---
name: game-story-flow
description: Design, structure, and review interactive game narrative. Use when Codex is asked to create or improve story flow, plot beats, branching narrative, quests with story consequences, character arcs, dialogue structure, lore delivery, cutscene pacing, scene outlines, player choice, or narrative design docs.
---

# Game Story Flow

## Core Workflow

1. Identify genre, target tone, player role, narrative camera, agency level, branching depth, content budget, and gameplay loop.
2. Define the player fantasy and emotional arc before writing scenes. The story should reinforce what the player repeatedly does.
3. Treat plot as playable pressure: each beat should create a decision, reveal, risk, relationship change, world-state change, or motivation to act.
4. Preserve agency. When the story must constrain the player, provide strong motivation, readable consequences, or interactive expression.
5. Track state explicitly: known information, unresolved questions, character goals, relationship changes, promises made to the player, and consequences already paid off.
6. Review pacing across gameplay, exploration, dialogue, combat, rest, discovery, and cutscenes. Avoid placing long passive exposition where the player expects control.

## Narrative Structures

- Linear story: build clear act turns, escalating stakes, reversible setbacks, and playable transitions between major beats.
- Branching story: define branch intent, divergence cost, merge strategy, remembered variables, and consequences the player can perceive.
- Quest narrative: connect objectives to character motivation, local stakes, world logic, and a meaningful result.
- Environmental storytelling: use spatial order, props, audio, enemy placement, lighting, and interactables to imply events without over-explaining.
- Dialogue: give each speaker a goal, subtext, conflict, and exit condition. Keep choices distinct in intent, not just wording.

## Deliverable Shape

For substantial narrative work, produce:

- Premise and player role
- Core conflict
- Character goals and pressure points
- Beat sequence
- Branch or consequence map
- Gameplay integration notes
- Dialogue or scene samples where useful
- Open questions for design, production, or playtesting

## References

- Read `references/story-flow-checklist.md` when outlining, branching, revising, or reviewing game narrative structure.