTER NAME (animation)Dialogue spoken here. CHARACTER NAME (animati...

Basic Directing: Outfit Changes

You can change a character’s clothes by switching their current outfit for another one. Generally, characters should change outfits off-scre...

The Script Editor: Common Errors

Common Errors:Missing Place: Place Name HereThis means that this place does not exist in our library.  Make sure you have copied the pl...

Tips for Writing Your Story

Writing an engaging story where players can pick their own paths can be challenging.  Here are 10 common tips we tell every writer to h...

Basic Directing: The Portal

Take time to explore the portal. To get back to the homepage at any point, click on the “Episode” logo in the upper left corner. The portal ...

Basic Directing: Create a New Story

The first step in writing a story on Episode is to create your story.Tap the link “New Story.”Enter a title for your story. This is what rea...

Basic Directing: The Art Catalogue

The first step in writing your script is to start with a place. Browse our Art Catalog for ideas.Search for a background in the Art Catalog....

Basic Directing: Creating a Character

Once you’ve created your story, the first step is to create characters.On your story page, tap “Characters” under Step 1.From the list of sa...

Basic Directing: Designing a Character

After creating a character, you can design what you want them to look like. You can change how they look at any time.Choose from menus for v...

Basic Directing: Create Outfits

Move on to creating outfits for your characters after designing your characters.On your story page, tap “Outfits” under Step 2.Tap “New Outf...

Basic Directing: On-Screen Character Placement

There are five foreground positions for characters to be positioned in (refer to the image below).Behind that, there are 4 background positi...

Basic Directing: Entering & Exiting the Scene

If a character is commanded to “stand” on screen, they will pop into existence rather than enter naturally. So you will need to make your ch...

Basic Directing: Dialogue

The majority of your screenplay is dialogue, which is converted to tappable speech bubbles. Each dialogue bubble is associated with a charac...

Basic Directing: Character Animation Overview

The characters can perform basic actions to make the story more visually interesting. You can see an example of this in the Example Script: ...

Basic Directing: Moving a Character Around a Scene

You’ll sometimes need to move your characters around the scene, whether that be having them face a different direction or walk to a differen...

Basic Directing: Simultaneous Stage Direction

Stage directions happen one at a time. If you want to have two characters perform an action together, say entering together, you need to mer...

Beginning Directing: Deleting Items

Deleted items cannot be restored, so be careful! Deleting Outfits            &nb...

Basic Directing: Changing Backgrounds

To change your background, place the name of the background you would like in an empty line of your script.  Note that: This will ...

Creative Tip: Backgrounds

CREATIVE NOTE          If you already have a sense of what your story will be about, it’s very likel...

Basic Directing: Moving the Camera

By default, your story will all take place in zone 1. If you want to move the camera to look at a different zone, you have to instruct it to...

Basic Directing: Zones Overview

We divide each background or scene into zones. Each zone is the width of one iPhone screen, with no overlap.You’ll notice in the Art Catalog...

Basic Directing: Location Changes

To change the background image (i.e. the location) as you move from scene to scene of your story, use the normal screenplay format for slugl...

Basic Directing: Directing Characters as They Walk

Walking while talking is a special case of directing that requires special “looping” backgrounds. Looping backgrounds are harder for our art...

Creative Tip: Camera Panning

Pans are great for establishing a scene. If your characters are positioned in zone 1, it might be nice to open your scene in zone 3 and pan ...

Basic Directing: Pausing the Action Briefly

Sometimes it’s helpful to have nothing happen for a moment, especially as an establishing shot. The “pause” command is denoted in seconds:&n...

Beginning Directing: Using Sound Effects & Music

You can play short sound effects, musical clips and ambient or musical loops in your story. There are 4 important commands to know for this....

Beginning Directing: Examples of Sound Effects & Music Cues

The image below is a good example of SFX and music cues being used correctly.

