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Making a StoryQuest
"Help us rebuild a world unraveling at the seams by recovering knowledge, crafting stories, and designing characters, quests, and cultures drawn from your own life."
StoryQuests are self-contained stories that live alongside Threadbare's main narrative. They are the heart of the Threadbare learning programme — a creative and technical challenge that takes learners from first ideas to a shipped, open-source contribution.
This Core Thread guides learners, mentors, and educators through the full journey of creating and contributing a StoryQuest.
A StoryQuest is a mini-game embedded within the Threadbare world. It has its own:
- Narrative — characters, story, setting, and theme
- Levels — up to several mini-game levels, each with their own mechanics
- Assets — original artwork, sound effects, and music
- Code — built in Godot using the StoryQuest template
StoryQuests are non-canon — they exist alongside the main story but do not need to follow or connect to it. They can have their own visual style, aesthetic, and tone (within the Content Guidelines).
When complete, a StoryQuest is submitted as a Pull Request to the main Threadbare repository, where it becomes a permanent part of the game, played by everyone.
➡️ StoryQuests — overview and index of existing StoryQuests
StoryQuests are built in stages called milestones. Each milestone is a point at which work can be submitted to the main game:
| Milestone | What's complete |
|---|---|
| Milestone 2 | Intro & Outro complete, all scenes linked so the quest is playable end-to-end |
| Milestone 3 | Mini-game levels complete (one per level) |
| Milestone 4 | Playtesting & iteration — refinements after testing |
| Milestone 5 | Production & Launch — the full, completed StoryQuest |
Before building, explore the world. The lore exemplars are a great starting point for understanding the themes and tone of Threadbare, and for finding inspiration for your own story.
- Frith Fraywalker's Letter — A personal letter from an Elder consumed by The Void
- The Legacy of Bobbin Blench — A historical account of cultural decay
- Observing the Unseen — A scientific study of how The Void spreads
- When Fabric Fades — A medical report on Void contact
Also see: The Game World for characters, locations, and the broader universe.
Before you build, understand what's in and what's out.
- Content Guidelines — Themes, violence, language, and what's appropriate for Threadbare (age 13+)
- Licensing — All assets and code must be under compatible open-source licenses
- Contributing — Code style, language conventions, and how to structure a good pull request
StoryQuests are built in Godot using the StoryQuest template. The template provides the structure — you fill it with your story, your characters, and your levels.
Style references for asset creation:
- Visual Style Guide — Art direction, pixel art conventions, character anatomy, colour palette
- Audio Style Guide — Sound effect and music file formats
- Narrative Style Guide — How characters speak in Threadbare
Technical guides for building levels:
- TileMapLayers and TileSets — How to build landscapes and environments
- Time and Weather — Adding weather effects to your scenes
- How to make a StoryQuest where you only collect 1 or 2 threads — A focused technical guide for simpler quests
For full technical reference, see Building the Game.
When your StoryQuest is ready (at any milestone), submit it as a Pull Request.
➡️ StoryQuest submission — Full guide to the submission process, PR structure, and attribution requirements
Key things to know before submitting:
- Your learners should understand their work will be public and attributed to their GitHub profile
- All contributions are made under open-source licenses (MPL-2.0 for code, CC-BY-SA 4.0 for assets)
- The PR must stay strictly within the StoryQuest's directory — no changes to the base game
- Attribution must be provided for all contributors: Assets, Engineering, Game Design, and Production
In the context of Endless Access learning programmes, mentors and instructors guide and accompany each team through the submission process.
- Ensure learners understand the public, open-source nature of their contributions before they begin
- Guide learners through the PR process at each milestone
- Use the Reviewing a StoryQuest submission guide to check submissions before they go to the maintainers
➡️ Reviewing a StoryQuest submission — Technical checklist for reviewing learner PRs ➡️ Community and Governance — Programme-level guidance, code of conduct, and maintainer information
See what past contributors have created for Threadbare — characters, enemies, props, music, and more.
← Playing the Game | Next: Building the Game →