Introduction:

Hey there! I'm Mitch, the creator of NarrativeFlow. First and foremost, I'm a video game narrative designer.

I saw other narrative designers—hobbyist, indie, and professional—who had incredible stories they wanted to make an impact with, but the slow "tools" and corporate deadlines held them back. I believe that good narrative has the power to make this world a better place. And storytellers deserve the freedom to design their story exactly as it should be.

Most narrative designers today are still stuck using spreadsheets, tangled flowcharts, or worse—writing branching dialogue directly in code. These tools weren’t made by storytellers; they were made by engineers (very smart ones, to be clear! Just not narrative designers).

If you’ve ever felt the frustration of piecing together arcs using clunky tools that weren’t built with narrative in mind, you know exactly what I mean. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words, designed complex moral journeys, and built emotional arcs that players care about. But again and again, I kept hitting the same wall: the tools were working against me, not with me.

That’s why I built NarrativeFlow—a visual narrative design tool created by a narrative designer, for narrative designers.

NarrativeFlow lets you visually design branching stories, manage narrative variables, and build rich game narratives without fighting spreadsheets or code. It works with any game engine or language—Unity, Unreal, Godot, Ren’py, GameMaker, whatever you prefer. You can create unlimited choices, branches, and conditionals while seeing your story structure at a glance.

The tool automatically catches narrative bugs and errors, includes collaboration features, and even has a script view for easy editing and review. And here’s what really matters: everything you create with NarrativeFlow is yours. No royalties, no revenue cuts, ever. Your projects are saved as plaintext JSON files that belong to you, not me.

I built NarrativeFlow because I want to help bring those stories—the ones locked inside storytellers’ minds and hearts—into the world. Stories that can make an impact, shine light into the darkness, and move players in ways only interactive narratives can.

What Problems Did Memberstack Help You Solve?:

Memberstack solved several critical problems for NarrativeFlow that were essential to building a sustainable SaaS business—and honestly, NarrativeFlow might not have made it to market without them.

1 - The Right Choice Over CompetitorsI actually discovered and seriously considered another competing SaaS (Outseta) during my research phase.But when comparing the two, Memberstack came out on top for me, for many important reasons:The customization options, design freedom, abandoned cart email feature, and overall capabilities are exactly what developers—both big and small—need.The extensive documentation and incredible support team was heaven-sent and made one of the biggest differences in my decision.

2 - "Free Until You Launch" - A Game Changer - The "free until you launch" model was absolutely critical to NarrativeFlow actually getting to launch.As a solo developer, this saved me so much time and money during the development phase.I could build and test the entire subscription system without worrying about upfront costs, which was essential for getting NarrativeFlow to market in the timeframe I did (yes, we're talking *hundreds of dollars* saved compared to other options).

3 - Subscription Management - Without the Complexity I needed a way to handle subscriptions, billing, and user management without building a complex backend from scratch.Memberstack gave me a complete subscription system out of the box—I could focus on building NarrativeFlow instead of spending literal months on just payment infrastructure.

4 - Seamless User Experience - I wanted users to be able to choose their plan, sign up, and access the dashboard in seconds, without any friction.That's a tall order, yet Memberstack's modal system and pre-built components made this incredibly smooth and fast.Users can toggle between annual and monthly billing, see their subscription status, and manage their account all from a clean, integrated interface that Memberstack integrates flawlessly with.I'm not stuck using someone else's idea of how something should look and feel. Memberstack makes using my brand possible.

5 - Flexible Pricing Tiers - NarrativeFlow serves different types of users—solo indie devs, small teams, and large professional teams. Memberstack made it easy to set up multiple pricing tiers with different features and team member limits.The dynamic pricing system lets users switch between annual and monthly billing without any technical headaches (including automatic context-sensitive proration!).

6 - Webhook Integration - Memberstack's webhook system integrates perfectly with my email marketing (Kit) to automatically segment users based on their subscription status. This helps me provide better support and understand my user base.To connect Memberstack to Kit could've cost me hundreds every month. Instead, it's included in your subscription.

