about
Hi, I'm Allie.
she / her
I write and code romance visual novels under the name Birdbrain Interactive. Solo indie dev, interactive fiction writer, long-time Twine devotee.
what i make
Queer romance visual novels.
I make romance visual novels: short, character-driven, branching stories where the choices you make about how to love someone (or not) shape the ending. The games are inclusive by design — whoever you are, you're welcome here. I'm drawn to the genre because it's one of the few mediums that lets a reader sit inside another person's heart for a few hours.
how i make it
Mostly in Twine.
I work in Twine. It's a small, elegant tool for hypertext fiction, and after years of trying other engines I keep coming back to it; it gets out of the way and lets the writing lead. I draft prose first, structure later. The pastel-terminal aesthetic of this site is on purpose: my games are software, but they're also love letters, and the design should hold both at once.
why i make it
Games that don't leave you out.
Growing up, I was a video game kid. The Harry Potter games, The Sims, Max Payne — I loved all of it. But around sixteen, when I finished school, I started getting motion sick. Didn't matter what I tried: resting my eyes, changing glasses, taking breaks. The dizziness didn't care. I never actually finished the Harry Potter games because of it. The sixth one I played on a borrowed laptop and still couldn't get through it.
It wasn't until university that I found visual novels and otome games and realized I could play again. No camera sweeping through 3D space, no fast-moving graphics — just story, choices, art. I could play for hours without a problem. That changed everything.
It's also why accessibility isn't an afterthought for me. Growing up, I'd often fall in love with a game only to find out my computer was too slow to run it. Most visual novels are light by design, and that's not an accident in what I make. I want my games to run on a phone, on an old laptop, without issue. If you can open a browser, you can play.
about me
Off the keyboard.
By training, I'm a psychologist. By obsession, I'm a passionate developer. Day-to-day you'll find me reading, writing, and starting one too many projects.
I believe love is the most powerful force in the world. I also believe love is never enough on its own. You have to do the work. Every story I write lives somewhere in the space between those two truths.