Talebench

What’s new

What changed in Talebench, a section per day, newest first.

Look → How the game sounds offers Table sounds as a pictured choice: wood, leather and paper for every click, the sounds a new game starts with. · 1 change

Updates that day: First steps counted once known · Table sounds to pick · Your last matches · Back to your match

Writing

  • The story map: an arrow that would have cut the corner of a card goes round it.

A character’s or a thing’s picture made from another (a new expression, pose or outfit) keeps its framing, clothes and weapons much better. · 7 changes

Updates that day: Change your email · Games on other sites, lighter pictures · Play again with a friend · Faces on the fighter select · Every fighter framed alike · Twenty-two fighters and the table sounds · A button that cannot be used says so · Dice that sound real · A friend from the fighter select · Characters keep their look in every mood · More sounds as you play · Fair fights on the fighter select · Choose your fighter

Writing

  • A character’s or a thing’s picture made from another (a new expression, pose or outfit) keeps its framing, clothes and weapons much better.
  • Share a published game as an example: other creators find it under Shared by other creators and open a copy of what players get, never your draft.
  • A route on a world map can lead through a passage on the way, an ambush or a ferryman, before the journey arrives (On the way, full view). Ember Road meets a ferryman at the Ashwater.
  • The library has the new dice and blow sounds to choose from.
  • A new change for an option: Play with a friend, for a chosen fight. Dice Duel’s front room has Versus a friend.
  • Pictures of characters and things made with AI come in a stronger drawn style.
  • Sound effects made with AI: one take follows your words closely, the other is freer, and a take that comes out almost silent is made again.

Run maps: a passage can hold a map made anew for every playthrough, rows of places from the bottom to a goal, where every step closes the paths not taken. · 8 changes

Updates that day: Clearer turns when playing with a friend · Run maps · Things made with random parts · Rules that move the story, and extras · Roles and shaking ways · Values for one chapter · Fade it out

Writing

  • Run maps: a passage can hold a map made anew for every playthrough, rows of places from the bottom to a goal, where every step closes the paths not taken. Choose the rows and the kinds of places (a fight, a rest, a shop, an event) and what each does; Make three maps shows what players could get. In a passage’s panel, full view.
  • Things made with random parts: a sword can drop as a Rusty Sword one time and a Keen Sword of the Bear the next. Give a thing groups of parts with their words, how often each comes, its rarity, what it changes and its price; loot and Give a thing draw them when you tick Random parts. Roll ten shows what players would get. Under a thing, full view.
  • Rules that move the story: as soon as a condition comes true, the story goes to a passage or an ending, wherever the player is — “when Sanity drops to 0, go to Madness”. Once or each time anew, everywhere or in some chapters; the book prints them as a rule for every section. Find them under Every-passage rules (full view).
  • A line can now be spoken by a role, such as “whoever leads”: the game picks the first of its characters who is in the party or on stage, so a scene works with whoever came along. Set up roles under a character (full view) and pick one as a line’s speaker; {leader.name} names whoever it is.
  • A value of the game can now be kept in one chapter (Values, full view: Kept in chapter): it starts again whenever the story enters that chapter and is forgotten when it leaves, so helper values no longer need resetting by hand.
  • A new change, “Fade out”, lets the music, the background sound such as rain or wind, or the weather’s sound fall quiet over a few seconds, or everything at once. Find it under Add change → Sound.
  • Screen effects on the way now also go on a check’s or a battle’s outcomes; ▶ beside them shows them on a small screen, and the story map marks such a way with ✨.
  • Play music, Play ambience and Play a sound each have a Volume now; music already playing fades to its new volume. ▶ plays it at that volume.

New for chapters (full view): “After this chapter, show players what others chose”. · 2 changes

Updates that day: Up to four together · Face to face, all of them · Fight together · Games on the home screen, and offline · Go back further, and see what others chose · Your progress on every device, and settings for every player · More room to read on phones · Safer sign-in · Duel a friend

Writing

  • New for chapters (full view): “After this chapter, show players what others chose”. When the story leaves the chapter, players see each choice they made in it and how many other players took each option. Try it after the night train in Wintermere.
  • “First steps” opens folded to its progress line once you have begun it, so the editor keeps its room; one press opens it again.

