Most software projects don't have a blog. A changelog maybe, with lines like "fixed null pointer in checkout flow." Functional, cold, interesting to nobody. We wanted something different.
A memory for a hobby project
Storytale is built in evenings. Between work and family life, sometimes four hours on a Saturday, sometimes nothing in a week. If you don't record what you've done, you forget it. Not the code — that lives in git. But the why: why did we choose Comedy as the default? Why no mandatory account? Why are we working towards a Murder Mystery mode?
A blog is that memory. In a year we'll read ourselves back and remember how we thought then. In two years we'll see where we've changed direction. It's more a diary than a marketing piece.
Why every two days?
A rhythm. Not often enough to become a chore, not rarely enough to drift away. One blog a month feels like slacking; one a day feels like overdrive. Two days is exactly that middle ground where you have something to write about, but not so much that you do it half-heartedly.
The commitment is to ourselves. Not to you as readers — though you read along too, and that makes it nicer. But the primary goal is internal: self-reflection, structure, a logbook that gives the hobby a thread.
"What you don't write down, you forget. What you write down, lasts." — a piece of wisdom we haven't found much to argue with.
What we do and don't write
What you'll find here:
- Visions: where we want to go, what we find important, how we one day see things working
- Experiences: a game test, a family evening, an unexpected use of Storytale we hadn't anticipated
- Reflection: what surprised us, what we learned from our mistakes, what should have been different
- Future: announcements of features that are on the roadmap
What you won't find here:
- Technical deep dives (which model, which library, which deploy pipeline) — that's in private notes
- Marketing jargon ("revolutionary," "next-gen") — we see our own products too ironically for that
- Promises with dates ("before September we'll launch…") — this is a hobby, not a burndown chart
Who is this logbook for?
For ourselves, first of all. For you, if you're curious where Storytale comes from. For future Storytale builders (perhaps us, perhaps someone else) who want to see how it all began. And for people with the same idea — a hobby with a blog, a project with a logbook — as proof that it can be done, and is worth doing.
No subscription, no email notifications, no RSS (yet). Just: come by when you feel like it. Read back if you want. Miss a blog — that's fine, there'll be a new one in two days.
How this blog came about
At the start of Storytale we mostly wrote code. Only after a few months did people start asking: "what is this exactly? How did it come about?" Stories we told verbally — about the paper game evening, about the first prototype that was half broken — stayed with whoever heard them, but disappeared if we didn't write them down somewhere.
Hence this logbook. Starting from the beginning (15 March, "The idea — a paper game"), via the first digital tests, to what we're building now. Every blog is a dot on a line. Together they form a timeline that can only survive if you write it down.
For what it's worth: here it is.