Interactive Productions

An interactive story lets the listener's choices change how it plays out - one scene can branch into several possible next scenes instead of always playing the same one after another. This is an experimental feature - the tools around it may still change, and you may run into rough edges.

Marking a project interactive

Turn this on when you first create a project - either the New Blank Project option on Story Workspace, or the interactive-story checkbox on the upload form. Checking it reveals a required acknowledgment that you understand this is experimental - you can't turn it on without agreeing. This can't be changed later, so decide up front whether a project is a straight-through story or a branching one.

Authoring the branches

Once a project is interactive, its Story Map (in the project editor) lets you mark each scene's role in the branching graph:

  • Start — a valid entry point. You can mark more than one; when the story is played, one is picked at random. If you don't mark any, the first scene (in Front Matter/Body/Back Matter, then table-of-contents order) is used instead.
  • Choice — presents the listener with two or more options after the scene finishes playing, each leading to a different next scene.
  • Jump To — always advances to one specific scene next, instead of just the next one in the list.
  • End — a valid stopping point; reaching one shows the ending screen.
  • Anything left unmarked just falls through to the next scene in the list, the same as a normal, non-branching story.

Filling in the structure

Interactive Production (in the left sidebar) lists every interactive project you own. Click Create (or Edit, if you've already started one) to open its editor - a live snapshot of the project's scenes and branching, refreshed automatically every time you open it.

For each scene, you can:

  • Pick Production — choose any already-completed audio or video take for that scene from the ones available, or Create New Audio Production to start a fresh take right from here.
  • Click a filled scene's own button to play it in a popup before deciding whether to keep it.
  • Add a wide (16:9) image to an audio-filled scene, by upload or AI generation - a video take already has its own visuals, so this only applies once a scene is filled with audio.

If a scene's manuscript content changes after you've filled it, that scene is flagged out of sync so you know the audio might no longer match - Ignore dismisses the warning if the mismatch doesn't matter, or replace the audio with a fresh take. If a scene is deleted (or hidden) from the project after being filled, its slot is flagged orphaned - you can delete just that slot here without touching whatever audio/video was attached to it.

You can also add a wide (16:9) cover image for the whole production, the same upload-or-AI-generate way, shown to the listener before they press Start.

Publishing

Once every scene is filled (and any orphaned scenes cleaned up), Publish unlocks and locks the structure from further editing. Unpublish reopens it - doing so also removes it from Community Share if it was shared, since a story shouldn't stay playable while its structure is being reworked underneath it.

Sharing & playing

Once published, Community Share lets you give it a public title and description and switch sharing on - once shared, it shows up on the public Stories page under the Interactive tab, with a link anyone can open and play: a cover image with a Start button, then each scene's audio or video plays automatically, followed by whatever comes next - a choice, a jump, the next scene in line, or an ending.

Downloading a standalone copy

A published production also has a Download button, which builds a .zip containing every scene's audio/video and images plus a single, self-contained web page that plays the whole thing offline - no internet connection or RadioNovel account needed, just open the page in a browser after unzipping. Building it runs in the background; the button shows progress, and the page keeps a link to the most recent build for as long as you need it.