TalebenchWhat’s new
What changed in Talebench, a section per day, newest first.
Crossing a room in a dungeon, the party walks the shortest way through it: a trap, a battle or a scene on the way happens where it stands, before the party gets where it was going. · 1 change
Updates that day: Walking through rooms · Rooms bigger than a cell · A roomier dungeon editor · Foes that walk the dungeon · Deepwatch, a dungeon crawl to play · Spinners, pits, pressure plates and dungeon sounds · The whole dungeon map, and moving by hand · Dungeons from inside, on paper and with secrets · Dungeons to explore
Other
- When something on our side fails, the editor says so and no longer blames what you typed.
When saving a version, renaming or deleting a file, a comment, a note or a style does not go through, the editor says so and keeps what you typed. · 3 changes
Updates that day: Clearer when something goes wrong · Losing need not end the game · Lines in any order, names that read · Settings that fit, weapons that count · Quicker pages, sturdier library · A library that stays quick · A readable menu in every look · Clear dice over any scene · A steady sidebar · Tab when you type fast
Other
- Publishing and the library wait less and recover better when something is slow.
- The start page, the changelog and published games answer about three times as fast under many visitors.
- Security updates for the parts Talebench runs on, and tighter limits on what pages may use.
A language a script adds through the API starts hidden from players; you offer it in the Translations panel once it is done. · 5 changes
Updates that day: Big stories stay quick · Fairer armour hints · Conversations as deep as you like · Every line readable · Portraits as you framed them · Safer translation scripts · Translations and files through the API · Planned battles fit a laptop; decks checked more closely · No two of the same name in your lists · One click for two of the same name; Strength shown in the throw · Pictures in any language; two versions of one person stay apart
Other
- A language a script adds through the API starts hidden from players; you offer it in the Translations panel once it is done.
- The public API reads and writes a language's translations, with the same checks as the editor's import, and takes files in and out (counted against your storage, with short-lived download links).
- A key may now upload 500 files an hour, enough to bring in a whole project at once.
- An upload that never finished stops taking room in your storage after an hour instead of a day.
- The book: the "not twice in a row" table has a way out when only one card is left, and camp marks count cards drawn as a visit and options inside replies.
Sounds made with AI now understand descriptions in German and other languages: the description is turned into a short English sound prompt first, so heavy rain sounds like rain and not like footsteps. · 4 changes
Updates that day: Sounds from a description in any language · See every visit in the preview · One tap shows the whole line · Only if a choice was made · Play takes the keyboard into the game · Undo that says what it undoes · Copy, a level in between, and where an option leads · Dice battles that hold still on a phone · The dialogue editor as a grid · Dice battles that stay in place · Combinations with a look of their own · Dice effects shown as intended · Game cards that tell more · Tidy game cards · The start page knows you · Health that only counts down · Dice battles that read cleanly
Other
- Game cards show their facts, creator, stars and plays in one line.
- A game card on the start page and in the library names its creator (a link to their games), its stars once 5 players have rated it, how often it was played once that is 100 or more, and New for its first 14 days.
- A game card on the start page and in the library shows at most three lines of its description, so a long one no longer stretches the grid; the whole text is on the game’s page.
- Signed in, the start page and the library no longer ask you to log in: they show My projects, New project on the start page, and your name as a menu with your games, the games you follow, your account and Log out.
Dice battles come alive: the dice tumble into the tray, knock into each other and settle with a wobble; you hear the shake, the roll on wood or felt, the clacks and a sting for every combination. · 2 changes
Updates that day: Faster, smoother dice rounds · A steady story map · Clearer dice battles on every screen · Dice that roll on a tray · Your saves in your account, combinations in defence · Fairer and clearer dice battles · A tidier dialogue editor · Dice that feel real · Your turn in the dice tray · Weapons and shields, a dialogue editor · Dice that land one by one, and skills paid with a die · Aim high, middle or low · Counter attacks
Other
- Printed books of dice games now print the dice rules, the combinations, Armour, hit zones, reroll boxes, tricks, weapons and shields.
- The demo games keep their links when they are updated.
Workspace owners can make "API keys" for their own tools (imports, spreadsheets, voice studios): "Read only" or "Read and change", for all projects or only chosen ones, with an end date. · 4 changes
Updates that day: A run of three · See the throw you face · Hidden dice · Replies that stay, found at once · Options to passages you already have · Dice tricks · Real dice, and who starts · Defend with your own dice · Gentler critical throws · Your own throw in the log · Dice battles to try · Lighter games, keys for your own tools · Games that remember, pages that invite · A lore book that fills itself · Fights that end without a fall · Fights that belong to their scene · Larger text on large screens, quicker shared links · A map that stays put, and a first game without surprises
Other
- Workspace owners can make "API keys" for their own tools (imports, spreadsheets, voice studios): "Read only" or "Read and change", for all projects or only chosen ones, with an end date. A key is shown once, can be revoked at any time, and every change it makes is in the project's history.
