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BACKLIGHT GEM

Narrative management for interactive storytelling

Gem is the powerful narrative management solution for intuitive scriptwriting, scalable stories, and narrative integration across game development pipelines.

Focus on your story, not your tools. Gem helps create scalable, manageable stories.

Gem blends classic filmmaking techniques with game design, empowering writers to work with intuitive scriptwriting tools and branching, highly scalable narratives while building a clear, readable, and manageable data model that can serve as the basis for VO and LOC. With its wildly collaborative nature and a highly flexible REST API that weaves narrative into game development pipelines, Gem stands uniquely as a system that puts story at the heart of game design.

Where scriptwriting, production, and game design meet

Experience the best of all worlds. Writers can conjure up stories in Gem's familiar screenplay-style editor, while Gem automatically builds a powerful data model that informs the game dev process and facilitates the transition of ideas from script to game.

Familiar script-writing
Writers can work with a script editor they’re comfortable with, letting their ideas flow onto the page.
PDF exports
Convert narratives into classic screenplay formats for actor read-throughs and cinematic planning workflows.
Dynamic Data Modeling
Gem extracts information from scripts as they're written, creating an on-the-fly data model for game development.

Create stories of unlimited scope and scale

Break free from the confines of spreadsheets and docs. Backlight Gem's powerful narrative management platform lets you weave vast, intricate stories via a single, easily navigable UI. With Backlight Gem, you can unleash your storytelling potential.

Visualize branching paths
Design interconnected story pathways with Gem’s storymap, making intricate plots and character developments clear.
Neatly organize your story
Organize your story into nested hierarchies to keep things readable and clear, no matter how large your story grows.
Build interactive logic
Use custom conditions and variables to build clear logic into your story flow. Utilize a built-in heatmap to review your logic paths.
“Over my 15+ year career, I have tried every writing tool under the sun. Gem is the first narrative tool I’ve found that prioritizes creativity and collaboration. It’s simple to set up and easy to use, yet underneath is an extremely deep and feature-rich platform with which you can create the most powerful branching narrative experiences imaginable.”
Dennis Lenart CTO, Adhoc Studios
testimonial

Manage every element of your story

Gem transforms every line of dialogue in your script into an organized element linked to voice-over, characters, and cinematics. This data model can form the framework for your narrative and make it easy to prep for VO and LOC well before launch.

Your dialogue, organized
Access Catalog, Sequence, and Dialogue Reports for insights into your narrative’s progress, all in a user-friendly format.
Efficient Editing
With Gem's auto-tagging and mass editing, you can make sweeping changes to your script quickly and without fuss.
Version Control
Easily track and revert changes. Your story's history is always at your fingertips, so you won't lose any great ideas.
Test story flows, fast
Gem’s playthrough option allows you to quickly prototype story flows and ensure you're hitting all the right notes.

Gem's REST API weaves narrative into game dev

With Gem, you can tightly integrate your stories with game development, thanks to Gem's user-friendly REST API and dynamic JSON data model.

A Powerful REST API
Connect your narrative with your game development software. What you do with Gem's API is limited only by your imagination.
Complete Control
Each script component in Gem has its own endpoint, so you can direct narrative elements throughout the development process.
Export Data for Game Engines
Export your project into common video game production formats and drive your game with the narrative power of Gem.

Tell your story, your way

Backlight Gem's cloud-based workspace acts your narrative project's central narrative hub, designed to keep everyone in sync. Live updates, real-time user presence, interactive comments, and a tagging system empower your team to join forces and weave narratives together.

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Writer
Writer
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Narrative designer
Narrative designer
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Game designer
Game designer
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Game director
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Audio director
Audio director
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Cinematic artist
Cinematic artist
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CTO
CTO

Wildly collaborative – bring your team together with Backlight Gem

Backlight Gem's cloud-based workspace acts your narrative project's central narrative hub, designed to keep everyone perfectly in sync. Live updates, user presence, interactive comments, and a tagging system all empower collaborators to join forces in real-time and weave narratives together as a team – not siloed departments.     

 

  • collaborative-writer
    Writer
  • collaborative-narrative
    Narrative Designer
  • collaborative-gamedesigner
    Game Designer
  • collaborative-gamedirector
    Game Director
  • collaborative-audio
    Audio Director
  • collaborative-producer
    Producer
  • collaborative-cinematic
    Cinematic Artist
  • collaborative-cto
    CTO

Tell your story, your way

Whether you're crafting RPG dialogue wheels or FPS cinematics; contextual barks or NPC one-liners, linear stories or complex multi-threaded adventures, Gem will work for you.

Our game-agnostic approach to narrative design means you can model and manage any project.

Backing up your studio

How Gem can help

Tell great stories

Forget spreadsheets. Gem can help you to scale narrative design with dynamic, adaptive storytelling. 

Accelerate development

Integrate disalogue into game pipelines for a faster, more integrated narrative design experience.

Streamline VO and LOC

With Gem's data model it's far easier to prep for, manage, and deliver VO and LOC.

Creative excellence

Deliver engaging narratives that remind players why they fell in love with gaming.