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Interactions Overview

Interactions are the decision points in your story where audiences can provide input that changes the narrative flow of your story. The Story Portal has defined default interaction types that work with the Living Stories Studio framework, but that can also be used for traditional interactive writing and gaming.

There are currently four distinct interaction types, each suited for different storytelling needs.

What are Interactions?​

An interaction is a point in your story where:

  • The narrative presents a choice to the audience to gather inputs
  • Audiences make choices or provide data that affects the narrative either immediately or at the end of the interaction moment
  • The story branches based on the response

Available Interaction Types​

The interaction types are designed to be broad and innovative at the same time. You decide what the best interaction is for your story.

Traditional interactive films are made of strictly Poll Interactions. Some interactive games specifically use Touch Movement from controls. Living Stories provide this options and new ones that can create unique experiences.

1. Poll Interactions​

Best for: Multiple choice questions, surveys, simple decisions.

Poll interactions present users with predefined choices with default naming. Each choice can route to different story paths and you can create as many paths as possible.

Key Features:

  • Multiple choice options
  • Single selection allowed
  • Clear branching paths named after choice
  • Vote counting support

Common Use Cases:

  • Dialogue choices
  • Character alignment choices
  • Preference selection

2. Text Interactions​

Best for: Open-ended responses, audience conversation, custom input

Text interactions allow users to type free-form text responses and send them to the story. You can define keywords lists to match and route the story based on the appearance of these words.

For Living Stories, additional options are supported to analyze the tone and consensus of the text inputs from the audience to create an amalgam result from a large audience repeated themes.

Key Features:

  • Open text input
  • Keyword matching
  • Pattern recognition
  • Flexible response handling

Common Use Cases:

  • Character naming
  • Password/code entry
  • Creative responses
  • Search queries

3. Audio Interactions​

Best for: Voice commands, speech input, sound-based gameplay

Audio interactions capture and process audio input from audiences, supporting both speech recognition and audio data analysis.

Key Features:

  • Speech-to-text conversion & analysis
  • Audio levels detection
  • Level range-based responses
  • Scale or speech data types

Common Use Cases:

  • Voice commands
  • Volume-based puzzles
  • Speech analysis
  • Sound-triggered events

4. Touch Movement Interactions​

Best for: Gesture controls, spatial input, motion-based interactions

Touch movement interactions track user gestures and touch patterns to drive story progression. These gestures can come from traditional controllers or swipes from screen devices.

Key Features:

  • Touch/gesture tracking
  • Movement detection
  • Multiple data types: boolean, scale, directional
  • Threshold configuration

Common Use Cases:

  • Swipe movements
  • Gesture-based choices
  • Movement-based story choices
  • Spatial interactions

Interaction Components​

All interactions share common components:

A question or prompt displayed to users wether that be in the screen UI or the interaction device. Some interactions do not require these as the choice is explicit in the story.

Description​

Optional additional context or instructions that is helpful for the script writing phase and for collaboration.

Canvas Position​

Each interaction appears as a block on the canvas that can be positioned and connected to your story flow.

Interaction Points​

Each choice in an Interaction creates a connection points that define where each response routes to in the story flow. Each point can connect to:

  • A new sequence
  • An existing sequence

Creating an Interaction​

To add an interaction to your story, you can do that by click on the + Button next to any unconnected scene and choosing "Interaction Moment" button.

Best Practices​

Choosing the Right Type​

  • Use Poll when you have a fixed set of choices
  • Use Text when you need flexible, open input
  • Use Audio for voice-driven or sound-based experiences
  • Use Touch Movement for spatial or gesture-based interactions

Interaction Variables​

Interactions can create variables that influence your story:

  • Store user responses
  • Track choice patterns
  • Enable conditional content
  • Power dynamic narratives

Next Steps​

Explore each interaction type in detail:

Learn more in Influences and Conditional Logic.

See Preview and Testing for more details.