Storymate - Story Planning & Publishing Tool
Free no-code tool for creating branching scenarios. Publish to HTML. There's no SCORM wrapper current, but it's planned for the future.
Charisma — Storytelling powered by artificial intelligence
Charisma is an AI tool for creating and interacting with virtual characters. It can be used for gaming and VR application, but also for training and conversation simulations.
DiBL - Dilemma Based Learning
An interesting tool designed for interactive questions and scenarios in live training or vILT environments, where learners respond via their devices. The founder says, "You can think of it as a collaborative choose your own adventure - or Twine meets Kahoot :-)." This would be worth reviewing if you had a specific use case in an organization, but the tool is too expensive for freelancers and consultants.
ThingLink: Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media
Branching scenario tool for simulations, interactive videos, and more. This has a clear emphasis on both including a range of multimedia plus tracking interaction data.
However, the way they track data is by hosting it themselves, which affects the pricing model. The pricing is $4/user/month–which seems really high to me, considering that’s more than some full-blown LMSs that can host hundreds of courses. They have a minimum of 50 users, which means the minimum cost is $200/month. Even if the tool is great, I think that’s would be a hard sell for most organizations.
Role-Play Training – Insights From Clark Aldrich
A lengthy article from Clark Aldrich on how to create Short Sims or branching role-play training. One of the most useful things in this article is the section "7 steps to create an effective role-play," where he breaks down his process for creating branching scenarios with time estimates for each section. While some of this is specific to iSpring, the process is similar to what I teach in my branching scenario course.
Perhaps the perfect way to learn is by doing something worthwhile that lines up with the real world, and very judiciously receiving some friendly guidance when we get stuck.
If you’re running a flight simulator and want your pilots to learn how to land an airplane in a snowstorm, Short Sims can only have introductory benefits. They can teach you some of the strategies.
With practice, you should be able to create an entire role-play in about 40 hours over two weeks. If you are going over that, you’re probably overthinking or over-executing it. Remember that you need to keep it simple.
Hack: How to Add Custom Characters to Scenario Blocks - Overview
While the Rise scenario block doesn't have a way to add your own customer characters, you can use this trick from Tom Kuhlmann. It's a bit of a kludge, but you can swap out the images in the published file. The image file names aren't obvious, but Tom shows how he uses PPT to keep track of which label goes with each image.
Celestory - Create your customized training
Tool for creating branching scenario training or interactive games. I haven't tried this yet, but there's a free version that would be enough to test it out. The tool collects data on user behavior. The website says it's using AI to analyze behavior, but it's not quite clear exactly what that AI is doing.
Yo Scenario | The branching scenario builder
A browser-based branching scenario builder. Free for 5 scenarios to try it out. Paid plans start at £20/ month.
Branching Scenario (beta) | H5P
H5P has a tool for branching scenarios now. The sample is a well-done interactive video scenario for home visitors.
Google Forms: Create a Branching Quiz Question - Teacher Tech
Use Google Forms to create a branching quiz. This could be used for a branching scenario as well. You can add images in Google Forms, so you could add some visual interest as well. A tool called Flubaroo can be used for scoring.
Storyboarding Branched Scenarios - ThinkingKap
This is something I've struggled with--a good method for storyboarding branching scenarios. I've used several different Word and PowerPoint templates in the past, none of which have quite worked the way I wanted. I can write the branching in a linear document without much trouble (I once drafted one longhand in a notebook), but it makes my SMEs brains explode to try to follow them. I've seen recommendations for Twine in the past, and this explains in more detail how it works as a storyboarding tool.
Chat Mapper
Tool for developing branching dialogue. It's designed for both video games and training. There are more features here than what I would need for most scenario-based training I develop, but for something complex this would be a great way to create and test a conversation. It also exports to a very clean screenplay for actors. The free version is only for personal use, but the Indie license is only $60 and would be worth it for a complex enough project. I can usually keep it all straight in my own head in Word, but I've had problems getting actors and developers to understand how the pieces fit together. The simulated dialog might be enough to help others see the flow.