The story graph

The story graph is the canvas where you build a scene. You drop nodes on it, wire them together, and the game plays them in the order the wires describe. This page covers the canvas itself and the seven kinds of node you can put on it.

Open it with Tools > Beasty VN > Editor and pick the Story tab. Assign a Visual Novel (a DialogueScene) in the top bar and its root graph appears.

The canvas

The Story tab has three parts:

• The Add blocks panel on the left. It fills the selected node with instructions. See Blocks reference.
• The graph canvas in the middle. Nodes and the wires between them.
• The node inspector on the right. Everything about the node you have selected.

Pan with the middle mouse button, zoom with the wheel, box-select with a drag.

Creating a node

Right-click an empty part of the canvas and choose from Create:

• Create > Dialogue Node
• Create > Choice Node
• Create > Decision Node
• Create > Flow (Mode Switch) Node
• Create > SubGraph Node
• Create > Return Node
• Create > Talk Menu Node

The node appears where you right-clicked. The first node you create in an empty graph automatically becomes the entry node.

Wiring nodes

Every node has one input port, In, on its left. It accepts any number of incoming wires — several nodes can lead to the same place.

Output ports are on the right, and what they are depends on the node type (see below). Drag from an output port to another node’s In port to connect them. Drag a wire away and drop it on empty canvas to disconnect it, or select the wire and press Delete.

The entry node

Playback starts at the graph’s entry node. Its title bar is tinted so you can find it at a glance. To move the start of the scene, right-click a node and choose Set as Entry Node.

The node context menu

Right-click a node:

Item	What it does
Rename	Edits the node’s name in place. The name is for you, not the player.
Set as Entry Node	Makes this node where the graph starts.
Create Subgraph / Open Subgraph	Nests a graph inside this node, or drills into the one it already has. See Subgraphs.
Delete Node	Removes the node. Any wires pointing at it are cleared. You are asked to confirm.

Selecting a node and pressing Delete does the same thing, and works on a multi-selection.

Colours

Nodes are coloured by type. A dialogue node, a choice node and a decision node are different colours in the canvas, so you can read the shape of a scene without opening anything. The colour is cosmetic and has no effect on the game.

Dialogue Node

Reach for it when the player just needs to be told something. It is the node you will use most.

A dialogue node holds a stack of blocks — lines of dialogue, backdrops, characters, sounds, variable changes — which run top to bottom. When the stack ends, the story continues along the node’s single output port, default →.

If nothing is wired to default →, the story ends there.

Everything a dialogue node can contain is on the Blocks reference, and the two blocks you will use most are covered in depth in Dialogue and the stage.

Choice Node

Reach for it when the player must pick. It shows a menu of options and waits.

A choice node holds no dialogue of its own. It has a list of options; each has a label, a condition that can hide it, effects it applies when picked, and a target. Add one with the + choice button on the node, then fill it in on the right.

Ports:

• One port per option. The port is labelled with the option’s name, plus a hint when it is conditional ((if 2) = two clauses) or when it leads out of the novel.
• default → — where the story goes when no option is available, because every one of them was gated out by its condition. Wire it, or a fully-gated choice node dead-ends.

An option can also target a flow exit instead of a node, in which case it has no wire. See Choices and decisions.

Decision Node

Reach for it when the story must branch but the player must not know it is branching.

A decision node is a router, not a menu. It shows nothing. The player never sees it, never clicks anything, and cannot tell it is there. When the story reaches it, it walks its branches from top to bottom, takes the first one whose condition passes, applies that branch’s effects and jumps.

This is the distinction people get wrong. If you want the player to choose, use a Choice Node. If you want the world state to choose — the player already has the key, it is already Friday, the affection is already above 40 — use a Decision Node.

Ports:

• One port per branch, in evaluation order. A branch with no condition is labelled (always), because an empty condition always passes; anything below it is unreachable.
• fallback → — taken when no branch matches. Always wire it.

Add a branch with the + branch button on the node.

Flow (Mode Switch) Node

Reach for it when leaving the novel deserves its own box in the graph.

A flow node carries exactly one exit: enter free roam, return to the room the player came from, let the player choose a room, or jump to another Visual Novel. When the story reaches it, it hands control out and the visual novel stops.

It has no output port. There is no “after” inside this graph.

The same four exits also exist as blocks you can put at the end of a dialogue node. When to use which is covered in Transitions.

SubGraph Node

Reach for it when a stretch of story is reusable, or big enough to deserve its own canvas.

A subgraph node calls a nested graph. The nested graph runs to a Return Node, which hands back an outcome — a short word you choose, like win or refused — and the subgraph node routes on it.

Ports:

• One port per outcome route you have added. Name the outcome, wire the port to where that outcome should continue.
• fallback → — taken for any outcome you did not route, including an empty one.

Add a route with the + outcome button on the node. Full walkthrough in Subgraphs.

Return Node

Reach for it to end a subgraph.

A return node has an outcome key and a list of effects. It applies the effects and hands the outcome back to the SubGraph Node that called it.

It has no output port. It is a terminator: control goes back to the caller, not to a sibling node.

A return node only makes sense inside a subgraph. See Subgraphs.

Talk Menu Node

Reach for it when the player should choose what to say to a specific character.

A talk menu node names one character and presents that character’s talk menu — the entries you authored under Characters > Talk Menu, plus the talk steps of their active quests, which are inserted automatically. It is the conversation hub you get by clicking a character in a room, exposed as a node so you can reach it from inside a scene.

Ports:

• when empty → — where the story goes when the menu resolves to no visible entries at all. Without it, a character with nothing to say is a dead end.

The menu itself is authored on the character, not here. See The talk menu.

See also

• Blocks reference — every block a dialogue node can hold.
• Dialogue and the stage — writing a line, dressing the scene.
• Choices and decisions — branching, conditions and effects.
• Subgraphs — nesting a graph and routing its outcome.
• Transitions — leaving the novel.
• Core concepts — project, context, graph, node, block.