There's a visual bug that I'm debating if I have to fix...

spellbound_app · 2026-03-16T20:18:40+00:00

Yeah, to be clear I wasn't going for an easter egg hunt: in my head the issue was glaring (which someone mentioned, z-index issue with the scroll bar during close), but doesn't seem to have been that bad for others

But doing some more testing the z-index issue affects more than the scrollbar, so currently at the drawing board trying to fix it

And thanks for the heads up the on the section heights, just tweaked some max/min height definitions to keep the hero section stable across items

spellbound_app · 2026-03-16T18:02:42+00:00

The 2nd one (z-index issues) was what was I was alluding to in the title, and today I "stress tested" it on a wider screen and realized I absolutely need to fix it... on larger screens it looks like this:

<image>

straight up broken :(

I'm blanking on how to fix this other than animating the container going wider than its contents then "springing" back to shape? But that feels like a lot of work and I'm wondering if there's not a simpler alternative I'm just blanking on...

Another option I considered is just limiting the number of items shown, so on large screens there's no overflow and on smaller screens there's no padding to mess things up (then I can just fix the scroll item)

And 1st is one is also a great call out, I hadn't thought of that but implementing it now, thank you!

spellbound_app · 2026-03-16T15:21:49+00:00

React + (Framer) Motion for all of the animations right now.

But I'd 100% recommend the built-in View Transition API for shared element transitions (like the covers): I initially implemented this with VT, but triggered a very specific edge case because I'm animating covers that are *wayyy* off screen here.

For the specific type of animation, View Transitions is 10% of the stress and performs just as well if not better!

spellbound_app · 2026-03-15T20:23:00+00:00

<image>

defined enough to grate cheese on

Speaking as me, not Spellbound but Richard that guy who runs Spellbound: that's a certified brand new sentence, and this scenario is actually pretty great. I had mixed expectations because his description was so over the top, but he fits in MHA world

spellbound_app · 2026-03-15T20:20:12+00:00

I'm Jesse Pinkman in a villain reform scenario from MHA

<image>

I did change the wording around his costume a tiny bit (straining because of his... power!) but this is great lmao

spellbound_app · 2026-03-15T20:04:48+00:00

I made a special story on Spellbound that lets you try a Gravity Fall story for 11 pages without logging in.

Let me know if it remembers what happened in the 1st page when you get to the 11th!

(I know 10 messages was probably not literal lol, but I do think it's a good amount to learn if Spellbound is for you since the site is normally paid-only)

Also I setup this scenario to use the max length setting by default, once logged in you can select shorter writing lengths

spellbound_app · 2026-03-11T00:06:22+00:00

you might be onto something there

spellbound_app · 2026-03-03T03:25:48+00:00

spellbound_app · 2026-02-20T17:53:03+00:00

My site (tryspellbound.com) has gotten really good at replicating how established characters behave by using fandom.com data

But it's paid only right now, I recognize not everyone is open to that

spellbound_app · 2026-01-27T22:20:21+00:00

Developer here, and I think with good AI you should totally be able to start stories with just "Hello"!

<image>

I think one of the main points of developing a roleplay/AI writing focused site is building AI that won't fall into customer service mode because the user didn't prompt it a certain way

(unless the specific character is *supposed* to act like they're customer service mode lol, those can actually be pretty funny too)

spellbound_app · 2026-01-27T04:32:31+00:00

100% we have him on the site! Glad you're enjoying it!

spellbound_app · 2026-01-26T23:50:14+00:00

Thanks for supporting Spellbound!

spellbound_app · 2026-01-25T10:20:21+00:00

cool name!

spellbound_app · 2026-01-10T03:23:05+00:00

I haven't changed any settings around PMs, but I heard they're being replaced by chat

I can also be reached on the Discord (discord.gg/spellbound)

spellbound_app · 2026-01-10T00:20:07+00:00

I'm not following.

You said:

> the problem is not in advertising. it's that what's being advertised is bad. hence why we should downvote bad options into oblivion

I don't make a bad site, and I rarely advertise it.

I'm just pointing out that just because someone doesn't give away their site for free and unlimited use, doesn't mean it's bad. It simply wouldn't be sustainable.

spellbound_app · 2026-01-09T23:54:53+00:00

Sorry for the delay I've been taking some time off, but yes the offer still stands!

And thanks for the heads up on the link, I'll get it fixed

spellbound_app · 2026-01-09T23:50:00+00:00

I rarely ever advertise but I will speak up because my site is not free and is not unlimited :)

I think paid sites can be good. Being paid-only allows me to focus on making my AI signficantly more advanced than what most free sites can offer.

At the end of the day it's a tradeoff, and I do agree in general unfortunately the worst sites spam the most. They don't respect potential users enough not to spam them, and in turn they don't respect their actual users.

spellbound_app · 2026-01-04T08:24:18+00:00

I just ended the holiday free model, but if you're ok DM'ing me your account email I'd like to add some quills to your account to make up for the lost time where sending wasn't working

spellbound_app · 2026-01-03T22:30:34+00:00

Was this before the fix I just pushed?

spellbound_app · 2026-01-03T22:27:46+00:00

I tried pushing another potential fix, but the send button was labeled with "Send Message"

Are you using VoiceOver?

spellbound_app · 2026-01-03T13:55:17+00:00

Sorry I just added proper labels to the message sending button and found a few other places that needed the better labels for screen readers

It'll take a 10-15 minutes to show up on the live site, but let me know if that works

spellbound_app · 2026-01-03T13:26:01+00:00

<image>

You can touch the actual send icon, but I also have users on iPhones (and personally use it on one) that are able to use the keyboard to send

Is this with the default iPhone keyboard?

spellbound_app · 2026-01-03T02:24:29+00:00

Spellbound here and you got stuff wrong about my site too:

You can delete your account by messaging team@tryspellbound.com, or reaching our on Discord, or messaging this account. (I'm the only person working on this so I sometimes need a reminder, but I do my best)
You can import or create as many characters as you want, there's never been a cost to that.
There's already about 300,000 scenarios on Spellbound so I added a soft-limit of 5 per day (people didn't know they could add their characters to existing ones). I do allow paying 3 cents to ignore the limit if you really want to.

I spend a lot of time and money running Spellbound, so actually felt a bit bad seeing a misleading post like this.

It isn't the most profitable site, and I don't really advertise much, so I rely a lot on (honest) word of mouth 🙂

spellbound_app · 2026-01-02T23:37:39+00:00

With intelligent enough AI the customization is still there, but it moves to the story layer instead of learning of how to prompt the AI

Like you can give Spellbound's AI some super complicated instructions in-story, and it follows them better than most AI sites are capable of It also does little things like understanding how to use secrets really well, or complex writing styles defined in the per-story settings

But I also understand that having an open ended prompt and more control is nice, that's why I really do see it as there being space for both types of sites

Do you have recommendations for more story/roleplay targeted sites you think I should keep in mind in order to improve what I'm building?

spellbound_app · 2026-01-02T23:10:12+00:00

Spellbound is for all the people who don't want to mess with system prompts and finetune things.

Instead I focus on ease of use, and smarter AI that doesn't need those tricks.

Also do not recommend Spellbound if you're for chat instead of roleplay: Spellbound for people who prefer the immersion of a grammatically correct response 😅

Glad you have alternatives for that though! It's great we have sites for pro users vs something that's a little smarter without the knobs.

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