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Ian Thomas

@wildwinter.bsky.social
786 followers 360 following 296 posts

Games, books, larp, films, rats, and shoggoths. Narrative Director. Brit in Stockholm. He/him. Narrative Tools and Articles: storytools.se

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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I've made a new dialogue system. It's open source, has a friendly editor, and runs on Unreal, Unity, Javascript, and Godot. You can find it at patterkit.dev And I've written too much text about it over here: medium.com/@wildwinter/...
patterkit.dev
PatterKit - Write it, play it, test it, ship it.
An open toolkit for dialogue and branching narrative in games. Your writers author in a calm, code-free editor; you drop one small file into Unity, Unreal, Godot, or the web and play it.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
I wanted to collect some stuff into index cards so I could get back to them. And share that with Rachel. Digitally. Partly because I have a poor memory. A simple card database. God help me, I even missed MS Access. So I built one. You can use it, if you like. wildwinter.medium.com/wildcards-wh...
wildwinter.medium.com
Wildcards: Where’s my simple card database?
TL;DR: God help me, I actually miss Microsoft Access and FileMaker. I built Wildcards: a fast, local-first way to keep information on…
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I appear to be in Birmingham. Is this a good or a bad thing?
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Andy Walsh @englishscribe.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Happy Saturday - potential opportunities. I'm putting together a database of writers for potential upcoming roles. IF these opportunities go forward, they would be freelance contract roles. The work would take place on GMT/GMT+1 time. If interested please read the whole thread before responding.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A tiny thing - but the game-subtitles tool I created can now drop in word-wrapping breaks for compiled Ink JSON content (in the preprocessor). Probably only of interest to a very few! github.com/wildwinter/g...
github.com
GitHub - wildwinter/game-subtitles: Subtitling tool for games which preps lines for subtitles and then helps dynamically display at runtime.
Subtitling tool for games which preps lines for subtitles and then helps dynamically display at runtime. - wildwinter/game-subtitles
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
"Mar-vel at the tess-se-la-tion of my fi-nest che-dar cheese..." (What, no one else thinks of Gilbert and Sullivan while trying to put away food in the fridge?)
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Things I have been enjoying this weekend after forgetting how good they are: * Who Framed Roger Rabbit? * All tracks by System of a Down
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
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inkle @inkle.co · 08/04/2026
This week on the Game Narrative Kaleidoscope Podcast: Veteran narrative designer @wildwinter.bsky.social takes us on a wild tour of the boundaries of story design and LARPs. One for all, and all for one! Check it out here: www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope... ... or any-podcast-place!
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
I got annoyed that my pipeline tools might fail when writing files into Perforce, Github or any other repo. So here is a tiny open-source library that handles checking out, adding, and deleting files for whichever version control system happens to be in place. wildwinter.medium.com/simple-versi...
wildwinter.medium.com
Simple Version Control Lib
TL;DR — a tiny agnostic wrapper around version control systems, so your game tools don’t have to care which one the user has. Find the code…
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
I got annoyed that my pipeline tools might fail when writing files into Perforce, Github or any other repo. So here is a tiny open-source library that handles checking out, adding, and deleting files for whichever version control system happens to be in place. wildwinter.medium.com/simple-versi...
wildwinter.medium.com
Simple Version Control Lib
TL;DR — a tiny agnostic wrapper around version control systems, so your game tools don’t have to care which one the user has. Find the code…
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Reposted by Ian Thomas
Antonio Freyre - Merlino Games @merlinogames.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
important
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Well, Microsoft codesigning sucks for individual hobbyist developers.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Game Subtitles - what to do if your text is just too long? I've created a tool to make this easier - paginating and hyphenating where it needs to, in a variety of languages. In the vain hope that maybe I won't have to worry about it ever again! You can find it here: medium.com/@wildwinter/...
medium.com
Game Subtitles — but my text is too long!
TL;DR — a solution to take care of subtitle text so you don’t have to.
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inkle @inkle.co · 09/03/2026
PSA: a lot of people asked for an ebook edition — and we’ve been able to put one together! And with hyperlinks, of course.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Game Subtitles - what to do if your text is just too long? I've created a tool to make this easier - paginating and hyphenating where it needs to, in a variety of languages. In the vain hope that maybe I won't have to worry about it ever again! You can find it here: medium.com/@wildwinter/...
medium.com
Game Subtitles — but my text is too long!
