Short answer: Click a dialogue line on the Stage and type straight into the real textbox - real font, real position, with the backdrop, sprites, and namebox live behind it. Bold, italics, wave, vibrate, glitch, slow, color, and size all render as you type; you never see raw formatting codes. Press Enter to save the line and keep writing (Forge opens a fresh empty line for you), Shift+Enter for a line break, Cmd/Ctrl+Enter to save and exit, and Esc to discard. The speaker control above the box switches between narration, a cast member, or a custom name with its own namebox color.
Type into the real textbox
Click a dialogue or narration line on the Stage (or use the Narration mode button near the top of the stage) and the caret lands inside the actual textbox. The game holds still while you type - clicks won't advance the story mid-edit. You edit one line at a time; the prompt text on a choice is edited from the timeline instead.
Formatting renders as you type
The toolbar above the textbox has bold and italic buttons, plus a Style tray with wave, vibrate, glitch, slow, text color, and text size. Everything renders live in the box exactly as it plays back. The one nuance: slow and glitch do their real work during the text reveal, so while editing you see a marked preview of where they apply rather than the reveal itself.
The keys
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enter | Save and continue - the line saves and a fresh empty line opens right after it, so you can keep writing |
| Shift+Enter | Line break inside the same line (the textbox holds up to four lines) |
| Cmd/Ctrl+Enter | Save and exit |
| Cmd/Ctrl+Up / Down | Jump to the previous or next dialogue line in the scene - your changes save first |
| Esc | Discard your changes to this line and exit |
The stacked arrows at the toolbar's left edge do the same hop with the mouse; either way Forge skips past non-dialogue events and stops at the scene's edges.
If you back out and leave that fresh Enter-created line empty, Forge removes it - no stray blank lines are left behind. Lines you already wrote are never touched by backing out.
Choosing who speaks
The speaker control above the box has three modes:
- Narration - no namebox; the line reads as narration.
- Cast member - pick someone from your cast. Their name and namebox color come from the character itself, so renaming a character later updates every line they speak.
- Custom name - type any name and give it its own namebox color. Good for one-off or mysterious speakers.
A custom name can also carry a text variable: pick it from the variable menu beside the name field and it appears as a pill. During play the reader sees the variable's current value - which is how a speaker named after whatever the reader typed works. The Insert menu in the toolbar drops a text variable into the line's text the same way.
Importing from Ren'Py
Imported lines arrive with their speaker names as plain text. When you open one and the name matches someone in your cast, the speaker control pre-selects that cast member, and your next save links the line to them - from then on, renaming the character updates that line too.