How to make a phone chat story in Pominis

A phone chat story is told through the screen the player is holding: messages arriving from contacts, photos dropped into a thread, and replies the player chooses to send. It suits stories built on distance, secrets, and waiting, where what someone leaves unsaid, or how long they take to answer, is part of the drama.

This guide uses an invented premise: Mika goes on a solo hike and sends her friend a photo of an empty cabin with its door open. Then she stops replying. The player is the friend, and every choice is a message they decide to send.

Choose Phone chat story in the startup brief

Describe the premise in VN Studio and say you want it told through messages. In the startup brief, pick Phone chat story as the creation format; it defaults to Mobile portrait, since the story will be read on a phone-shaped screen. The other option to consider is Hybrid story, which switches between phone conversations and full visual-novel scenes when the story needs them.

Keep the cast small. In a phone story the contacts are the other characters, and the player exists only through the replies they send. Two or three contacts are plenty for a first draft.

Plan the story as chat scenes

Instead of a regular scene board, the canvas shows a Chat scenes board. Each chat scene belongs to a thread, one conversation with one contact, and has a summary, its messages, and the choices at its end. For Mika's story, the first chapter might be: the cabin photo arrives; the player asks where she is; silence; then a message from an unknown number.

• Threads: one per contact, each with a chat display name and avatar. A thread can be unlocked at the start or appear later, like the unknown number.
• Chapter dates: date labels such as “Day one” and “Day two”, so the player knows how much time has passed.
• Messages: each has a sender (a contact, Narration, or System), the text, an optional timestamp label, and optional media, an image or a video.
• Rhythm: a typing animation length and a wait after sending, set in milliseconds, so a reply can arrive at once or after an uncomfortable pause.

Make the choices the player's own messages

In a phone story, a choice is something the player sends. Sendable replies are written as messages, such as “Send me your location.” or “Are you okay? Call me.”, and each one leads to a scene after sending. Write them in one voice, the player-character's, and let each reveal a different priority: urgency, trust, or fear.

Then let the contact react in character. If the player asks for a location and Mika answers with a photo instead of a pin, that says more than any narration could. Put the consequence of a choice in the next messages that arrive, not in a summary afterwards.

Add a diary or a feed when it adds information

Under Player apps, a phone story can include a character diary and a social feed. Diary entries can be written from the player's perspective or a character's, carry a mood, and unlock as the story advances. Feed posts have an author, text, images, likes, comments from other accounts, and reply options for the player, and each can be set to unlock after a particular scene.

Use them for what a private chat cannot show. Mika's last public post, a comment from someone who contradicts what she told the player, a diary entry that reframes her first message: each gives the player a reason to open the app. If the feed only repeats the chat, leave it switched off.

Edit, test, and publish

You can change any message yourself: drag to reorder, insert a message after another, change the sender, adjust the typing time, or swap the attached media. For wider changes, ask the agent, for example “Make the unknown number's messages shorter and slower.” Then use Play draft and read the story on a phone, where pacing matters most.

Publishing has two phone-specific steps. A phone story has no cover: you choose a lock screen instead, which published cards show in a 9:16 phone frame. And instead of a player style, you pick a Phone appearance preset, such as System, Rose, Ocean, Paper, or Neon, and can fine-tune the bubble colors, chat background, and icons. The published link opens in a mobile browser with no app to install.

Before you share a phone story

• Can the player tell who each thread is with from its first message?
• Does at least one silence or delay mean something?
• Do the sendable replies sound like one person with different priorities?
• Does each reply change what arrives next?
• Do the diary and feed reveal something the chat does not?

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