TextLab 0.1 - Create Your Own Chat-Based Visual Novels

TextLab

TextLab is a small editor that lets you create stories that unfold like real messaging apps. You build characters, write branching conversations and sprinkle in social-media-style moments to make everything feel a bit more alive. It’s a simple playground for anyone who wants to explore chat-based storytelling or experiment with interactive fiction ideas.

Prototype / Test Version

TextLab was partly created through vibecoding and is still very much a prototype. A lot of things are still buggy, unfinished and a bit clunky in places. It’s mainly meant for experimenting and getting a feel for how your ideas might work. You can build and test stories, but you can’t create a full, production-ready app or game with it yet.

I’m not a professional developer (not yet, at least). I’m learning a lot as I go, and I’m spending as much time as I can improving my skills so that one day I won’t have to rely on vibecoding anymore. Because of that, the tool will grow slowly but steadily (at least i'll try).

Your feedback helps more than you think. Bug reports, ideas, feature requests, small suggestions, everything is welcome, and I’ll do my best to implement what I can.

Planned Features

A Godot export is planned, but it’s in a very early stage.
Once it becomes usable, you’ll be able to move your project into Godot and turn it into a proper mobile app or a complete game for iOS, Android or desktop.

What TextLab Can Do

TextLab gives you a set of tools to craft your story piece by piece. You can create contacts with names, avatars and optional premium content, then build conversations that branch based on player choices. Messages can include text, images, videos or audio, and you can use triggers to unlock content or post on the built-in social apps.

Chapters help keep bigger stories organized. Players see a small notification when they reach a new one. There’s also a customizable homescreen where you can drag and drop app icons in a live preview.

The built-in apps include chat, gallery, premium creators and simple Instagram- and Twitter-style feeds.

You can test everything in the Preview tab. When you’re ready to share your work, you can export it as a standalone HTML file that works offline.

Saving is straightforward. Projects are stored as a single JSON file containing all your content, and the editor auto-saves to your browser as well.

Key Features

• Chat storytelling with branching choices
• Instagram-style and Twitter-style social feeds
• Premium content system
• Support for images, videos and audio
• Unlockable gallery
• Chapters for structure
• Drag-and-drop homescreen customization
• Auto-save and manual save/load via JSON
• Offline HTML export
• Custom notification sounds

Getting Started

Start with a couple of characters and a short chat to get a feel for the flow. Preview often. Add triggers once you want things to react dynamically. Break bigger stories into chapters. And save regularly just to be safe, even though auto-save helps out.