YarnSpinner

Yarn Spinner

Yarn Spinner is the friendly tool for writing dialogue in games. It’s easy for writers to use, and has powerful features for programmers.

Yarn Spinner is a dialogue system that lets you write interactive conversations in a simple, screenplay-like format, which can be loaded into your game and run.

When a conversation is running, Yarn Spinner sends your game lines of dialogue to show, options to let the player choose from, and commands to make things happen in your scene.

Yarn Spinner has been used in a number of critically acclaimed games, including Night in the Woods, A Short Hike, DREDGE, Venba, Lost in Random, and many more.

To get Yarn Spinner, and support the team behind it, buy a copy from the Yarn Spinner Itch.io Store or from the Unity Asset Store, or check out the Yarn Spinner Documentation.

Getting Started

This repo contains the core source code for the Yarn Spinner compiler. If you want to use it in a game, you should get the appropriate package for your game engine. The best place to learn the next steps is in the Yarn Spinner Documentation.

Official Packages

These packages are written by the Yarn Spinner team, and are officially supported.

• Yarn Spinner for Unity (2021.3 or later)

Learning More

Full documentation, tutorials, and additional information is available in the Yarn Spinner documentation.

Getting Help

For help, support, discussion, and chill community times, come and join the Yarn Spinner Discord!

Credits

Yarn Spinner is developed by Yarn Spinner Pty. Ltd., an Australian company. We are a spinoff of game development studio, Secret Lab Pty. Ltd.. The project is supported along with a huge community of contributors.

The logo was made by Cecile Richard.

Yarn Spinner’s development is made possible in part by NYU Game Center, and an Epic Mega Grant.

This project has also been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Help Us Make Yarn Spinner!

Yarn Spinner needs your help to be as awesome as it can be! You don’t have to be a coder to help out - we’d love to have your help in improving our documentation, in spreading the word, and in finding bugs.

• Yarn Spinner’s development is powered by our wonderful Patreon supporters, and purchases on storefronts like Itch.io. If you can afford to do so, becoming a patron, or buying Yarn Spinner on Itch.io would really help us to continue making Yarn Spinner.
• Our issues repo contains problems we’re solving and features we’re considering. Any issues you make will work to make Yarn Spinner better for everyone.
• Follow Yarn Spinner on Bluesky, or tell us about a game you’re making with Yarn Spinner!.

If you want to contribute to Yarn Spinner, go read our contributor’s guide!