The best free tools for narrative games

gamedeveloper.com:

Among all the game development software we've been listing as part of our coverage on free and low-cost tools, narrative game engines and toolsets kept coming up. We even ran a TikTok showing a few of our favorites, with tools like Twine, Narrat, and Ren'Py making a strong showing.

This resource is an expanded version of that, with a selection of free tools to make story heavy or dialogue-based games. These tools are useful for a number of genres: some are laser-focused on interactive fiction, while others are great for visual novels, dialogue-driven RPGs, adventure games, or other work where words and choosing among text options are a huge part of the experience. All of the tools on this list are free, and most are great for beginning developers or narrative designers/writers who want to branch out.

Twine is one of the most established tools for interactive fiction on this list (or out in the world.) It's a free, open-source tool that doesn't require any coding knowledge to get started, making it ideal for folks who want to try out game development for the first time, writers looking to branch out into an interactive format, and really, anyone who wants to write a story where the player makes choices along branching paths. You can also extend the tool with plenty of bells and whistles if that's your speed!

From the Twine website:

"You don't need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you're ready.

Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes."

There's a huge community of Twine