- The changelog page opens faster.
- The manuscript of one chapter links only to what it contains, and its German notes read naturally.
- AI tools connected to Talebench are told which actions change your story, so they ask before changing it.
The printed adventure sheet starts empty where the book asks you to roll or choose, the printed sentences are whole, "What do you do?" stays with its options, and the page estimate matches the book. · 14 changes
Updates that day: The writing view in your words, and a book you can play · Games that pick up where you left them · Writing that never loses a word · Projects come first, and come back · The map keeps still · Saved battles go on · Help for the new ways of writing · Writing on, faster
Other
- The printed adventure sheet starts empty where the book asks you to roll or choose, the printed sentences are whole, "What do you do?" stays with its options, and the page estimate matches the book.
- Your own projects now stand first on the projects page, under "Your projects"; the examples follow.
- AI pictures and sounds are kept more safely: a short hiccup no longer loses a paid result, and the monthly limit holds even for requests sent at once.
- "Publish now" and "Share preview" show their result in view, Withdraw asks first, and a tester's note shows the line as it was read.
- A deleted project can be brought back for 7 days: "Undo" right after deleting, or "Recently deleted" on the projects page, then "Restore".
- You can leave a workspace ("Leave this workspace") or, as its owner, delete it ("Delete this workspace") in the workspace settings.
- On a phone the top bar keeps the workspace switcher and puts everything else in a "Menu" with large buttons.
- Opening a project from another of your workspaces now switches the top bar to that workspace.
- Your account page can change your name and your password ("Change password").
- The new-project dialog fits a smaller window, with every look visible, and asks for a title if you leave it empty.
- Upload errors say plainly what is wrong, a refused file leaves no empty card behind, and the file picker offers only the kinds of files Talebench can use.
- Sign-up says up front that it is by invitation, and a used password-reset link says so as soon as you open it.
- After a wrong password, the login says how many seconds to wait.
- German: sizes with a decimal comma and clearer wording on the projects and workspace pages.
An option that draws from a deck can Show as options: up to a number of fitting cards appear as options of their own, each with its Option text. · 2 changes
Updates that day: More from a deck · A steadier test play · Every look, clean at every size · Decks and lists · Recordings from the studio · Options that scroll show it · Planned turns and combos · Finished looks and “I want…”
Other
- The Lantern Keeper calls you Traveller with a capital letter.
- Updates no longer show an error for a moment while the app restarts behind the scenes.
Export PDF always makes a book: foes met and beaten and the mount you ride become boxes on the adventure sheet, numbers worked out while playing become sums or a die roll, and what has no paper form is left out with a note for the reader. · 10 changes
Updates that day: Look in pictures, a battle in three steps · Conversations inside a passage, and a manuscript · A book that always prints · Updates you do not notice · Battles that fit, a full-screen test play · What you test is what players see · Battles on every page layout · Cleaner screens at every size
Other
- Export PDF always makes a book: foes met and beaten and the mount you ride become boxes on the adventure sheet, numbers worked out while playing become sums or a die roll, and what has no paper form is left out with a note for the reader.
- Updates run without a single failed page: a page that loads during an update waits a moment instead of showing an error.
- Updates publish the example games themselves, and a short break, when one is needed, lasts seconds.
- The book prints rules that come with a new day or a change of weather where they happen, and a hard foe in the Ember Road can be beaten on paper too.
- The book’s notes are written in your language and name passages and options by their titles, never as formulas.
- Leave these out of the book: one click for all remaining notes.
- Updates are steadier: the part that routes every request has more room and is no longer restarted while an update runs.
- The changelog shows one section per day, grouped by area, with older months on pages of their own.
- The example games use far more of what Talebench can do: more looks, battle rules, map markers and formulas, each where it fits the story.
- Opening an example is quicker again; pictures’ small previews are made the first time they are shown.
Ask for help: a new button beside Help answers “how do I…?” questions in a few steps, each with Show me, which opens the right place and marks the field. · 6 changes
Updates that day: Battles in the middle of the picture · Smaller pictures, smaller dialogue — if you like · Your first battle, step by step · Your heroes show in battle · The help answers in full · Ask for help while you make your game · Whole lines, a fourth cursor set, a smaller story engine · Phones read from the top, new cursor sets, steadier stories · Lighter games, AI activity and a calmer simple view · Easier to read, fairer statistics, a calmer editor · Frames for the dialogue box, and clearer settings · Cursors, sharing to the library and seeing every screen size
Other
- Opening an example takes a few seconds instead of about twenty.
- Backups and updates are a little sturdier behind the scenes.
