Best worldbuilding tools for writers and game creators
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Key notes
- This guide provides you with all the information required in order to make an informed decision about what worldbuilding tools are best for your needs.
- Our top pick is WorldAnvil, which offers an incredible array of tools to help you during your world-creation process.
- If you want to explore some other useful guides and recommendations, check out our thorough Tech Definitions Section.
- Explore our RPG Games Hub to ensure that you'll be prepared for any RPG games.
What are the best worldbuilding tools for writers and game creators?
WorldAnvil
- Price – Free / Premium
From creating your world, managing your campaign, planning your novel to being a hero, WorldAnvil offers it all under one roof. WorldAnvil is a popular world-building that comes with a specific set of tools for game creators, writer, creative professionals as well as role players.
To begin with, WorldAnvil is free to use. However, the premium plan comes with some advanced features that the serious storyteller and seasoned creators can use to perfect their work.
The basic plan offers 100MB of storage space, access to two worlds, up to 175 articles, and 20 draft articles space. It also gives access to specialized worldbuilding templates, maps, timelines, and more.
Upgrading to the premium plan offers the ability to work with more than one creator, add notes, keep track of article/world count and goals, article exploring, ad-less experience with tons of other features.
WorldAnvil is an excellent choice for anyone stepping into the world of worldbuilding for free and then upgrade gradually as they progress.
One Stop for Writers
- Price – Premium
One Stop for Writers is a powerful library consisting of writing resources built to elevate storytelling. It offers all that a budding or professional writer needs to create fiction so that you can spend your time on your craft than looking for tools.
One Stop for Writers comes with an extensive thesaurus collection, idea generation, and other resources that allow you to build deeply layered characters efficiently.
Other notable features offered by the tool include story maps to demystify structure, scene maps, and timelines to help with plotting the overall story, worldbuilding surveys to help you organize details and idea generator that provides specific suggestions to the writer.
One Stop for Writers is a premium tool but comes with a 2-week trial. Use the trial period to see if it meets your requirements before making a purchase.
Plot Factory
- Price – Free / Premium
Plot Factory is an online story planner that lets the writer plan, organize, and write stories and fictional universes all from one place. It is a cloud-based tool and does require installation.
The advanced manuscript editor allows you to organize complex projects and write quality stories. Creators can access Plot Factory on their smartphone, computer, or any other internet-enabled devices.
You can set a goal and see a visual account of their progress. You can also track your daily, weekly, and month word stats as well.
Core features of Plot Factory include a full-featured online editor, character lists to keep track of character properties, universe notebook, plot helper outline to help you craft your plot, and sharing links to share your work with your friends and family.
Notebook.ai
- Price – Basic free / Premium
Notebook.ai is a small notebook for worldbuilders. Writers can use Notebook.ai to create rich, immersive worlds for their novels, stories, and plays.
Role players can use the tool to build worlds for their campaigns and share them with players. For design, Notebook.ai offers tools to collaborate and keep everything in sync.
Notebook.ai allows you to create characters for your story. You can further enhance the story by creating a location and adding items like weapons, artifacts, and books.
Notebook.ai is an ad-free platform and keeps your work backed up forever. In addition, the creators can invite friends and family to review their work or seek an opinion.
Notebook.ai is a clever choice for world builders to create and organize their work all in one place.
Evernote
- Price – Free / Premium
Evernote may be the last app that you will think of as a worldbuilder tool. Evernote is indeed geared more towards taking notes and keeping a tab on your schedule, and a to-do list. However, the core note-taking feature of the app does make it an ideal choice for worldbuilders.
Apart from the excellent editing and organizing features, Evernote’s browser extension offers some excellent features like allowing you to clip content and images from the web and save it in Evernote. The research can automatically be linked back to your source as well.
Evernote comes in both free and premium plans. Depending on whether you are using it for taking note, organize stuff, or bring your team together, you can opt for the free basic, premium, or business plan respectively.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world where the authors sometime may create a whole fictional universe. As exciting as this idea may sound, the process can be overwhelming for new authors.
With the help of the recommended worldbuilding tools, you can streamline the process of worldbuilding by spending your time crafting than looking for the right tools.
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