7 - Time to Market & Polish - Most importantly, Memberstack let me launch NarrativeFlow much faster than if I had built everything from scratch.Instead of spending 6+ months on subscription infrastructure, I could focus on the core product and get it into users' hands quickly.The extensive documentation and features meant I could implement everything with the polish and professionalism that NarrativeFlow deserved.

Final Thoughts, I genuinely believe that NarrativeFlow wouldn't have made it to market in the time that it did, nor would it have had the polish that it does, without Memberstack.The combination of powerful features, developer-friendly documentation, and the "free until you launch" model was exactly what I needed to turn my vision into reality.

What Are Your Favorite Things About Memberstack?:

The customization, the easy implementation, the clear and detailed documentation, the helpful and positive support team, etc.

Nailing your brand and presentation are important, and Memberstack's modals were super easy to customize exactly as I needed them. My brand isn't overshadowed or hidden by Memberstack; it stands out because of it.

Memberstack was surprisingly easy to implement. Seriously. Just place a single script tag in your site's header, use the simple-yet-powerful data attributes, and boom, you're ready. I'm not kidding either.

Other solutions would've required months of digging through APIs and such, all while paying them fees for every month that you're still building. Not with Memberstack!

I also deeply appreciate Memberstack's webhook feature, which allows me to hook up Memberstack to Kit, my email marketing platform. Without that, I was looking at hundreds of dollars in fees every month for an automation service.

Memberstack's integrations are quite extensive as well. I needed an affiliate functionality for my site, and I thought, "how difficult will that be?" Since Memberstack integrates with PromoteKit, super easy actually!

Perhaps the most important aspect about Memberstack that made me choose them over other options is this: Positivity. Every docs page you read, every interaction with the team, you can feel how positive they are. They don't care about "being cool"; they care about their customers, no matter how small.

How I Built...:

Before I wrote a single line of code for my site, I knew I needed some kind of service to handle accounts, purchases, team management, and subscriptions. As a solo developer, the idea of piecing all of that together with Supabase, authentication libraries, Stripe integrations, and a custom CRM felt overwhelming.

That’s when I found Memberstack (shoutout to ChatGPT for the suggestion!). Honestly, it was a turning point. Suddenly, the impossible mountain became something I could actually climb. Memberstack handled the complex backend logic so I could focus on building NarrativeFlow itself and serving my customers.

I started with a simple setup: plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript bundled with Vite. Memberstack integrated flawlessly, and I was shocked at how quickly I had a working subscription flow in place.

But as NarrativeFlow grew, I realized I needed a real CMS for content, a blog, and SEO-friendly pages. That’s when I transitioned to Astro. Astro was a breeze to adopt, and Memberstack didn’t skip a beat. My gated pages and authentication really did just work.

Here’s how the rest of the stack came together:

- Netlify hosts the site. I was worried at first about conflicts with Memberstack’s gating during the build process, but it’s been rock-solid from day one.

- Obsidian Publish powers my documentation and blog content. I can write everything in Markdown locally, then push it live in a way that’s seamless for users.

- Kit (ConvertKit) handles email marketing, connected via Memberstack’s webhook system. This lets me automatically segment and support my users without a third-party automation tool decimating my budget.

- Stripe processes payments behind the scenes via Memberstack’s integration — no custom backend required (in fact, I didn't have to do anything besides link the two).

- PromoteKit gave me a turnkey affiliate system that ties right into Memberstack, which means I could launch my referral program without reinventing the wheel.

And the last thing I did, after all the "technical" stuff was finished, was apply custom CSS to Memberstack's modals. I'm blown away that Memberstack is one of the few services that actually let's you customize their modals, and I'm grateful for it.

When I step back, the throughline is this: instead of sinking months into building infrastructure, I got to focus on my product — the narrative design tool itself — and serving my customers.

That combination of developer-friendly tools (Astro, Vite, Netlify) and business infrastructure out of the box (Memberstack, Stripe, Kit, PromoteKit) made it possible for a solo dev like me to launch a full SaaS platform with polish, speed, and sustainability.

In other words: NarrativeFlow exists today because these tools worked together seamlessly, and Memberstack is the glue that makes it possible.