TL;DR — a solution to take care of subtitle text so you don’t have to.
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Ned Hartley @nedhartley.com · 03/03/2026
Greg Davies: Great task, well done. Didn‘t eat a thing. Persephone: Thank you. Alex Horne: Ah. Well. Let’s take another look at that pomegranate.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
@jon.inkle.co It reached Sweden. :-)
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Note that I totally failed to hit the brief here and so said more than one thing. Ah well! (Good stuff in this book. Lots of good juicy crunchiness, in fact. From a lot of familiar names!)
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inkle @inkle.co · 04/03/2026
📖 THE GAME NARRATIVE KALEIDOSCOPE ❄️ is out NOW! www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope 100+ essays on writing & narrative design, with articles from the writers of Baldur's Gate 3, Control, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, Sam and Max... ALSO the Kaleidoscope Podcast with 2 full eps!
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Ken Lowery @kenlowery.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Ah, shit... woke up in a mysterious and abandoned location, and I've lost my memory. I hope a series of gradually escalating challenges positioned between me and escape can instruct me how to open doors, use my powers, and double jump.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
I've collected some tools and articles here, as it's all getting a bit messy. storytools.se
storytools.se
Story Tools - Narrative Design Tools & Articles
Helpful tools, libraries, and articles for games narrative pipelines. Made by Ian Thomas.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
New feature for Dinky (the dialogue Ink editor) - record scratch audio for each line while in the editor, and be notified when it goes out of date. medium.com/@wildwinter/...
medium.com
Dinky Feature: Scratch Audio
TL;DR —in Dinky you can record temp audio for each line of your script.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
I've collected some tools and articles here, as it's all getting a bit messy. storytools.se
storytools.se
Story Tools - Narrative Design Tools & Articles
Helpful tools, libraries, and articles for games narrative pipelines. Made by Ian Thomas.
073
Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
New feature for Dinky (the dialogue Ink editor) - record scratch audio for each line while in the editor, and be notified when it goes out of date. medium.com/@wildwinter/...
medium.com
Dinky Feature: Scratch Audio
TL;DR —in Dinky you can record temp audio for each line of your script.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Interesting feedback on "but this doesn't make sense for use with Ink" and that's true, for a bunch of 'proper' uses of Ink it's not necessarily useful. Mostly this is me noodling to see what tools I can build, but a lot of ways Ink is being used now is not necessarily what Ink was designed for.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Working on some optimisations for what I call "The @richardcobbett.bsky.social Effect"
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Another tool! Ink Explorer. Visualises the shape of an Ink story and lets you play through from any point, watching variables (and tweaking them), keeping track of visit counts, and letting you snapshot and restore the state. Early days - hope it's useful to someone! medium.com/@wildwinter/...
medium.com
Visualising the Flow: Ink Explorer
TL;DR — A tool for stepping through Ink visually and keeping track of variables.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
In modern problems, that's the second time our robot has made horrific noises while choking on a d20. The same d20. (Why is it on the floor? Because it's the cat's d20.)
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
It's strange how 1994's 'The Paper' (Michael Keaton, Glenn Close) won so many more awards than 1996's 'The Rock' (Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage) and yet was beaten by *checks notes* Edward Scissorhands- No, never mind.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Remember the Ink Localisation tool I made? I've just updated it with support for PO/POT files. YMMV, as ever. Nag me if I broke something! Hope folk find it useful: github.com/wildwinter/I...
github.com
GitHub - wildwinter/Ink-Localiser: Utility to extract strings from an Ink project and assign IDs to them.
