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Business description
DSTRCT Creatives is an independent game development studio based in the Netherlands. Founded in 2024 by Vladimir “Grimwulf” Bulatov as a creative offshoot of its parent company DSTRCT Group, the studio brings together illustrators, animators, 3D artists, designers, writers, composers, and developers from around the world.
Game description
SkullX: Aibohphobia is a choice-driven, episodic visual novel featuring multiple protagonists, overlapping story arcs, and plotlines that pull no punches. It’s less “choose your own adventure” and more “choose your own trauma.”
After a year of development, SkullX: Aibohphobia is gearing up for release on June 30, 2025. Be sure to check it out on Steam, add it to your wishlist to stay updated, and follow them on X for the latest news.
Challenges
DSTRCT Creatives were on a mission to handle an ambitious, multifaceted narrative. Their storylines twisted and turned, requiring precise logic, streamlined collaboration, and a tool that could truly handle the complexity of a modern game narrative.
Before settling on Arcweave, we tried just about everything—Twine (great in theory, but didn’t scale for multiple writers), Google Docs and Spreadsheets (useful, but clearly not built for branching narratives), and a mix of other tools that either collapsed under the complexity of our plot or were too clunky to get the full team onboard.
Solutions
That’s where Arcweave changed the game. It offered a sleek, web-based platform designed from the ground up for narrative designers. With its intuitive branching interface, the entire team could visualize the story’s flow and work together effortlessly, regardless of location.
Arcweave stood out immediately because:
- It’s visual — our writers loved being able to literally see the flow.
- It’s structured — our developers appreciated the clear, logical organization.
- It’s collaborative — everyone could work in sync, without stepping on each other’s toes.
But the real magic? Arcweave didn’t box the team in, it empowered them. Instead of struggling to mold their creative vision to fit the tool, Arcweave flexed to fit them.
"Most importantly, Arcweave didn’t force us to adapt to its logic. It let us bring our logic into it—and that made all the difference."
Before Arcweave, the team wrestled with scattered files, endless spreadsheets, and lost hours of backtracking. Now?
"Now it’s all in one place—and honestly, it’s cut our narrative implementation time in half."
Arcweave didn’t just help DSTRCT Creatives manage complexity. It made their creative process feel simple and gave them the freedom to focus on what truly matters: telling unforgettable stories.
Why choose Arcweave?
For DSTRCT Creatives, Arcweave wasn’t just a tool, it became the engine powering the creation of SkullX: Aibohphobia. Its intuitive, visual layout let the team navigate, reference, and integrate narrative content straight into the game engine with ease.
We’re a remote team of about 10 people, and Arcweave acts as the connective tissue between us. Writers lay out scenes, developers review the logic and variables, artists check what assets are needed—and everyone can leave comments directly on nodes or elements. No more digging through a hundred Discord threads to find context.
What really set Arcweave apart was the clarity and efficiency it brought to complex branching structures. Seamlessly jumping between narrative threads and pinpointing exactly where each element lived wasn’t just convenient, it saved hours of guesswork and helped keep the creative spark alive.
"Also, it’s surprisingly satisfying to zoom out and see the entire game mapped out visually. Like standing on top of a mountain of madness you built yourself."
Workflow
As the SkullX: Aibohphobia prototype evolved, the team discovered that color coding in Arcweave wasn’t just a nice touch, it was a game-changer. It turned communication into a visual language, making it easy for everyone to understand what was needed and where to focus.
- Blue notes guided artists, offering context-rich cues about illustrations directly beside relevant scenes.
- Red notes pointed composers and sound designers to key audio cues.
- Green notes kept writers on top of proofreading, editing, and quality checks.
- Orange notes flagged developers on special logic, implementation quirks, or technical hurdles.
And the same approach worked wonders for elements:
- Blue elements marked new content ready to implement.
- Green elements flagged content already in the game engine.
- Purple elements highlighted revisions requiring attention.
The team picked it up almost instantly. What started as a test run turned into the foundation of our workflow—and honestly, we haven’t looked back.
This system didn’t just cut down errors and misunderstandings, it supercharged the team’s ability to work together, no matter how complex the project became.
A snapshot of the production flow, with green elements marking content that’s already integrated and orange notes flagging essential developer tasks. Red notes highlight audio cues that bring the story to life.
A visual map of fresh blue elements, representing new scenes ready for implementation. Complex logic statements are woven seamlessly, providing clarity not just for developers but for the entire creative team.
Arcweave wasn’t just a pre-production tool,it was a full-fledged production partner. The team used it to:
- Prototype scenes directly in Arcweave.
- Finalize the script within Arcweave, complete with logic, flags, and conditions.
- Export and implement the content seamlessly into Godot.
The team also used Arcweave’s Design Assistant primarily for logic testing and identifying broken paths across their sprawling narrative. In a heavy narrative project, keeping track of the branching logic manually would have been a nightmare.
It’s helpful for spotting issues at scale—especially when you’ve got 20,000+ words across 400+ elements and you start seeing branching paths in your sleep.
DSTRCT Creatives also streamlined the often complex and time-consuming process of preparing voiceover materials. By leveraging Arcweave’s export capabilities, the team was able to quickly and efficiently compile all dialogue, complete with references and context, into a comprehensive script ready for voice recording.
We found a pretty slick export solution that let us build the full script for voice acting—over 1,300 spoken lines—in just one day. That would’ve taken a week with our old setup.
Final Thoughts and a note from the team
"If you’re building narrative-heavy games—especially ones with branching or player-driven structures—Arcweave is hands down the most intuitive and powerful tool out there.
Also: huge shoutout to the team behind it. You guys genuinely care, and it shows.
Looking forward to making even more broken, beautiful stories with your help."
Vladimir “Grimwulf” Bulatov, Founder & Creative Director of DSTRCT Creatives
Arcweave
Arcweave is a versatile and easy-to-use collaborative platform for writing and designing interactive experiences, dialogue, and narratives, from feudalpunk RPGs to interstellar truck simulators.
Our comprehensive documentation, beginner-friendly tutorials, and thriving discord server make us the perfect tool to pick up no matter your background or experience level.
So try us out for free and join our rapidly growing community of over 25,000 writers and developers, including people at Netflix, EA, Microsoft, Mojang, and Amazon.
Thank you to Vladimir for taking the time to answer our questions for this case study. To learn more about SkullX: Aibohphobia and want to support the DSTRCT Creatives team, you can do so by wishlisting SkullX: Aibohphobia on Steam right now.