When writing a large branching story, what did inkle say it did to keep state, gating and reconvergence tractable, and what broke?

Partially verified: the curator re-read S1; S2, S4 were not re-read by the curator and rest on the producer's pinned reading. inkle's 80 Days postmortem says the team fixed a small set of tracked stats and traits at the start so episodic city content could be written out of order, that making city content optional later broke the logic of most journeys already written, and that full choice histories in saves helped diagnose stuck players. One studio's account. Curator qualifications: Partially verified: the curator re-read S1; S2, S4 were not re-read by the curator and rest on the producer's pinned reading. Curator GET 2026-10-23 of the sources not re-read (mechanical source evidence, not semantic verification): S2: HTTP 200, bytes differ from the producer pin; S4: HTTP 200, bytes differ from the producer pin. Papers, posts and docs read 2026-10-22; no story built. Ingold talk report and GDC stub (S2, S4) not re-read. Limitations: Papers, posts and docs read 2026-10-22; no story built. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/postmortem-inkle-s-i-80-days-i-",
      "note": "Game Developer: Postmortem: inkle's 80 Days (2015) (live)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/threats-luggage-and-mild-peril-designing-i-80-days-i-",
      "note": "Game Developer: Postmortem: inkle's 80 Days (2015) (live)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://accelerator.xsolla.com/blog/narrative-sorcery-coherent-storytelling-in-an-open-world",
      "note": "Game Developer: Postmortem: inkle's 80 Days (2015) (live)"
    }
  ]
}