Ask students to write a story and you get a story. Ask them to write a branching story and you get something better disguised as something more fun: a structural argument. A branch only works if the student understands cause and consequence well enough to write both arms; an ending only lands if they can trace every path that reaches it. Interactive fiction smuggles plot mechanics, point of view, and revision discipline into an assignment students genuinely want to finish — because their classmates are going to play it.
StorySplice keeps the logistics small. Students write in the browser with nothing to install, the story map shows a plan at a glance (useful for the student and for the teacher checking progress), and finished stories publish unlisted — shareable with exactly the people who have the link, invisible to everyone else. Readers need no account at all, so a parents’-night audience is one URL away.
The Petition. The town is voting on demolishing the crumbling public pool, and the narrator’s family is split. Students write a branching story where each path must argue a position through consequence rather than exposition — the reader who chooses to testify at the council meeting should feel what it costs, not be told. Persuasive writing, wearing a story’s clothes.
One More Chapter. A literature response: students write a missing branching chapter for the class novel. What does Frankenstein’s creature do with one act of kindness received instead of refused? Each branch must stay consistent with the character as written — which requires the close reading the assignment was secretly about.
The AI tools draft, rewrite, and propose branches — always as suggestions the writer accepts or rejects, never silent autocompletion. In a classroom that cuts both ways. Some teachers use it deliberately (generate a scene, then critique and rewrite it — editing as the skill being taught); others prefer the assignment AI-free, which works fine since every AI feature is opt-in per action. The visible accept-or-reject step at least keeps the question "did you write this?" answerable. Pair the assignment with the craft guide for a ready-made rubric skeleton: meaningful choices, visible consequences, endings that differ in meaning.
If what you need is graded training scenarios rather than creative writing — decision points scored against a rubric, completion tracking — that is our sibling app ScenarioSplice, built on the same editor for exactly that job.
To write, yes — creating a story requires Google sign-in. To read or play a classmate’s story, no account is needed at all.
Not unless a student publishes it. Stories are private by default, and unlisted publishing shares a story only with people who have the link — it never appears in the public library.
Nothing. The free plan includes unlimited creating, publishing, and reading, the full visual editor, draft sharing with comments, and 10 AI calls per student per day.
There is no admin switch, but every AI feature is opt-in per action and its output must be explicitly accepted — nothing generates unless the student asks. Many teachers simply make "no AI calls" a stated rule, or make critiquing AI output the assignment itself.
They publish unlisted and submit the link, or share the draft link if you want to comment in place. Either way you play the story exactly as they built it, map and all.