Beginning Directing: Controlling Volume

To set the volume of sound, use the volume sound command followed by the volume level (0-100) and the length of time (in milliseconds) you w...

Basic Directing: Starting a New Episode

Once you’ve created a story, characters and outfits, you’re ready to start for your first episode.Start on the main page for your story.On t...

Beginning Directing: Reader Messages

Reader Messages and Alerts Reader messages allow you to add more emotion, flavor, reinforcement, and commentary to your stories! R...

Basic Directing: Summary of Directing Commands

The example script for Chapter 7: Stage Direction is Basic Direction. Play it on your device while following along in the portal. Take note ...

Basic Directing: Using Script Templates

Script templates are pre-created scene set-ups or tools that you can easily drop into your script, to make some complicated directing easier...

Basic Choices and Branching

There are some special commands you can include in your script to make your stories interactive.  We have some examples of this in the ...

Branching and Chapters

Even with all these branching options, all chapters must have a single starting point.  If you have multiple alternate storylines that ...

Character Points

Each character in the story has a score. The user can gain or lose points depending on what choices they make. Add or subtract points from a...

Nested Branches

Branches can be nested (branches within branches) and grow to be really complicated.  We recommend against it, but we support it.  ...

Check Your Flags

It is important that all of the flags you reference in your if statements exist somewhere in the story.  If they do not, your story wil...

Using The Picker

The “Picker” is a tool to help ease testing your story, especially as it gets longer and potentially more complex.  However, it can als...

Playtesting Your Story

After you have successfully saved your screenplay and it is error free, play your story to make sure it looks good.  You can find it un...

The Script Editor: The Library

Library:Animations By Character:This section lists all the possible animations you can use with each of your characters. To preview an anima...

Advanced Directing: Keeping Characters Active

With the current art style, animations have different names than for the older art styles. Whether you were familiar with directing on Episo...

Advanced Directing: Advanced Text Effects

To create some more advanced effects you can use the no-space command. This will prevent space from being added in between words, letters or...

Advanced Directing: Using Text Effects

How to add a text effects into your dialogue:Adding a text effect is like adding a description of how you want the words to look. All text e...

Advanced Directing: What are Text Effects?

Text effects are font customization that allow you to put more emphasis on certain parts of the dialogue in your story.Text effects can be a...

Using Props in your Story

With the @add and @remove commands! An example below.@add PropName to CHARACTER@remove PropName from CHARACTER In DonaCode, it would lo...

Navigating the Create Tab Stories

Here are some screenshots of the menus you’ll see on stories in the Create tab:   >> 10lines: Jump ahead ten lines in your s...

Advanced Directing: Theater Scene

Open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and use the “Navigation” button to jump to Chapter 4.*To follow along in the script, open:http://e...

Advanced Directing: Concert Scene

Open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and use the “Navigation” button to jump to Chapter 3.*To follow along in the script, open:http://e...

Advanced Directing: Party Scene

Open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and use the “Navigation” button to jump to Chapter 2.*To follow along in the script, open:http://e...

Advanced Directing: Visual Storytelling in Episode

Visuals in Episode must be clear, but that’s not all you should try for! Great visual storytelling elevates your audience’s experience by su...

Advanced Directing: Using Filters

The donacode syntax for a filter is as follows:@set hsl Hue# Saturation# Lightness# colorization with blendMode TYPE to OPACITY% Exampl...

Advanced Directing: Filters

 Filters allow you to adjust the look and feel of your scenes to make them really shine. You can adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Lightn...

Advanced Directing: Overlay Animations

For this section, please refer to the story https://episodeinteractive.com/write/story/Overlay_Animations/1 for Donacode script! Now yo...

Advanced Directing: Editing Overlay Placement in a Background

As a reminder from the Beginner Directing Guide, you can add a foreground element that lies over any characters to any background - we call ...

Advanced Directing: Overlay Effects

You can also use overlays to create interesting lighting effects in your story. Just like weather, these are established during a new Backgr...

