The opening sentence is hard. You stare at an empty field, knowing the tone of the entire story depends on what you type now, and that pressure paralyses you. That's why you can let the AI start.
125 hand-curated templates
Behind the scenes there's a library of 125 opening templates. Examples:
- "{name} found something in the attic that didn't seem to belong to them."
- "It was going to be a quiet Sunday — until {name} heard the doorbell."
- "Nobody had ever told {name} that the neighbour was a {profession}."
When a game starts, the server picks a random template, fills in the player's name, chooses one option from each slot list ("rubber chicken" / "dried banana" / "rusty key ring"), and sets the filled sentence as the opening.
Two modes: tame or wild
With "AI opening: normal" you get the filled template back, lightly polished if needed. With "wild" the AI gets the filled template as an example and is allowed to vary from it — more surprising, but sometimes less punchy than the original.
What we want next
- Label templates by tone (comic / mysterious / mundane / cliffhanger)
- Genre templates for future modes (Murder Mystery, Long Story)
- Persona-aware openings if players can one day add a persona line to their portrait