AI NPCs vs Yarn Spinner, Ink and articy:draft - When to Use Which
"Should we use AI NPCs or a dialogue tool?" is one of the most common questions we hear from narrative teams. It is usually the wrong question. Authored dialogue and AI characters do different jobs, and the best games will use both.
Authored dialogue tools
| Tool | What it is | Engines | AI features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yarn Spinner | Open-source screenplay-style dialogue language | Unity, Godot, Unreal (pre-release) | None, by design |
| Ink | inkle's open-source narrative scripting language | Unity, web, Unreal via a community plugin | None |
| articy:draft X | Narrative design and game content database | Unity and Unreal importers | Design-time AI drafting and voice-over with your own OpenAI and ElevenLabs accounts |
| Dialogue System for Unity | All-in-one dialogue and quest framework | Unity | Paid add-on for generative lines with your own provider keys |
These tools are about control. Every line is written, reviewed, localised and voiced. Yarn Spinner's team says it directly: they build tools for people who want to write. For story-critical scenes, that is exactly what you want.
AI characters
An AI character platform like Neocortex works the other way round. You define who the character is, their personality, emotion, knowledge, world and goals, and the character responds to whatever the player says.
That is what you want for:
- Open-ended conversations players can steer.
- Characters who answer questions about your world without you scripting every question.
- Replayable interactions that are different each time.
- Voice input, where players speak instead of picking options.
Side by side
| Authored dialogue | Neocortex AI characters | |
|---|---|---|
| Player input | Choose from options | Type or speak freely |
| Writer control | Every line | Personality, knowledge, guardrails and story beats |
| Content cost | Grows with every branch | Grows with character depth, not branch count |
| Localisation | Translate every line | Characters speak 20+ languages |
| Voice-over | Record or generate every line | Generated live in the character's voice |
| Best for | Story-critical scenes | Open conversation, reactive worlds |
How to combine them
- Keep authored scenes authored. Use Yarn Spinner, Ink, articy or Dialogue System for cutscenes and key story beats.
- Give the world a voice. Use Neocortex for shopkeepers, companions, quest givers and townsfolk players can talk to freely.
- Share state. Pass flags and variables from your dialogue tool to Neocortex as context, and let Neocortex actions set flags back.
- Add structure where it matters. Neocortex Conversation Flows steer an AI character through a story beat and tell your game when a checkpoint is reached, so free conversation still lands where your story needs it.
Why narrative teams like Neocortex
The visual node editor feels familiar to anyone who has used a dialogue graph, but instead of writing every line, writers shape the character. Everyone on the team can test a character in the browser before it goes into the game.
Related comparisons
Tool details were last checked in October 2026.
Written by
Sercan Altundas
Date
Oct 17, 2026
Read time
5 min