Advanced Directing: Weather Effects

You can add the effect of SNOW or RAIN over your stories, bringing the scene to life and setting the mood:   Weather effects must ...

Advanced Directing: Characters in the Foreground

Occasionally, a scene will require that your main characters be placed further back on the screen, leaving space in the foreground. This can...

Advanced Directing: Over the Shoulder Camera Angle

Over the shoulder shots can add interesting depth and variety to otherwise static shots. While you won’t be able to use this shot often, bec...

Advanced Director: Naming a Character Overview

Allowing the player to name a character is a fun way to personalize a story. There is a specific command to be used in the script for this p...

Advanced Directing: Autocomplete Feature Overview

The autocomplete feature is one of the handiest tools on Episode. As its name implies, for nearly any command you can think of while working...

Advanced Directing: Transitions Overview

Helpful VideosFADING SCENESFADES Transitions OverviewTransitions move us from scene to scene. Episode offers an array of transitions, f...

Advanced Directing: Speech Bubble Placement Overview

Simple Donacode and a handy tool called the Bubble Helper allow the director to control the size and position of speech bubbles. Speech Bubb...

Advanced Directing: Walking Background Actors

Having background actors walk across screen adds unparalleled visual flourish to any scene. Walking background actors are best used in EXT. ...

Advanced Directing: Animating Background Actors

“Don’t just stand there, do something!” Animating background actors calls for both creativity and restraint. Background actors shouldn’t be ...

Advanced Directing: Filling the Room

The task of filling a room with lots of background actors may seem daunting, but it shouldn’t! Here’s a simple way to fill the room in 3 eas...

Advanced Directing: Background Actors Overview

Background actors, or “Extras” as they’re often called in the biz, are the icing on the cake of a well-executed scene. When careful attentio...

Advanced Directing: Walking to a Rear Spot

To make characters walk_rear to a certain spot and then face the correct way once they get to the spot, the ordering of commands is importan...

Advanced Directing: Entering, Exiting & Spot Placement

When placing a character at a size smaller than default (1.280%), the commands @CHARACTER enters and @CHARACTER exits create an undesirable ...

Advanced Directing: Layers

As we place characters at different depths on screen, it’s important to make sure that people in the background aren’t walking “on top of” p...

Advanced Directing: Spot Placement Overview

Spot placement allows the director to determine the exact position and size (scale) of a character on-screen. A helpful feature, aptly named...

Advanced Directing: Sitting Characters

Some scenes have a table overlay that makes it possible for your character to appear seated. You can use the “sits” and “sits lower” command...

Advanced Directing: Shot Composition

Episode’s stories are “filmed” in portrait (vertical) orientation with an aspect ratio of 3:2. In this section, we’ll cover how to make the ...

Advanced Directing: Pans

We learned at the beginning of this chapter that zooms allow a director to move the “camera” forward, backward and side to side. Sections 1....

Advanced Directing: &Zooms vs. @Zooms

As we learned in Chapter 0, the ampersand (&) allows directing commands to occur simultaneously with other actions and animations. Let’s...

Advanced Directing: Active Zooms vs. 0-Second Zooms

An active zoom is a zoom that lasts >0 seconds and a 0-second zoom is a zoom that happens instantly, producing a jump to a zoomed in or o...

Creative Tip: Zooms

            CREATIVE NOTE Playing around with zooms is a great way to give...

Advanced Directing: Zoom Overview

Zooms allow a director to move the “camera” forward, backward and side to side. Zooms give way to new dimensions of visual storytelling in t...

Advanced Directing: Using the THEN Command

Sometimes you want characters in the background to do multiple things in a row.  Or you want a character to enter and THEN turn and fac...

Advanced Directing: Using the Ampersand '&'

The ampersand (&) can be used in place of the at-sign (@) to allow directing commands to occur simultaneously with other actions, animat...

