Category: Branching · Audience: Beginner
What this shows
The player chooses; each choice leads to different content; branches diverge and never rejoin. Ashwell calls this the “Time Cave” — a cave system that only ever splits, never reconnects.
How it works
- Every passage links only to new passages; nothing ever links back to a shared node (except an optional “start over”).
- Two binary choices produce four distinct endings. Each leaf is reachable by exactly one path.
- This is the most honest agency and also the most expensive: ten binary choices in a row imply 1,024 leaf states. Pure trees are rare beyond short-form work for exactly this reason.
Using this in your own story
- Make each choice lead somewhere genuinely different.
- Never fold paths back together — that would make it a bottleneck, not a branch.
- Watch the exponential cost: keep pure branches short, or reserve them for the ending act.
Full source
:: StoryData
{
"ifid":"CCCA09D6-1494-41E3-A331-5A876B46C859"
}
:: StoryTitle
Branching Structure
:: Start
The cave mouth splits in two. Whatever you choose, there is no coming back to this spot.
[[Take the left tunnel->Left]]
[[Take the right tunnel->Right]]
:: Left
Water drips in the dark. The passage forks again.
[[Wade into the stream->LeftStream]]
[[Climb the wet rocks->LeftRocks]]
:: Right
Warm air rises from below. The passage forks again.
[[Follow the distant light->RightLight]]
[[Follow the low sound->RightSound]]
:: LeftStream
The current carries you into a flooded hall with no exit.
**Ending: The Drowned Hall**
[[Start over->Start]]
:: LeftRocks
You haul yourself up into a cavern of glittering crystal.
**Ending: The Crystal Vault**
[[Start over->Start]]
:: RightLight
The light is daylight — a hidden door in the cliffside.
**Ending: The Cliffside Door**
[[Start over->Start]]
:: RightSound
The sound is breathing. You have found a sleeping dragon. Unwisely.
**Ending: The Dragon's Den**
[[Start over->Start]]
▶ Play this example · Download the .twee file
← Prev: Loop and Grow · All examples · Next: Branch and Bottleneck →