There's a particular kind of frustration that comes from having a great idea and no good way to execute it. For Heather, that frustration was the spark behind Iffly: a browser-based game writing tool that lets anyone create text-based interactive fiction without writing a single line of code.
Heather is a writer. That's where everything starts. And Iffly makes a lot more sense once you understand that the person who invented it didn’t come from tech; she came from the world of storytelling.
From the Redwall Universe to a Startup
Before Iffly, Heather was the head writer at a game studio in Oregon, leading narrative development on 3D adventure games and working on an interactive fiction app featuring stories from the beloved Redwall universe. It was a job she loved. It was also where she first noticed the problem she'd eventually build her career around.
"The other writers and I were working on the stories, and it was really, really fun," she recalls. "But we found that it was quite challenging to just... write. Even the simpler tools out there, like Twine, are awesome, but they can be intimidating for new writers who have no code experience."
That’s how the idea for Iffly was born. But she never had the chance to do anything about it until she was laid off by that game studio. Despite facing the loss of what was her dream job, she used the newfound time and space to explore her software idea further.
"I didn't have the time or bandwidth to create something like this while I was working in video games full time," she says. "But after I was laid off, I sat down and designed it all out. That process was a new kind of creativity: it stretched me to think completely outside of anything I’d ever done. Developing a new tool is a whole different set of skills."
Writers First. Always.
From the beginning, Heather had one non-negotiable design principle: no code. Ever.
"This is a tool for writers above all else," she says. "I never want a writer's flow to be stopped while they try to think, 'Wait, what was that one programming command?' I want it to be really simple — keyboard commands, easy to use."
In Iffly, writers just write. A simple keyboard shortcut creates a choice button. Another creates a new story block. A built-in reader mode lets you flip between writing and experiencing your story as a player would. No documentation to consult, no syntax to memorize.
It's an approach that earned Iffly a software patent — and a growing community of writers who'd never considered making games before.
Building Something New
Turning a vision into a product is rarely as clean as it looks from the outside, and Heather is straightforward about that.
"The product takes time to build," she says. "I pictured it in my mind and wanted it to work perfectly right away. But developers are incredible people with amazing skill sets that I do not have. I can picture the tool and describe how I want it to work, but it still takes time and effort to get it built — and waiting for that can be a real challenge."
What she learned along the way: trust your team, and mean it.
"Trusting your team is absolutely number one. A lot of times, trust is a choice. When something is taking longer than I want it to take, it's really tempting to switch into this mindset of the entitled CEO: 'Why isn't this working? Make it happen faster.' That's unproductive. It's unkind. It's disrespectful to the work your devs are doing."
The better approach, she says, is a choice you have to actively make. "People do their best work when they feel trusted. That only happens if you take the risk and actually trust them."
That conviction came from hard experience. Her first development team disappeared partway through building Iffly, leaving the project in limbo. That stressful setback made Heather want to control everything herself to prevent it from happening again. When a new developer came on and helped save the project, she had to consciously choose to let go of that protective impulse. "Just because that happened before doesn't mean it will happen again," she says. "And if I act like it will, I'll cause really detrimental harm to my relationship with this new team, who are simply wonderful. They’re amazing.”
A Life in Many Chapters
Iffly is a passion project built in the margins of a busy life. Heather is raising three small kids, renovating a 1901 Victorian house with her husband, and working a day job in a tech company's marketing department. She also writes novels and plays in her spare time, loves reading fantasy, and studied theater in school — including a four-year stint in Los Angeles, where she gave acting a real shot.
"It didn't work out, obviously," she says with a laugh, "but I got a few small roles and it was a wonderful experience. I don't regret trying."
That range — performance, narrative, theater, games — gives her a grounded instinct for what makes interactive stories work, and it feeds directly into her vision for what Iffly should be.
"At a time when publishing is harder and harder to get into, gaming is harder and harder to get into, and layoffs are happening everywhere — I feel really passionate about giving writers more opportunities," she says. "This is an indie publishing path, to be sure, but it's a new option. It gives writers the chance to create and sell their own games in a really simple, accessible way."
What's Next for Iffly
The goal is straightforward: grow and support the community, build more premium features to make the platform self-sustaining, and see writers publish games they're proud of.
"We want writers who have never made games before to be publishing and selling their games," she says. "In a way they wouldn't have been able to otherwise."
Interactive fiction is a growing corner of the gaming market, and she sees Iffly as an entry point for writers who've been locked out of it — not because they lack talent, but because the existing tools assumed technical knowledge they didn't have. The platform isn't trying to compete with big studios. It's opening a door.
For Heather, that mission is personal. She knows what it's like to love storytelling in all its forms — novels, plays, games, performance — and to keep finding new ways to pursue it even when the path doesn't go as planned. Iffly, in a lot of ways, is the thing she was always building toward; she just didn't know it yet.
Iffly is free to use at iffly.co. Try it for yourself.