On the story map, arrows no longer cut across the corners of passages: where a curve would, the arrow goes round at right angles. · 9 changes

Updates that day: The map stays where you move it · Groundwork for duels between two players · A lost battle’s arrow around its passage · Room for every panel · Arrows that keep clear of the passages · A new passage you can always click · A picture for each kind of game · Dungeons in words on a page

Writing

  • On the story map, arrows no longer cut across the corners of passages: where a curve would, the arrow goes round at right angles. Arrows back to an earlier passage keep clear too, and their words now stand on the arrow itself.
  • When you start a new project, each kind of game shows a picture from its example: a harbour at night, a night train, a clock shop, a mine, an ash road, a drowned chapel.
  • Moving the story map right after adding a passage no longer jumps back to the new passage.
  • When you put a battle in the story, its arrows no longer run back through their own passage to an ending beside it: they go round.
  • With a passage, Publish and the help open side by side on a laptop, everything fits the window: the passage folds to its tab instead of the help running off the edge.
  • Publish pressed while your last change is still being saved now shows what blocks it, instead of opening the form.
  • A picked arrow lies above the others, so its end can always be dragged onto another passage.
  • Publish works right after a teammate fixes a problem, also when the fix arrived a moment before you pressed it.
  • A new passage on the story map now always lands clear of the small overview map in the corner, also right after the map fitted itself to the details beside it.

Ctrl+K (or Ctrl+P) now finds anything by name: a passage, a character, a thing, a value, a part of the editor or a command such as Publish or Play. · 19 changes

Updates that day: Go to anything, switches in dungeon walls, and Deepwatch floor by floor · Title screens of their own, and fighters you can see · Point and click, and bigger text on big screens · Pictures fill the screen · Safer saving when working together · The add-on library · Add-ons with a page of their own · Share your kits

Writing

  • Ctrl+K (or Ctrl+P) now finds anything by name: a passage, a character, a thing, a value, a part of the editor or a command such as Publish or Play.
  • Dungeons can have switches set into their walls: players press one from the cell in front of it, and the gates you tick open. Deepwatch’s Clockwork Halls hold a gate open with one.
  • If your connection drops just after a save while a teammate is editing too, the editor now waits until it has their changes before saving yours. If you both changed the same words, you are asked which to keep, instead of theirs being replaced.
  • Workspace settings → Add-ons → From the library: find add-ons other creators made, see what each may do and its licence, and install one in a click. Every add-on there was checked by Talebench first.
  • An add-on can now bring a page of its own code, for what its screens cannot show, such as a board to drag on. It runs walled off from the game: no internet, no storage and no way to the game’s page or the player’s account. What it decides goes back to the game like a button press, so saves keep working.
  • Share a kit you saved in your workspace with everyone: Kits → Share…, with the name shown as its maker. It is checked like a published game first, and you can take it back at any time; games that added it keep their copy.
  • Inside a project the editor has the whole top of the window: the menu at the right end of its bar holds your projects, the workspace, the language, the view and Log out.
  • Characters, foes, things, documents and battles show their pictures in their lists.
  • The dungeon editor marks what stands on a cell with clear icons, and the choices of where an option leads read as plain words.
  • Zoomed far out, a chapter’s name stands whole above its frame and every card’s title shows in whole lines.
  • When a teammate fixes a problem while you have the project open, Publish now tries their version instead of waiting for a reload.
  • On the story map, a selected passage shows ⋯ instead of a bin in its corner: it opens the passage’s menu, where Delete passage is, as a right-click does. The overview in the corner has a frame of its own.
  • Offer an add-on you made: Offer in the library…, with the name shown as its maker and a licence. You see when it is in the library, or why it was not taken.
  • Report an add-on in the library that does harm; it is taken down after a look, and games that installed it keep playing.
  • Adding such an add-on says so first: “shows a page of its own code”.
  • Kits → Shared by others: search the kits other creators shared, see what each needs and how often it was added, add one to your game, or report it.
  • Folders in the lists (full view): New folder under the search, an entry’s Folder choice to move it in, and a folder’s menu to rename it, delete it or make a kit of everything in it.
  • Make a kit… now also works for a collection, in its own area (full view).
  • Kits made with an older version of Talebench are brought up to date when you import or add them.

