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DINE: Free-text Interactive Fiction

DINE is a web-based platform for creating branching storylines. Instead of choosing among options, players type their intentions as natural-language sentences. The underlying DINE technology automatically selects the most coherent outcome from a set of hand-authored possibilities, and the storyline moves forward from there. This approach makes it super easy to quickly author and deploy interactive textual narratives, and provides a path forward for immersive audio, video, and virtual reality scenarios with voice-enabled interaction.

Interested? Try one of these short examples:

Pull Over/Sleep Under : Keep on truckin'
Henry Avenue : The Larson farmhouse
The Queen : Royal fashion design

Featured Narratives

DINE makes it easy to author long-form interactive fiction, allowing writers to focus on telling compelling interactive stories, instead of computer programming.

A Quiet Street : by Olivia Connolly (oconnolly) (comments)
A slow summer in a small town is the setting for this coming-of-age adventure.

Runner : by Obiageli Odimegwu (obi) (comments)
A package delivery driver travels the wasteland in this post-apocalyptic thriller.

Recently Published

Anyone can create their own free-text interactive fiction using this website - just create a free account and start writing. Publish your creations when you are ready, and they will show up in this list:

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Early Experiments

In the Summer of 2016, we authored hundreds of short interactive narratives for DINE. We were trying to explore the storytelling possibilities of this platform, and seeing what designs worked best with our technologies. Below are some of our favorites.

DINE: Courtroom : A tutorial scenario, part 1
DINE: Earthquake : A tutorial scenario, part 2
The Long Walk : Office life
Coaching : Not a team player
Henry Avenue : The Larson farmhouse
The Queen : Royal fashion design
The Professional : It was bad business
The Button or The Lever : The lives of eleven people
Pull Over/Sleep Under : Keep on truckin'
The Intruder : Living alone
When to Call : Mommy troubles
A Piece of Cake : Looks yummy
Two Types of People : Land men and sea men
72nd & York : It was important that I be on time
Shyanne the Merciful : We knew each other when we were young
Cave Of My Own Making : Underground adventure
Squeeze Once If It Hurts : Negotiating with a phantom leg
The Water : Getting out
The Machine : The giant beast
That show on TV : About my brother
Triathlon : Do you have what it takes?
There's Something About Arlene : Call center clicks
Babysitting The DeMarcos : Tough kid
Do You Trust Me? : You're sick
Bar Eval : The one that started it all...

 


Questions or bug reports? Email Andrew S. Gordon at gordon@ict.usc.edu