Choose your adventure, choose your fate. Every story is unique.
Did you ever read those Choose Your Own Adventure chapter books—the ones where you’d keep a finger wedged in the last page “just in case”? Yeah… this is that feeling, but on your phone.
Introducing StoryDome: interactive, 80s-style adventure stories where you call the shots.
You don’t just read the story—you steer it.
Open the wrong door? Deal with it.
Trust the sketchy wizard? That’s on you.
Go full hero mode, total chaos gremlin, or somewhere in between—every choice rewires what happens next.
What It Is
StoryDome is an n8n workflow that powers an interactive “Choose Your Own Adventure” storytelling experience. It combines OpenAI’s GPT-4o for narrative generation with Fal.ai’s Flux image model to create unique, illustrated adventures—every playthrough different from the last.
The Experience
Players select from 8 themes—Bigfoot, UFOs, Fairies, Ghosts, Sea Monsters, Museum at Night, Time Traveler, or Pirates—and embark on a 9-step journey. Each step presents a story scene with a custom pixel-art illustration and two choices. The decisions players make affect hidden “doom” and “hope” meters that determine whether they reach a triumphant victory or a dramatic (but kid-friendly) demise.
How It Works
The Flow:
- Player starts a game by choosing a theme
- The workflow initializes a unique session with randomized settings, NPCs, and artifacts
- OpenAI generates the narrative, choices, and an image prompt
- Fal.ai creates a 16-bit pixel art illustration in real-time
- The response is sent back to the frontend app
- Player makes a choice, and the cycle repeats until the story ends
Stateless Architecture: The entire game state travels with each request—no database required. The frontend (built in Lovable) stores the state and sends it back with each choice. This keeps the workflow simple and infinitely scalable.
The Secret Sauce
The Illusion of Choice
Every adventure runs in 9 tight steps—but choices hit hard. Good calls build Hope. Bad ones drain Doom. Real tension, real consequences, without messy infinite branching.
Guaranteed Signature Encounters
The iconic moment always happens. Bigfoot is seen. Aliens are met. The cursed captain appears. It lands in the second half—after suspense builds with clues, strange sounds, and near-misses.
Campfire-Style Writing
Punchy, human-sounding chapters—fast pacing, sensory detail, and messy-in-a-good-way “kid telling a story” energy. No stiff, generic vibe.
12 Twist Types
Each step pulls from a set of 12 distinct twists—equipment failures, time pressure, disappearances, overheard whispers, memory triggers, and more—so surprises don’t repeat.
Cinematic Sound Design
A curated sound library feeds each scene (creaks, thunder, radio static, shattering glass, stalking footsteps) with rules that prevent repeats and keep the tone right.
Classic Choice Architecture
Timeless dilemmas—risk vs safety, trust vs go alone, fight vs sneak—built to spark real hesitation and keep you turning pages.
Technical Stack
| Component | Technology |
|---|---|
| Workflow Engine | n8n (self-hosted) |
| Narrative AI | OpenAI GPT-4o |
| Image Generation | Fal.ai Flux Schnell |
| Image Style | 16-bit pixel art, SNES aesthetic |
| Frontend | Lovable |
| State Management | Stateless (client-side) |
The Themes
| Theme | Tone | Flavor |
|---|---|---|
| Bigfoot | Spooky | Pacific Northwest cryptid hunting |
| UFOs | Spooky | Desert highways, Area 51 vibes |
| Fairies | Adventurous | Enchanted forests, magical creatures |
| Ghosts | Spooky | Haunted mansions, spectral encounters |
| Sea Monster | Adventurous | Coastal mysteries, deep water terror |
| Museum at Night | Adventurous | Exhibits come alive after dark |
| Time Traveler | Adventurous | Real historical events and figures |
| Pirates | Spooky | Cursed ships and ghostly captains |
Why n8n?
Building this as an n8n workflow rather than custom code offers several advantages:
- Visual debugging: See exactly where data flows and where errors occur
- Easy iteration: Swap AI models or image providers without rewriting code
- No server management: The workflow handles scaling automatically
- Rapid prototyping: New features can be tested in minutes
The Result
A replayable, illustrated adventure game that generates unique stories on demand. Each 9-step journey takes about 5-10 minutes to play, produces 9 custom illustrations, and ends with either triumph or tragedy based on the player’s choices.
No two playthroughs are the same.
Built with n8n, OpenAI, and Fal.ai. Inspired by the Choose Your Own Adventure books of the 1980s.
Try StoryDome for FREE