- Talebench itself is hardened further: every part of it runs locked down.
- AI activity: in Workspace settings, owners see which AI apps are connected, who connected them, their latest actions — and can disconnect them. Connected apps have fair limits per minute.
- Share to the library: offer your own pictures, sounds and cursor sets to everyone, free or with your name in the credits. The Talebench team reviews each before it appears.
- Updates no longer interrupt you: Talebench updates without a break, and an open editor says when a reload is worth it.
The fixed screen on big monitors, and your own sidebar · 26 changes
Updates that day: The fixed screen on big monitors, and your own sidebar · A camp, a clock and the weather · A fixed screen, backgrounds and names for your lists · A simple view and a full view · The example games sound new, and the library grew · The library of games, and how your game is played · Translations, making your character and camera moves · Comments, and notes from players
Other
- The fixed screen works on every size, up to ultrawide monitors: the game keeps a 16:9 stage in the middle, text grows with its box and keeps a readable line length, options are never covered, and a conversation shows in a single box with name and portrait.
- A passage’s picture is shown whole, also when it is the background; “Show it whole” under Look’s background keeps a picture with a drawn frame from being cut off. An empty line no longer empties the box before the options.
- Your own sidebar: pin the areas you use, fold groups, hide areas you do not need — kept for you per project.
- Breaking camp ends the campfire’s sound; a passage in an indoors chapter can be outdoors.
- Camp (switch it on under Features): players make camp where you allow it, look at their things, eat and watch a bar rise, sleep, dream — or are woken by a fight — and break camp where the story was.
- Time: your game gets a clock with days, times of day and, if you like, seasons. Shops open and close, options can wait for the night, and pictures, music and ambience can change by night, season or weather.
- Weather that changes by itself: rain, storm, snow or fog, seen and heard, quieter indoors; the story can ask about it (“the ford is impassable in a storm”).
- One background at a time: a new background now replaces the one before (and the look’s), never mixed; on a fixed screen the boxes keep their own frames and backing. A picture used both as background and in the story offers to show it once.
- A fixed screen: choose a mask under Look, and narration, dialogue, the picture and the options each keep their own box. Nothing jumps; long text turns pages inside its box. In the full view you move and size the areas yourself.
- Backgrounds any time: a passage or a whole chapter can have a background, kept until another one comes; a passage’s own wins over its chapter’s. A picture in a passage can become the background too.
- Characters, enemies and things have a name in the game and, if you like, another one for your lists: “Dura as a child” in the editor, “Dura” for the players.
- More of the editor follows the simple view: enemies, skills, battles, scenes, maps, the book and collections. The top bar makes room so no link is cut off.
- The editor now has a simple view, showing what a first game needs, and a full view with every option. New accounts start simple; switch any time in the top bar or your account.
- Nothing important hides: an option set in the full view shows in the simple view too, marked; a problem opens the option it is about; a passage says when rules run on it; search finds every option.
- Show all options (n more) at the end of a panel shows the rest for that kind of panel, without anything moving.
- The example games now use sounds, music, weather loops and pictures from the library: waves and rain at the lighthouse, snow steps and doors at the station, a cave dripping in the mine, a campfire on the road.
- New in the library, each in four takes: thunder, a rockfall, a bell, a train whistle, an announcement, a clock’s tick, a room full of ticking clocks, underwater, a choir, a fire burst, a splash and battle fanfares for victory and defeat.
- The library: published games can be listed with their genre, language and content notes; browse and search them, rate a game, follow a game or a creator, and report a game that breaks the rules.
- How your game is played: plays are counted anonymously, without cookies — starts, options taken, endings and where players stopped — shown in the release and as a heat map on the story map. Count plays can be switched off for a release.
- Translations: offer your game in more languages; a table per language shows what is missing or changed since, with a spreadsheet to send out and read back. Players pick their language, and The Clockmaker’s Workshop plays in German.
- Players make their character: a name, choices such as a trade or pronouns, numbers rolled or chosen and points to share out. Beneath the Iron Hill now begins at the gate this way.
- Camera moves: close in on part of a scene, pan across it and pull back; with Reduce motion the view changes at once.
- Large stories: copy, paste, duplicate and move several passages at once, Go to passage with Ctrl+P, and a search in every passage picker.
- Test runs of large stories are much faster.
- Comments: talk with your team about a passage, a line, an option or a thing, reply, mention someone with @, and resolve a thread when it is settled; new comments arrive at once.
- Notes from players: a published game can let its players leave a note, which arrives in Notes; Stop notes ends it at once.
Writing together at the same time · 38 changes
Updates that day: Writing together at the same time · Journeys in the gamebook, and better pictures from a picture · Workspaces of your own, sharing one project and a bigger library · Chapters, drag and drop and music from the start · A new demo, sounds on the way and rows in battle · Battles, shops, maps and sound · Portraits, style rules and maps you carry
Other
- See who is here: the faces of everyone with the project open, on the passage and the field they are in.
