This update brings a significant set of changes across both the editor and the marketplace foundations. The workflow for events and the scene editor was optimized with a strong focus on usability, reducing friction and visual noise during creation. At the same time, the first functional versions of the marketplace dashboard, stories browser, and story details page were implemented, establishing the structure for discovery and presentation on the player side.

Version: App: v0.7.1 - API: v0.9.1-a565d52

The first major part of this update is the marketplace dashboard, which defines the main entry point for story discovery. The dashboard is structured into a small number of clearly defined sections, each serving a specific purpose. Together, these sections define how stories are surfaced and navigated from the dashboard, establishing the core discovery layer of the marketplace.

At the top, the Dream Types act as the primary entry points into the catalog. Each Dream Type represents a distinct narrative tone and intent and leads directly into a corresponding set of stories.

Below that, Featured by Talescape highlights selected stories. This section is used to surface specific titles independently of release order or update activity.

Newest Stories lists recently published stories in chronological order, making new additions immediately visible. Recently Updated complements this by showing stories that have changed since their initial release, allowing returning users to quickly spot ongoing development or revisions.

Further down, Explore by Emotion provides an additional discovery path based on emotional tags. This allows users to browse laterally across Dream Types and genres using mood as the primary filter, without opening the full browser or filter interface.

The stories browser is the first view where the catalog is exposed as a whole. It turns the abstract discovery paths from the dashboard into a concrete list of stories that can be scanned, compared, and narrowed down.

Stories are displayed in a dense grid layout, with each entry surfacing the information needed to make a quick decision: cover image, title, age rating, price tier, tags, and basic engagement counters. The goal here is fast visual comparison without forcing Dreamers to open individual detail pages.

Filtering is handled through a collapsible side panel. It allows refinement by Dream Type, emotions, topics, genres, age groups, pricing, and language. All filters are combinable and applied immediately, making it possible to progressively narrow the catalog instead of restarting searches.

From the stories browser, Dreamers move into the story details page, which consolidates all relevant information for a single story in one place.

The page is split into a main content area and a secondary details column. The main area focuses on the story itself, with title, author, preview images, and a full description. This is where Dreamers get the narrative context and decide whether the story aligns with their interests.

The details column exposes all structured metadata. This includes age rating, price tier, emotions, genres, topics, content warnings, and AI usage disclosures. By separating descriptive text from structured tags, the page keeps reading and evaluation clearly distinct.

Below this, achievements and basic statistics provide additional context without dominating the page. Together, these elements define how a story is presented, evaluated, and prepared for purchase or play.

After laying down the marketplace foundations, the focus shifted back to the editor. The scene editor was heavily streamlined and optimized. All scene elements were rewritten and expanded.

Where the editor previously only supported image, item, trigger, and text elements, most elements are now new and explicitly typed. Each element now has a dedicated icon, making it easier to distinguish when working in complex scenes.

Element creation and configuration were simplified. Frequently used actions are available immediately, while less common options were moved into advanced settings that are hidden by default.

Element behavior was clarified:

• Image elements open the image browser directly
• Exit and Detail Scene elements allow immediate scene selection
• Character elements link directly to character pose selection
• Item elements open the item browser
• Interact and Inspect elements allow choosing between interaction modes
• Text elements remain unchanged

The selection of actions and conditions was reworked across events, dialogue options, and scene elements.

Actions and conditions are now presented in dedicated selection views that support searching and filtering. Each entry includes a short description, making it easier to understand what it does before selecting it. This reduces the need to rely on naming alone and lowers friction when working with larger sets of logic.

The same selection workflow is used consistently wherever actions and conditions are configured, making event setup more predictable and faster to work with.

The remaining work centers on the purchase flow and how Dreamers start, continue, and complete stories, including reviews and completion state. After that, the payout system will be implemented to support publishing once the platform goes live.

That’s it for this update. Happy holidays, and thank you for following the project.

This update introduces three major improvements:

1. A rebuilt dialogue system with multi-speaker support, active highlighting, and faster editing tools. Developed with direct feedback from the Talescape community.
2. New character pose workflow, allowing reusable expressions, global updates, portrait overrides, and quick syncing between dialogue lines.
3. A redesigned tagging system for the marketplace, built around Emotions, Genres, and Topics. Emotions are now a two-way system between Bards and Dreamers.

The editor is now significantly faster, clearer, and better prepared for longer stories and professional workflows.

Version: App: v0.6.0 - API: v0.8.0-0f9caaa

The dialogue system has undergone the largest structural redesign so far. Instead of assuming a single active speaker per line, Talescape now supports scenes where multiple characters are present, each with their own pose, placement, and visibility state. This change was developed directly with feedback from the community.

The new features include:

• Multiple characters per line
• Active speaker highlighting
• Per-speaker pose selection
• Collapsible speaker lists
• Better previews in the editing panel
• Character syncing between lines (explained below)

The structure is now stable enough to support advanced dialogue workflows without needing another redesign later.