Utility to extract strings from an Ink project and assign IDs to them. - wildwinter/Ink-Localiser
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
We released a cast album of our extremely amateur comedy horror musical. Not high art, but great fun to do. :-) recordu.lnk.to/q4zcss
recordu.lnk.to
Igor Unplugged Cast - Igor Unplugged! - The Musical
Listen to Igor Unplugged! - The Musical by Igor Unplugged Cast.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
We released a cast album of our extremely amateur comedy horror musical. Not high art, but great fun to do. :-) recordu.lnk.to/q4zcss
recordu.lnk.to
Igor Unplugged Cast - Igor Unplugged! - The Musical
Listen to Igor Unplugged! - The Musical by Igor Unplugged Cast.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Another small update thing - Dink and Dinky now support industry standard PO/POT formats for localisation. Might be of use to someone! github.com/wildwinter/d... github.com/wildwinter/d...
github.com
GitHub - wildwinter/dinky
Contribute to wildwinter/dinky development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Phil Creighton @philcreighton.uk · 31/01/2026
Absolutely brilliant last line. No spoilers, but Swedish Chef's kiss
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
"Every day you wake up, eat three breakfasts, and then smoke some weed. Every single day!" "What can I say? I'm a creature of hobbit."
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Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
I think most game dev teams underestimate how damaging slow workflows are to the ultimate quality of their game. If it takes 5 minutes to launch the game and see your changes, I think your game is going to be MUCH worse than the alternate timeline where it took 1 minute
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Gail Simone @gailsimone.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Remember the Ink Localisation tool I made? I've just updated it with support for PO/POT files. YMMV, as ever. Nag me if I broke something! Hope folk find it useful: github.com/wildwinter/I...
github.com
GitHub - wildwinter/Ink-Localiser: Utility to extract strings from an Ink project and assign IDs to them.
Utility to extract strings from an Ink project and assign IDs to them. - wildwinter/Ink-Localiser
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Hello. I built another thing. Remember Dink, my extensions to Ink to add a bit more support for dialogue? This is Dinky an editor/IDE for writing in Dink, mostly written to make my life easier. Yes, my naming conventions need work. wildwinter.medium.com/dinky-an-edi...
wildwinter.medium.com
Dinky: An Editor for Dialogue-Heavy Ink Games
TL;DR: I wrote an editor for Dink, my expanded Ink syntax. It’s called Dinky and you can find it here: https://github.com/wildwinter/dinky/
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Comics Covers @comicscovers.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
"If YOU hear anybody talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race or national origin -- don't wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN."
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Hello. I built another thing. Remember Dink, my extensions to Ink to add a bit more support for dialogue? This is Dinky an editor/IDE for writing in Dink, mostly written to make my life easier. Yes, my naming conventions need work. wildwinter.medium.com/dinky-an-edi...
wildwinter.medium.com
Dinky: An Editor for Dialogue-Heavy Ink Games
TL;DR: I wrote an editor for Dink, my expanded Ink syntax. It’s called Dinky and you can find it here: https://github.com/wildwinter/dinky/
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Low Frequency Ovipositor @pikesley.mastodon.me.uk.ap.brid.gy · 19/01/2026
Frodo: I wish so much unbelievably stupid shit had not happened in my time

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. This is all exceptionally stupid, though
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Francisco González @grundislav.games · 19/01/2026
The IndieCade Festival continues! Get ROSEWATER for 25% off. "A game that plays with you as much as you play with it." - @pordeciralgo.bsky.social IndieCade nominated for Best Performance, and winner of the @agotyawards.bsky.social for Best Art & Animation! store.steampowered.com/app/1226670/...
store.steampowered.com
Save 25% on Rosewater on Steam
A thrilling Western adventure in the alternate 19th century world of Lamplight City! Embark on a harrowing journey across the frontier with Harley Leger and her ragtag posse, encountering bandits, reb...
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Winnie the Pooh (Official) @indianawalsh.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Gary Larson: In my cartoon I invented Cow Tools as a cautionary tale Cows: At long last, we have created the Cow Tools from classic newspaper comic Cow Tools
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
A nobel peace pryze doth not worke lyke the One Ring. It ys not about who ys physicallye holdinge it.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
Is the thing that Obelix carries around a Gaul stone?
Obelix with his Gaul stone.
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Davis Bickford @davis.social · 16/01/2026
David Lynch passed a year ago today. I hope we all can absorb just a little bit of the energy he put out in his lifetime.
David Lynch sitting in a naturally lit room and wearing sunglasses: “I’m wearing dark glasses today, because I’m seeing the future and the future is looking very bright.”
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
100%. One of the best ways to figure out if the dialogue flows, and also whether you've laid impossible-to-say traps for your voice actors.
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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Recording a musical!
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