Flow Elements: Choices and Page Navigation

Flow elements control how readers move through your story. While you were introduced to choices in the quickstart guide, let's dive deeper into how they work and introduce another useful navigation tool: the go-to block.

Choice Blocks

Choice blocks are the heart of interactive storytelling, allowing readers to make decisions that affect their journey.

Rich Choice Content

You can use anything you'd normally use in a page inside the choice block, including text, images, and other script blocks. Everything non-interactive in the choice block (text, images, evaluated if-statements) becomes the choice's button label. Interactive elements like variable setters only trigger when the reader selects that choice.

Creating Choice Blocks

The easiest way to create choices is through the story diagram:

Select a page node
Drag and drop to create a new connection
A new page node will be created automatically
A choice block linking to the new page will appear in your source page

Converging Paths

Different choices can lead readers to the same destination page while still providing unique experiences. By combining variables with conditionals, you can create branching paths that eventually converge, showing different content based on how the reader got there.

Try it out!

Go-To Blocks

While choice blocks create branching paths, sometimes you need direct navigation to specific pages. That's where go-to blocks come in.

Go-to blocks create a "Next" button that leads to any page in your story. They're particularly useful for:

Creating loops back to previous story sections
Jumping between different story branches
Constructing hub-and-spoke story structures
Scenarios where there is only one path forward, but that path depends on a condition

Try it out!

No Flow Elements

If a page has no flow elements at all, it requires exactly one page connection in the diagram. A "Next" button will automatically be created leading to that page.

Flow Elements Best Practices

Choice Clarity: Make sure your choice labels clearly convey the decision being made.
Meaningful Branches: When multiple choices lead to the same page, use variables and conditionals to make each path feel distinct.
Flow Control: Every page should either have:
- One or more choice blocks
- A go-to block
- A single automatic "Next" connection