- A teammate’s changes arrive within a second; the field you are typing in is never changed under your cursor.
- When two of you change the same text, the words merge by themselves; only the same words changed by both ask you to choose, side by side.
- A passage a teammate deleted while you worked on it can be kept; a version you set aside stays in History.
- Publish says when a teammate saved after the version you are publishing.
- The start page opens faster.
- Gamebook: foes on the way get their rolls in the travel list and a page of their own; vehicles get their routes and a box on the adventure sheet, and flying lists every place to land.
- Pictures from a picture: pictures with a see-through background keep it, and a standing figure gets its new expression from a close look at its face.
- Workspaces: make more of your own (a private one, one with a partner), move projects between them, and see who sees each one.
- Share one project alone: the people you invite find it under “Shared with me” and see nothing else of your workspace.
- Correct words while you play: in the playtest, a double click or “Change here” turns a line, an option or an ending’s title into a field right in the game; the game goes on with the new words.
- The library: over 300 new sounds and pictures, among them long loops of wind, rain, snow, thunder, waves, a harbour with gulls, a forest, a cave and a tavern, footsteps on every ground, music in ten moods and new backgrounds and things.
- Pictures from a picture: new expressions, poses or outfits for a character from the pictures you have, scenes at night or in rain, things broken or glowing.
- Fixes: typing after an effect at the end of a line in Firefox; the pointer of the retro style is no longer read out with an option.
- Chapters: + Chapter puts the passages you picked into a new chapter; drag cards into a chapter’s frame or out again, or choose the chapter in a passage, also for passages written long before. Pick several cards with Ctrl or Cmd and a click, or draw a box with Shift.
- Drag and drop: move lines, events and options by their grip, by touch too, or with Alt and the arrow keys; paragraphs in the writing view and a document’s pages move the same way.
- Music from the very first passage: it starts with New game; a game without a title screen opens on a short start card, so its music is there from the beginning.
- Invitations ask “Did you mean …?” when an address looks mistyped.
- Mails from Talebench have a clear new look, in English and German.
- The Crystal of Aster: battles wait while you choose; switch to Active in the settings for the classic pressure.
- New demo: The Crystal of Aster, a classic console role-playing game with a party of four, ships and an airship, random battles, shops and save crystals, in pixel art with chip music.
- Sounds on the way: footsteps on the ground of the next passage, doors, hooves and oars as the story moves on, chosen automatically or picked by you; a key cuts them short.
- Battles: a front and a back row, and taking things from foes.
- This page: what changed with each update, in English and German.
- Fixes: a step’s menu stays in view next to a long picture name; the script view is readable in dark mode; effects on selected words in Firefox; sounds on the way and the victory screen never stop a story.
- Battles: aim an attack or a skill at a foe or a companion; turns by speed with time gauges, if you like; gauges that fill in battle for special moves; a victory screen with the spoils and level-ups; figures with poses facing each other.
- Shops: a list to buy and sell, stock, and who could wear a thing.
- Save points: a game may save only at chosen places.
- World maps: battles on the way, ways by water or air with vehicles that wait where you left them.
- Sound: a room sound for a passage (a hall, a cave, a radio …), chip sounds and tunes, and a library of free sounds and pictures to use in your games, footsteps on every ground among them.
- Look: boxes that fade from one colour to another, sharp pixel art and a retro style.
- Editor: all portraits side by side to match their sizes; AI pictures shown large before you keep one; stories from Yarn Spinner, Arcweave, Markdown and Word can be imported.
- Fixes: a recorded voice plays to its end; Step back shows its Continue again; a full-window menu keeps its frame; what is scrolled into view stays clear of the top bar.
- Choose which part of a character's picture the dialogue shows.
- Style rules: change how buttons, boxes and bars look, always readable.
- Page turns go backward when you step back; a passage can make room for its next line.
- Writing sounds: a quill, a pencil or a typewriter, entirely optional.
- World maps: pins of any size, names optional, a map carried as a thing, and route planning.
Gamebooks, imports and looks of your own · 5 changes
Updates that day: Gamebooks, imports and looks of your own
Other
- Export your story as a printable gamebook with an adventure sheet.
- Import stories from Twine, ink and ChoiceScript.
- Look variants for a chapter or a passage, and styles of your own to start new games from.
- Edit an option’s words right on its arrow in the story map.
- Fixes: pictures beside the story only when you choose it; uploaded maps and sounds show and play in the editor.
The first games outside the team · 1 change
Updates that day: The first games outside the team
Other
- Talebench opens to its first testers: write, play test and publish interactive stories.