Storium is free to play! Free players get access to most of Storium, with a few limitations:
| Free players | Members | |
|---|---|---|
| Playing games | Up to 3 at a time | Unlimited |
| Hosting games | Single narrator, short story, 8 character slots max | Unlimited |
| Access to library of original art |
No | Yes |
| Members-only forum | No | Yes |
| Status badge | No | Yes |
| Building and sharing your own worlds |
No | Coming soon |
| New game features | No | Coming soon |
Storium is funded by its players. Users who choose to become paid members are able to play Storium without any of the limits listed above. Member support also gives us the resources we need to operate and improve Storium, to grow our team, and to move faster.
Storium began life as a crowdfunded project, and that ethos of community support remains deeply ingrained in how we operate. Therefore, we allow you to choose your own membership fee.
The suggested monthly rate for Storium membership is just $5 — a great value, and much less expensive than most other online games.
We’ve worked hard to keep Storium affordable, but if you don’t have the financial means to contribute at the suggested rate, that’s OK: you can choose a discounted rate all the way down to $3 per month — less than the price of a latte. Annual membership plans are also available, which offer further discounts for those who are interested.
If you are able to contribute more than the suggested rate, you can do that, too. Every additional contribution helps by giving us even more resources to make Storium better. You’ll have our deepest thanks and appreciation!
Your membership fee is collected either once per month or year, depending on the plan you choose. Storium accepts major credit cards and PayPal, and we use a secure, market-leading payment system. Your personal payment information is never stored on our servers.
Your membership automatically renews each month or year. You can cancel this automatic renewal at anytime, in which case you will not be charged again and your current membership will continue until its normal expiration date.
Our Kickstarter funded a library of over sixty original “worlds” — playsets written by professional novelists and game designers. Worlds give you tools and content that help you tell stories in a given style or setting. Roughly forty of these worlds are available now, with more coming soon.
These worlds are currently only available to players who have purchased “The Deal,” a one-time purchase of $20. “The Deal” gives you full access to every available Kickstarter world, and instant access to the remaining ones once they become available. In order to purchase ”The Deal” you must be a paid member.
In the future, we plan to offer a marketplace for worlds, where anyone can create, share, and — if they want — sell their worlds to other players. At that time, all of our Kickstarter worlds will be available for sale individually. We don’t yet know what prices our authors will choose, so “The Deal” is very likely exactly that: a great deal! We won’t be offering it after our marketplace launches, so act now.
To purchase “The Deal” first become a paid member, and then visit our Kickstarter worlds page and look for the button!
If you are a free user, games that you host are limited to:
Character slots are filled by active characters, pending invitations, and pending character hand-offs. Character slots can be freed-up by retiring or deleting characters, deleting pending invitations, or canceling pending character hand-offs.
If you are a free user, you can only play characters in up to 3 games at a time. Note that characters in “suspended” games count against this limit, since the host has the power to un-suspend the game at any time.
If you’re at your limit and want to join another game, you can retire or hand-off your character(s) in one of your games.
If you’re a member and then later allow your membership to lapse, you’ll once again be considered a free player.
This means that any games you’re hosting that exceed the free game limits described above will be paused and unable to continue. You’ll be able to un-pause them by either modifying those games to meet the limits or by renewing your membership.
Letting your membership lapse also means that if you’re playing characters in more than 3 games you won’t be able to play at all until you retire or hand-off the extra characters.
We’re here! Just drop us a line at membership@storium.com and we’ll get right back to you.