An add-on can have settings of its own: in the full view, Features → Add-ons shows them on its card, and the game uses what you set there. · 7 changes

Updates that day: Add-on settings and new versions · Add-ons for your workspace · Add-on pages in your look · Collections as an add-on · Add-on steps · Pages for add-ons · Add-ons with their own moves · Dice as they fell · Editing together, safely · Editing together, more safely

Writing

  • An add-on can have settings of its own: in the full view, Features → Add-ons shows them on its card, and the game uses what you set there.
  • Workspace settings have a new area, Add-ons: upload an add-on file, and Talebench checks it and plays its test story before taking it. Each version is kept as it was uploaded.
  • Before an add-on joins a game, Features shows what it may do and how much it adds to the download. Moving a game to a newer version of an add-on brings its settings along, and saves made with the older version keep playing.
  • Add-ons can bring their own pictures, their own checks (Check add-ons in the Problems list) and their own words for the printed book.
  • In the full view, Features → Add-ons adds one of your workspace’s add-ons to a game at a version you choose. The playtest plays it, and publishing copies it into the game, so later versions change nothing there.
  • Working with a teammate: after a lost connection or a reload of the project, a change your teammate made to the same text is now shown beside yours with the question which to keep — before, your unsaved words could replace theirs.
  • Working with a teammate: when you type on while a save of yours is still going out and your teammate changed the same thing meanwhile, Talebench now shows both versions and asks which to keep — before, your edit could replace theirs without asking.

After the dice meet, each attack die plays its part: one the defence holds cracks and falls apart, one that gets through flies on into the foe. · 2 changes

Updates that day: Dice that break or get through · Damage comes last · Armour that stays, parries that add up · Your defence dice move again · Weapons in the fighter’s card · The combination once the dice lie · Who starts, once the dice lie · The feint’s words beside the foe · Nothing covers the foe’s card · A tidier dice duel · The standard fights with the weapons you choose · Combination symbols you can read · The standard for a single fight too · Aggressive swords strike back · Foes of every skill, new voices · What your foe does, plain to see · A coin for every weapon · Face to face, on a screen of its own · A second set in your test states · Dice battles on a phone, again · A clearer face-to-face screen · Dice battles on a phone · Weapon traits while you feint · Fixes in dice battles and on the story map · The standard dice battle

Writing

  • On the story map, the menu of several picked passages fits the window again when Move to chapter unfolds.
  • In the editor a worn thing has a Kind and a Hold with the standard presets; the book prints both on its card and the defence’s pair reroll in the rules.

Make a kit… can now save a kit in your workspace, where every game of the workspace finds it under Kits → Your workspace’s. · 9 changes

Updates that day: Who starts, plain to see · Kits kept in your workspace · Kits that bring their bundle · Kits in a demo · Make your own kits · Removing a kit · Kits · Lighter still · Lighter stories · Stories without battles load faster · Start with a bundle · Battles as a module

Writing

  • Make a kit… can now save a kit in your workspace, where every game of the workspace finds it under Kits → Your workspace’s. Saving it again adds a new version, and games that added it are offered the update.
  • In the full view, pick passages on the story map and choose Make a kit…: they become a kit with what they use, their ways out become ways to connect, and you export it as a file with its pictures and sounds. Kits → Import a kit… adds such a file to another game.
  • New under Game: Kits — ready game systems made of content that you add in one step: Reputation, Crafting and Trust to begin with. A kit shows what it brings first; afterwards everything it added is yours to change, and its ways into your story are listed until you connect them.
  • Features now starts with bundles: RPG, Dungeon crawler, Dice duels and Visual novel. Each adds a whole kind of game in one step, shows what it brings and what your game has already, and one undo takes it all back. Removing a bundle keeps what your story uses and says why.
  • Make a kit… now also starts from a thing chosen under Things, or from an item of the other lists, with everything it refers to.
  • A kit can say which bundle it is made for. Adding it to a game without that bundle offers the bundle too, and both are added in one step.
  • The Lantern Keeper now uses two kits: Talebench’s Reputation (ask around town and help the baker) and one of its own, the harbor bell. Open it as an example to see them under Kits → Added.
  • A kit you added can be removed again under Kits → Added: it takes away only what it added and you have not changed, and names what stays and why. When Talebench brings a newer version of a kit, you are offered it there, with your own changes kept.
  • Each bundle’s button in Features names its bundle (“Add RPG”), which also helps screen readers.