The new character pose system focuses on convenience and speed, not complexity. In many editors, expression management becomes tedious quickly, especially in large dialogues. Talescape now streamlines this process.

Reusability

You define poses inside the character editor (for example: Neutral, Angry, Surprised).
Updating a pose image there updates it everywhere it is used, automatically.

This prevents drifting styles and saves time when improving character artwork.

One-off portraits still supported

If you prefer not to use poses, you can continue selecting manual portrait images on each dialogue line.
This is ideal for:

• temporary expressions
• experimental scenes
• placeholder art during early drafts

Poses are optional, not mandatory.

Line syncing

One of the most helpful improvements is the ability to sync characters between dialogue lines. If a character appears in multiple consecutive lines, Talescape can carry over:

• their presence
• their current pose
• their placement

This removes the repetitive clicking common in VN editors and makes editing long conversations much faster.

Why this matters

The goal is to reduce friction. Stories with many expressions or multiple characters on screen should not become harder to author just because the scene is visually complex.

A major addition to the marketplace workflow is the redesigned tagging system. Instead of a single generic tag list, Talescape now uses three structured layers: Emotions, Genres & Topics.

Each serves a different purpose.

Emotions

This is the biggest conceptual change. Emotions are not just descriptors. They form a two-way communication system between Bards and Dreamers.

• Bards select the emotions they intend to evoke.
• Dreamers select the emotions they actually felt when leaving reviews.

The Bard’s dashboard then shows alignment or misalignment between intention and reader experience. This is especially useful for:

• serialized works evolving over many chapters
• tonal experimentation
• refining pacing and atmosphere

Genres

Genres describe the structural type of the story:
adventure, dystopian, romance, psychological, slice of life, etc.

Genres are used for filtering and discovery.

Topics

Topics describe what the story is about, independent of genre:
loneliness, identity, climate, folklore, community, memory, local history.

Separating Genres and Topics prevents noisy tag lists and makes story discovery more accurate.

Alongside the major systems, several quality-of-life improvements were added:

• Optimized the media browser & upload workflow
• Clearer selectors for models and events
• Adjustments to the Checks system to match the new dialogue and pose workflows
• Small but important behavioral fixes

These changes make the editor more coherent and predictable, especially for Bards working on larger stories.

The upcoming phases will focus on:

• Optimizing and stream lining the scene editor
• Finalizing the publishing workflow
• Connecting validated releases directly to the marketplace
• Preparing for closed testing with the first invited Bards
• Preparing mobile and Steam builds for broader preview access

Beginning with this entry, I want to go into more detail about individual features and decisions. The updates from here on will be smaller, more focused, and therefore deserve more precise explanations.

It has only been a few days since I more or less shadow-released the website and the Steam page. Even without any real announcement, things became noticeably more dynamic almost immediately. More people found the platform than expected at this stage, and the pace of communication increased accordingly. This makes it necessary to be more structured and transparent with development updates from now on.

Version: App v0.5.0 - API v0.7.0-9aaf877

The documentation is now integrated directly into the editor interface.

• A small doctor hat icon (I still don’t know the correct English term...graduation cap?) has been added to the upper right corner of the app.
• Clicking on it opens the documentation or tutorial article relevant to the current page.
• Several UI sections that require deeper explanation (for example the Actions interface) now include contextual documentation links.

A full searchable documentation browser is also included, allowing users to read any article without leaving the editor. This is the first step toward making the editor self-explanatory and reducing friction for new Bards once testing starts.

2FA is now implemented end-to-end.

• Can be enabled in the user settings.
• It becomes mandatory for Bards who want to sell stories and set up a payout profile.
• Works with Google Authenticator and similar TOTP-compatible apps.

The goal is to increase account security before real payments become part of the platform.

Users can now link multiple OAuth providers to the same account.

• This is useful if someone loses access to one of their login methods.
• Any connected provider can be used to sign in.
• Configuration happens in the user settings.

This should reduce support problems later and gives users more control over their account access.

I started implementing reusable character poses this week. That led me to notice something structural: right now, each dialogue line only supports a single active character. This comes from my RPG background, where dialogue is typically one speaker at a time.

But in visual novels and other narrative games, multiple characters often appear on screen simultaneously, each with their own expression or pose. Even if it's not required for every story, it’s the correct foundation to build on.

Because of this, I’m going to rework the dialogue system partially:

• Introduce support for multiple characters per dialogue line.
• Update the renderer to place and update each character individually.
• Integrate character poses into this new structure instead of bolting them onto the old one.

This will take a bit longer, but it prevents painting myself into a corner later.

I quietly started searching for illustrator-writers, mostly on Reddit for now. The first two posts gained a lot of traction but resulted in a manageable number of DMs.

The post in r/gamedevclassifieds, however, caused my inbox to blow up almost immediately. Sorting through everything will take time. If I take a while to respond, that’s the reason. I didn’t expect that level of activity this early.

The first Talescape Originals will likely be difficult to coordinate, and I’m trying not to get pulled too deeply into this phase while the platform still needs finishing. But the process has started, and I will review all submissions carefully.