Timeline of Events

[Fueler]

So what I can tell from the application is that flows begin when an event starts. However, I want to create a timeline of events, or flows. How would I do that?

I want to make sure that flows do not refer to newer flows and only older flows. Or when people are introduced in a particular flow only then they are able to be referenced in newer flows.

How would I do this? I bought the software expecting to do this since story is core to this application but have not been able to thus far.

[Nevigo | Kai Rosenkranz]

Hi Fueler,

Thanks for your input. How exactly do you imagine the timeline view? Would you expect to be able to attach a time stamp to each node and then be able to map out story nodes on a timeline? And how should the constrainted references (story node can only reference a character that has been introduced previously) work in a non-linear story?

Imagine you have a node that's joining two different branches of the story. In one of those branches, the character gets introduced, whereas in the other one the player won't meet that character. Would you allow referencing the character in the joint node?

We have the timeline view feature on our roadmap, and we'll have to work it out. I'm just curious if you have any ideas how this could be approached in a way that fits the branching nature of the narrative.

All the best,
-Kai

[Fueler]

In your project tree you have Flows. Each Flow has to start at some point in time and end at another point in time, or be a single point in time by default. So the Timeline view would either work itself left to right or top to bottom. Each flow within the Timeline view would be stretched to the scale of the timeline given the Flow's start and end time. If the user clicks on an Entity all Flows that Entity is part of would be highlighted. From there the user can determine if it's "too early" for him to be referenced. Additionally each Entity can have an introduction date field which would limit which Flows they could be added to, dialog, events ect. as each Flow has a start time. This would also be useful for when an Entity does not exist anymore, ie character dying. The Entity could not be added if the Flow started later than end date of that Entity.

I enjoy discussing new ideas, let me know if you would like to discuss other features.

[Nevigo | Kai Rosenkranz]

Fueler, thanks a lot. Sounds like a good approach. I think it can become a bit messy when the user isn't using the start time field for all flow fragments, but that can be solved.

I'll add it to our feature backlog.

Please be invited to our feature forums. There you can post ideas for features we're going to implement soon. Here's the link[www.nevigo.com].

All the best, and my apologies for the delay in my reply! I appreciate the time you invested into fleshing out this idea.

-Kai

Edit: Fixed the link.

[Fueler]

I'll copy this to the forums, no link shown btw.

However, for every dialog you cannot add it without attaching it to a flow. The same for flows, they cannot be added unless they are added to a point in time. It becomes a deeper hierarchy.

[Nevigo | Kai Rosenkranz]

Thanks again. I fixed the link in my posting above, and here it comes again[www.nevigo.com]. :)