Basic Directing: Using The Avatar Creator Feature

*This is only supported in Limelight stories.  This allows you to send the reader into the Avatar Creator feature to edit any avatar.&n...

Basic Directing: Using Reader's Existing Avatars

*This is only supported in Limelight stories.  This is used to import a reader’s Limelight profile avatar into the story. You have the ...

Universal Donacode Commands: Sounds

Soundsmusic music_ID_namemusic offvolume music level# milliseconds_to_fadevolume music 50 5000sound music_ID_namevolume soundfx level# 0volu...

Universal Donacode Commands: Script Comments

Comments#This is the start of an important branch

Universal Donacode Commands: Script Navigation

In Script Navigation:gain Flaglabel Labelname redo Labelnamegoto Labelname

Universal Donacode Commands: Choices & Branching

Choice CommandsMaking a choice:    CHARACTERWhat do you think we should make for dinner?choice (DINNER_TUESDAY)“Meatloaf”{ &n...

Universal Donacode Commands: Set Point Commands

Set Point Commands @BOB +7@BOB -3@BOB =15     CHARACTER -1I now have lost one point from my score.    &nb...

Spotlight Style Donacode Commands: Dialogue & Expressions

Dialogue CHARACTER NAME (expression)Dialogue spoken here. CHARACTER NAME (expression)Dialogue spoken.Any maybe some more dialogue spoke...

Spotlight Style Donacode Commands: Character Face Direction

Character Face Direction@CHARACTER is EXPRESSION and CHARACTER faces DIRECTIONex.                &nb...

Cinematic Style Donacode Commands: Camera Commands

Camera Commands@pause for a beat@follow CHARACTER to upscreen right in zone 1@cut to zone #Fastpan:@pan to zone #Slow pan:@pan to zone 1@pan...

Cinematic Style Donacode Commands: Character Movement

Character movement:Walking @CHARACTER walks @CHARACTER walks to position @CHARACTER starts walking @CHARACTER walks to position in zone #@fo...

Cinematic Style Donacode Commands: Dialogue

Dialogue CHARACTER NAME (animation)Dialogue spoken here. CHARACTER NAME (animation)Dialogue spoken.And maybe some more dialogue spoken.

Cinematic Style Donacode Commands: Character Face Direction

Character Face Direction@CHARACTER faces left @CHARACTER faces right @CHARACTER is idle_rear@CHARACTER is idle_rear AND CHARACTER faces left...

Cinematic Style Donacode Commands: Character Positions

Character Positions:  Foreground:screen left upscreen leftscreen centerupscreen right screen right Background:back far leftback leftbac...

Tips for Writing Good Choices

Expanding On Good Choices:“Right / wrong” choices that impact goal achievement These are choices that have a right and wrong answer.  S...

Technical Tips for Writing Your Story

Technical TipsLength:Chapter’s 1-4 should be around 2000 words and all subsequent chapters should be around 1500 words (word count includes ...

Remembering past choices

It is useful to save the results of a choice for use later in the story. A name inside parenthesis next to a choice signifies that the chose...

Branching based on past choices

Once you have set a variable you can later have the user see different parts of the story based on what the variable was set to.  In th...

Complex Branching

By putting choices in your story, you can create alternate storylines, or branches. This document discusses how to manage the complexity of ...

Goto, Labels, and Closing Brackets { }

If you need to do more complicated branching, you can use goto to jump to a different section of the story by referencing a label. You can g...

Gaining Flags - recording a choice

In addition to variables, you can use flags to keep track of where the player has been in the story. To set a flag, just use the gain comman...

Checking Flags - remembering previous choices

After a merge, you can check for flags to remember which branch you took before at ANY time in your story.  You can use “if” and “else”...

User Overlays: FAQ

How my overlay looks during uploadWhy doesn't my whole overlay show up in the previewer?When you upload an overlay, the previewer is intende...

User Backgrounds: FAQ

How my background looksWhy doesn't my whole picture show up in the background?When you upload a background, you have to crop it to a certain...