A Fresh Look & more Polish

The next version of Talescape is available. The main change is a redesign that brings the app in line with the Talescape website. The release also adds customizable player controls, scene transitions, ongoing speaker effects, several editor workflow improvements and passwordless email login.

The app now follows the design already used on the Talescape website. This replaces the previous blue and purple interface, which was based on Tailwind Plus. Unfortunately that look is now infamous for being used by vibe coded software. Funfact: I actually paid for a Tailwind Plus license. Money well spent, I guess.

The redesign covers the main interface, editor and marketplace, including their cards, buttons and panels. Ink and slate surfaces now provide the base, while muted blue accents are used more selectively. Decorative gradients have been removed mostly.

The Dream Type badges have also been refreshed. Their colors are reflected in the built-in player palettes: lilac and mauve for Daydream, brown and parchment for Echo, teal for Vision and charcoal with dark red for Nightmare.

Please note that screenshots in documentation and on Steam or itch.io might still use the old design. I'll update them as soon as possible.

Keyboard controls are now available. Bindings can be customized in the player settings. Keyboard controls cover advancing dialogue and narration, selecting choices, moving between scene objects and inventory items, inspecting and using objects, applying items and combining them.

Dialogue can also advance automatically. The reading speed is adjustable and automatic progression pauses whenever the player needs to make a choice.

New scene markers make available actions easier to identify. An eye marks objects that can be inspected and a pointer marks objects that can be interacted with.

The player now displays progress while preparing a story’s media. Downloaded assets are cached locally and reused on later loads, reducing the amount of data that needs to be fetched again. This is not a complete offline mode yet. Content may still need to be loaded from the server.

Scene changes can now use one of several transitions: Crossfade, Fade through black, Fade through white, Blur dissolve, Shift left, Shift right or no transition at all (well, that's just how it was before).

The transition is selected when a scene change is configured, so different changes within the same story can use different effects. Crossfade blends the two scenes, the fade options pass through black or white, Blur dissolve softens the image during the change, and the shift options move the view horizontally.

In addition to the one-off animations for speakers, the default dialogue style now supports ongoing effects for speaker portraits. Unlike the one-shot speaker animations added in an earlier release, these effects continue for as long as they are active.

Glitch applies intermittent changes to the portrait’s position, tint, opacity and scale, making it suitable for effects such as a disrupted transmission. Pulse changes the scale at a regular rhythm, while Breathe uses slower and more subtle scale changes to suggest breathing.

Speaker portraits can now also be flipped horizontally or vertically, positioned with direct offsets and placed on different layers.

New story, menu and marketplace previews make it possible to check playback, menu styling and marketplace presentation while editing, without going through the corresponding release workflow first.

Media files can now be imported individually from an asset pack. Importing the complete pack is no longer necessary when only one or two assets are needed.

Automatic dialogue arrangement has been updated to handle branching conversations and paths that reconnect more reliably. This produces a clearer initial layout before any manual adjustments are made.

Talescape accounts can now be registered and accessed with an email address. A verification code is sent by email for each sign-in, so no password is required.

New accounts no longer require approval. Email accounts receive Dreamer access and can be used to play stories. To unlock the authoring features available to Bards, an external account must also be connected.

• Fixed false loop warnings for converging dialogue branches.
• Fixed unnecessary scrolling in short dialogue text.
• Corrected dialogue portrait positioning.
• Fixed chapter preloading so required media is ready before chapter-start events run.
• Fixed scene-element animation scaling.
• Fixed cleanup of scene-specific atmospheres when deleting scenes.
• Corrected the cloud-atmosphere slider’s adjustment increments.
• Improved achievement-image validation.
• Fixed promotional-video retries when the original render request is missing.
• Added webm playback support for journal articles.
• Fixed story-header rendering.
• Improved error messages for payouts.