Book Traveler / Shuzhongren

What it is

A Chinese AI interactive-fiction app where readers enter a wuxia world, create their own character, and steer the story through irreversible choices. The product blends game-like branching decisions with long-form narrative generation.

Key Features

• Three-beat narrative engine — AI lays out the story skeleton, chapter direction, and major fate nodes.
• Reader-driven branching — users define identity, background, temperament, and choose between major paths at key moments.
• Irreversible choices — a run is treated as one life, with choices affecting survival, relationships, and story outcome.
• Fourteen-volume structure — the world is organized around multiple classic wuxia source worlds and timelines.
• Archive model — users can start new legends, continue saved runs, and eventually share completed biographies.

Product Design

The interface is intentionally literary: bilingual labels, classical Chinese visual rhythm, and a chapter/archive structure that makes the app feel closer to a living book than a generic chat interface. The AI system is designed to support plot continuity while leaving meaningful agency to the reader.

What I Learned

• Interactive fiction needs stronger state and continuity controls than a normal chatbot.
• Narrative UX works best when the interface itself reinforces the story world.
• Choice architecture matters: too much freedom weakens plot momentum, while irreversible decisions make each branch feel consequential.

Tech Stack

Next.js, TypeScript, Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, Vercel, interactive narrative design, branching story state