Feedback, Moderation, and Progression Systems

Following the last update on UX optimization and marketplace foundations, this entry focuses on the systems around discovery, feedback, and moderation. The parts that need to be solid before public testing scales.

Achievements are now live for both Bards and Dreamers, alongside player badges that highlight special roles such as Founding Bards. Reviews have been integrated directly into the story page and the Bard editor, so feedback is visible where it is most actionable. I also simplified the story creation flow, finalized the moderator admin panel, and added a reporting system that allows stories and reviews to be flagged for guideline violations. Along the way, I optimized the application menu and several smaller UI and UX elements to reduce friction across the app.

Version: App: v0.8.0 - API: v0.9.1-507f823

Achievements are meant to provide light structure and long term progression without turning Talescape into a checklist driven experience. There are general achievements, as well as separate ones for Dreamers and Bards, covering both playing and creating stories.

Most achievements unlock automatically through normal use of the platform. Some are intentionally hidden and only become visible once they are unlocked, while a small number are granted manually for special cases or community related contributions. All achievements are shared with Steam and will double as Steam Achievements once the integration is live.

You can always view your full achievement progress in the achievements overview. If you choose to make your user profile public, your unlocked achievements will also be visible there, serving as a lightweight snapshot of your activity and experience on the platform.

Bards and Dreamers can choose to make their profile publicly accessible. A public profile acts as a lightweight hub that aggregates what you have created and what you have achieved so far. It shows your published stories and your unlocked achievements, making it easy for others to get a quick overview without having to dig through the story browser.

For Bards, this will become more important once the public web experience is fully live. Bard profiles will be indexable by search engines and will effectively double as a portfolio page for your Talescape work. You will be able to link to your profile directly, share it externally, and redirect Dreamers to your stories. All public profiles will be accessible through the Talescape website, so they work both inside the app and as a simple public facing presence.

Dreamers can also follow Bard profiles. If they do, they will receive notifications whenever a new story is published or an existing one is updated, making it easier to stay connected to authors they care about without relying on external channels.

Reviews are now fully integrated into the story page and are also accessible directly from the Bard editor. This keeps feedback close to the place where it can actually be acted on, without having to switch contexts or rely on external tools.

In addition to a rating and an optional written comment, Dreamers can select up to three emotions they experienced during gameplay. These emotional responses are the counterpart to the emotion tags set by Bards when publishing a story. Above the review list, the aggregated percentages of all selected emotions are displayed, giving a compact overview of how a story is perceived. Reviews can also be filtered by emotion, which can help identify patterns and potential mismatches between intended tone and actual player experience. This information can be used to adjust emotion tags or refine the writing itself.

Stories and reviews can now be reported for guideline violations. Alongside this, a support messaging system has been added. All open reports and support requests are visible in one place, and creators can communicate directly with moderators when clarification or follow up is needed.

The first draft of the earnings page is now in place. It provides a transparent overview of all payments you have received, including their source, status, and resulting profit. This is meant to give creators a clear picture of how their stories are performing financially across different platforms.

The next step will be the payout logic, which will allow you to withdraw your current balance. Payments are withheld for a limited period of time, typically until the refund window of the respective store has ended. For that reason, pending payments are listed separately from the available balance, so it is always clear which funds are already settled and which are still on hold.

With these systems in place, the focus now shifts toward presentation and the last remaining player facing flows. The immediate next steps are creating the first trailers aimed at Bards and finishing the purchase workflow for Dreamers, so both creation and consumption are covered end to end.