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Your Arcweave QuickStart Guide

Picture of Giannis Georgiou By  Giannis Georgiou  ·  2 minute read

Write and share your first story in 3 minutes

Cartoonish / manga style ink & colours drawing of young wizard wearing a big pointy hat studying a spell book under candle light.

I get it. You prefer diving headlong into the situations. A person of action—theory follows practice. I like you already.

This Arcweave QuickStart Guide is just for you! It will hurl you right in the middle of Arcweave’s environment and let you taste the most basic features, before diving deeper into writing a full-fledged interactive story using Arcweave.

Let’s go, then!

Create a new project

The first time you open Arcweave, you’ll be facing The Castle, the in-built example project. You’ll have plenty of time to study it later.

For now, click on the top left orange icon, to exit to your projects list.

Screenshot of Arcweave's environment (in open project) with an arrow pointing at the button leading to the project list page.

Once there, click on the Blank Project button, at the top left.

Screenshot of Arcweave's environment (project list page) with an arrow pointing at the Blank project button.

 

Add and connect elements

This is your first board. Double-click anywhere to create your first element.

Drag from the element’s edges, to create a connection. Drop it onto an empty board area and choose Create Element here, to create Element 2.

Screenshot of Arcweave's environment. Dragging a new connection from an empty element opens a context menu with option to create a new item.

Repeat, to create 5 elements in total, connected as follows:

  • Element 1 branches out to Elements 2 & 3.
  • Elements 2 & 3 target Element 4, creating a bottleneck.
  • Element 4 targets Element 5.

Arcweave screenshot with 5 elements connected as described in the post.

Write your story

Double-click on the element's title area, to give it a title. Then, press TAB, to edit its content.

Give your elements a title each and some content:

Element 1

  • TITLE: Start
  • CONTENT: SHOPKEEPER: What are you having, kid?

Element 2

  • TITLE: Vanilla!
  • CONTENT: YOU: I’ll have vanilla, please!

Element 3

  • TITLE: Chocolate!
  • CONTENT: YOU: Gimme a chocolate one, dear barkeep.

Element 4

  • TITLE: (Not all elements need a title.)
  • CONTENT: SHOPKEEPER: There you go.

Element 5

  • TITLE: Ending
  • CONTENT: YOU: Thanks.

Arcweave screenshot with the story elements written and connected as described in the post.

Rename your project

Since you're here, why not give the project a proper name? Click Untitled project at the top left, next to the orange icon, and name your project.

Playtest

Right-click your Start element and choose Set Play Mode start. Notice the little star that appears next to the element's title.

Arcweave screenshot with 2 arrows pointing at the starting element and the PLAY button.

Click on the PLAY icon on the top right, to start Arcweave’s Play Mode. This opens in a new browser tab.

Click on the option buttons, to proceed from element to element.

Screenshot from Arcweave's play mode rendering the first element's content and option buttons.

To restart the playthrough, click outside the content area. This will make the Play Mode menu appear. Then, click on the Restart button, at the bottom left.

Arcweave's play mode with arrow pointing at Restart button.

Share your work

You can share your story, so that others can play it, too.

Back to the design’s browser tab, click on Share & Export, the paper plane icon at the top right. Then choose Share.

Arcweave screenshot with arrow pointing at Share menu.

On the popup modal, change the Public access dropdown to “Play Mode only.”

Screenshot showing Arcweave's share menu.

Then, click on Copy play mode link and paste it all over the world!

What’s next?

You’ve now mastered the bare minimum required to write and share a simple interactive story in Arcweave.

I hope this has only whetted your appetite, because Arcweave has much more to offer. We haven't even mentioned components, dynamic text, real-time collaboration, branches, and arcscript code!

Don't panic, though: we’ve created a whole series of video tutorials, demonstrating every feature in detail!

Watch our video tutorials

You’ll find yourself creating complex interactive stories using all of Arcweave's features in no time!