Features now lists what your game uses under In this game, and everything else under Add a module: each module says what it needs and how much it adds to your game’s download. · 7 changes

Updates that day: Checks, documents, levels and equipment as modules · World maps and decks as modules · More features as modules · Modules: only what your game uses · A passage between two · Blows you can hear and see · Dice to throw again, and a real axe · One sword on the coin · Iron plaques and sharp badges · Tips where they belong · Rules and log in the table’s colours · Combinations named beside the dice · A proper dice cup · Dice duels on a phone held sideways · A calmer dice table · New faces at the dice tables · Coins in sight while you choose · The dice duel on a phone held sideways · A feint that re-aims every die · Every 1 counts: the stealth jab

Writing

  • Features now lists what your game uses under In this game, and everything else under Add a module: each module says what it needs and how much it adds to your game’s download. Adding one switches on what it needs with it.
  • On the story map you can now put a passage between two connected ones in one step: hover an arrow and click its round +, or select the arrow and choose + Passage between. The option keeps its words, the new passage continues to the next one, the cards below make room, and one Undo takes it back.
  • In the editor, a battle’s look sets the cry of a hard blow, from how much damage it counts and whether it leaves a blood splash; characters and enemies can have their own cry.
  • The Hammer and the Flanged Mace in the Dice Duel have their own pictures.
  • In the Dice Duel, Captain Aldric’s axe now shows an axe instead of a sword, and the picture library has an axe of its own.
  • In the Dice Duel, Sergeant Brask and the Bouncer now each have a portrait of their own.
  • A skill can now be a special throw: under Needs a die choose a special throw, pick a ready set (1 · 1 · 2, a pair of ones …) or set each die, and see its chance with one throw and over a turn with the game’s rerolls. A weapon’s form (full view) lists its special throws and makes a new one with one click. The book prints it as its dice instead of “a die of any value”.

A one-against-one dice duel now takes the screen while it lasts: it stands still in the window under the top bar, the story’s text steps away until the fight is over, and nothing scrolls. · 1 change

Updates that day: A table that holds still when you drag · Feint by hand, a shield that counts, throw again your way · Your lane stays while Aldric’s blow lands · Your feint and your shatter are your choice · The rules of each dice fight, one click away · Attack and defence always shown in a dice duel · One Victory! at a time · Die against die, heard · Your dice lane stays while you defend · The duel takes the screen · A dungeon map that shows what you know · A steadier test play · Quieter error reports · One number for a defended blow · A tidier cell panel

Writing

  • In the dungeon editor, a plain wall, door or one-way line no longer gets a box of its own under a cell’s Walls and doors: only a locked door, a gate or a secret wall does, where there is something to set.

Make tiles has a Floor and a Ceiling of their own: stone walls over wooden boards under bare dark rock, each with its own material and colours, or as the walls go. · 3 changes

Updates that day: See how a parried blow’s damage comes · A defence’s total no longer shown as armour · Coins that count right against a defence · A party of four stands two and two · Hit zones in sight from the start · Dungeon words and wide screens · Walls and doors right under What’s here · A dungeon’s check fits the window · A duel’s last blow told right · A dungeon’s floor and ceiling their own · Dungeon cells set in one step · Your gear always in sight, a calmer Fireball

Writing

  • Make tiles has a Floor and a Ceiling of their own: stone walls over wooden boards under bare dark rock, each with its own material and colours, or as the walls go. An area’s own tiles have them too. Deepwatch’s ossuary now stands on flagstones under black rock.
  • In the dungeon editor, a selected cell sets what stands on it and around it in one step: What’s here picks a chest, stairs, a way out or any other feature, and Walls and doors has a dropdown for each side (open, wall, door, and in the full view locked doors, secret walls, one-way lines and gates).
  • In the dungeon editor, a cell’s Walls and doors now stand right under What’s here, so a chest’s or a trap’s form below never pushes them out of view.

A chapter’s own music · 1 change

Updates that day: A chapter’s own music · See the defence, hear the commands · The duel says what is left · Skills in the action lane · Dice tricks as coins · The duel stays together · Attack in the middle, tricks on the table · The attack’s damage on its button · Defence throws that fit the screen · The duel’s moment whole on a phone · Your gear at your dice while you aim · A dice duel that holds still

Writing

  • A chapter can have its own music: set it in the chapter’s dialog (your own file, a tune that comes with Talebench or one made with AI), and it starts whenever the story enters the chapter, without a Play music change in every way in. A passage’s own Play music or its scene’s music still wins. The Crystal of Aster’s Merrowgate and Hollowdeep now use it.