Storylet Studio

StoryletEngine for Unreal

Storylet Studio publishes .storyworld bundles - precompiled storylet data ready to play at runtime. StoryletEngine for Unreal is a plugin for Unreal Engine 5.7+ that loads those bundles inside your UE project and runs storylets from Blueprint or C++.

This page orients you: what the plugin does, where to get it, and what's involved in shipping a Storylet Studio storyworld through an Unreal game. The plugin ships with full installation and API docs of its own, so treat this as the overview.

What you need

  • Unreal Engine 5.7 or later.
  • A .storyworld bundle from Storylet Studio - published from the authoring tool via Publish.
  • The StoryletEngine plugin zip, from download.storylet.studio under "Engine plugins".

What the plugin gives you

  • Asset importer. Drag a .storyworld file into the Content Browser and you get a Storylet Engine Storyworld data asset.
  • Blueprint + C++ runtime API. Create a Storylet Engine Session against a storyworld, call Draw for the eligible hand of storylets, call Play to pick an outcome and apply it. You get the same surface from both Blueprint and native C++.
  • Gated outcomes. An outcome can carry an availability condition. Each drawn outcome exposes a bAvailable flag (false when its condition is unmet) - show those choices disabled rather than hidden - and Play rejects an unavailable outcome. Requires a .storyworld bundle at format version 2.3 or later.
  • Editor inspector. A Window > Tools > Storylet Engine tab for poking at a live session in Play-In-Editor. The State sub-tab has Save State / Restore State buttons that read and write .storyworldstate files - the same portable format the authoring tool's Simulate view and the Unity plugin produce.
  • Storylet.* GameplayTag mirror so storylets can hook into the systems you already have (ability system, narrative beats, etc.).
  • Save / restore of session state via the standard UE serialization path.

Quickstart (30 seconds)

The full quickstart lives in the plugin's own README. The short form:

  1. Drop the unzipped plugin into <YourProject>/Plugins/StoryletEngine/, regenerate project files, and build.
  2. Drag your .storyworld file into the Content Browser - the importer creates a Storylet Engine Storyworld asset.
  3. On a long-lived Blueprint (your GameInstance works), create a Storylet Engine Session from the storyworld asset in BeginPlay.
  4. Each turn: call Draw on the session, then Play with the chosen storylet's Game Id and the outcome's Game Id.

That's the basic loop. Save / restore, the inspector tab, and the GameplayTag mirror all wire up automatically.

Where to next

  • The plugin's own README - quickstart, full API reference, supported UE versions, troubleshooting.
  • For Game Developers - the overall publish-and-load workflow, how the engines compare, and licensing / source.
  • Simulate - what running a storyworld looks like in the reference UI; the Unreal plugin exposes the same Draw / Play primitives.
  • Game Data - the per-storylet custom fields a player shell typically reads to drive presentation (UI, dialogue, audio).