This is driving me crazy because I feel like I watched this video on youtube or some similar site a long time ago and it was about CHYOA. But I can't find it now, so I assume it must have been GDC, since they're notoriously difficult to search for. Does anybody know what video I'm talking about? The guy talked about everything from a theory as to why so many of the story thumbnails have the characters' heads out of frame to the technical challenges associated with re-indexing the stories in the Non-English (dated) category. I keep getting vaguely reminded of this thing every couple days while I'm learning to use this site, and it's driving me nuts that I can't find it to refresh my memory.
The search "chyoa" video -inurl:chyoa.com doesn't turn up anything. I'd be very surprised if there existed a video about CHYOA of any reasonable level of production or popularity.
That's the thing about GDC though. Their business model is weird. They put their videos on youtube for free, but they give them names based on the design lessons taught in the talk, rather than the games or IPs referenced in the video. Even if I knew the name of the game or its publisher, the odds of me finding a specific GDC video again using search tools are slim. Also, I should clarify, choya was mentioned within the context of making a larger point about game dev. It wouldn't have been called something like "How I used CHOYA to help me make GameName, a talk by Brad Gamerson of GameGames Studio." Rather, it would be called something like "Kick 'Em in the Plot: Leveraging Online Services During Discovery." Enticing clickbait, but utterly impossible to find using search tools. I don't really understand it, but that's how they roll. Basically, my only hope is that somebody who already cares about this site also noticed it and happened to bookmark it.
I’d def watch it if you find it. It had crossed my mind that CHYOA could prototype some elements of a game concept, but as my story branching got more complicated, I hit so many site limitations that I started casting about to find a dev tool to help me prototype my CHYOA project instead. Twine seemed to offer similar capabilities to CHYOA, with a more fluid workflow. Never dove in though, mostly because it didn’t work so well on mobile, and that is where I do 90% of my work.
While I am in passing familiar with TWINE and it's engine, I would suggest a different tool if you have more complex branching. Something like Obsidian. It's one of those note taking knowledge Web type deals. It uses the Markdown formatting so it's plain text at heart but can also make nice looking documents, and it is built so any note in the vault can link to any other note. I think there are some alternatives like notion, but Obsidian is free for personal use. I don't have a link handy, but if you are interested I will dig one up for you.
I highly recommend trying Twine if you like flowcharts, Ink if you like typing, and Ren'Py if you like pretty pictures. I've also heard good things about ChoiceScript, but have not worked with it yet. Don't get up, Wolf. Here's that link to Obsidian you mentioned. Is it bad that I've been jotting down notes on pre-CHYOA story concepts in a CHYOA called "story concepts" I never plan to publish?
I'm a crap programmer, but TWINE with various addons like Sugarcube on top of it can pull off some really impressive stuff. Malevolent Planet and Female Agent jump out to me as pushing the envelope in that regard. However, it does have to be text-focused. There's a very active TWINE dev discord if you want to give them a look.
Based on some of the tools you've mentioned here: I think the GDC video you're talking about is this one? Most of the tools you mentioned are mentioned there, and there is somewhat of a reference to CYOA (around the 8:05 timestamp), although not chyoa.com in particular.
