Story playback help

When a Story uses authored scene layers, the player keeps the complete outgoing picture

while the next scene loads, then changes the picture before starting its speech.

This also applies when resuming a saved run.

With recorded narration, the picture follows the audio position and keeps that place

when speech gives way to a quiet action.

On the web, Stop story stays in the playback controls, including compact screens and

loading. It stops speech, music, effects, visual playback, and automatic continuation.

Play resumes playback, including when Stop was pressed between beats. Stop preserves the session and its transcript. If a turn

was already requested, the server may still finish it; use the offered recovery action to

retrieve that same turn before requesting another.

On the web, Auto advances eligible authored playback after the current beat finishes.

Continue appears only in Manual mode, which waits for your click between beats.

Required choices still wait for your decision in either mode.

Find or resume a session

The My Sessions page separates active or paused sessions from ended sessions. Resume opens

the same run; if it was paused, Mystrix reactivates it before opening the player. An ended or

completed session offers its transcript instead of another turn. A blocked session cannot be

opened and shows the available reason, such as a removed story or moderation restriction.

Session cards can show current progress, chapter or scene, recap, world time, unseen world updates,

content rating, and whether a newer story version exists. Search matches the story title or creator.

Filters can narrow by session status, rating, access type, party play, or unseen offline updates.

When no search or filter is active, an active session with unseen world updates is promoted to the

Continue position ahead of an otherwise more recent session.

Choose an episode

A Story published as seasons and episodes lists them by season on its web story page and, while you

are playing, in the player menu under Episodes. Choose any published, available episode:

Play opens it, Resume returns to your own saved run on that episode, and Start over

begins that episode again from its opening after you confirm. Watching earlier episodes is never

required to open a later one, and an episode with no playable content yet is listed without an

action.

Each episode keeps its own save, choices, transcript, and position. Before the player opens the

episode you chose, it saves your position in the episode you are leaving. If that save fails, the

player stays in the current episode, explains that your place was not saved, and lets you retry.

A run without a committed cue has no position to save and can switch immediately. If the episode

you chose cannot be opened yet, the player says why and leaves the current episode available.

The player menu also links back to the full episode list on the story page.

A story will not open

Refresh the page or app, confirm the device is online, and try opening the story again. If

only one story is affected, include the story title and the step that fails. If every story

is affected, include the app or website being used and the error message shown.

On mobile, a previously saved transcript may remain readable when a live load fails. It is marked

offline and cannot accept a new turn. When connectivity returns, the player reloads authoritative

session state before enabling normal play. If no safe cached transcript exists, the player shows a

load failure instead of inventing or partially rendering a scene.

Choices and free-form actions

Select an authored choice when the story asks for one. The player sends that choice's identity—not

just its visible label—so its authored state changes and destination are preserved, including on a

retry. In web Manual mode, an optional choice keeps the labelled Continue action available, while a required choice

replaces passive continuation until you decide. The web text input stays beside the centered playback controls. Typing does not interrupt

playback; a submitted response waits for the current beat to finish. Sending still respects

the authored prompt’s allowed input. If a choice is rejected, the provisional

transcript entry is removed and the same choices return so you can try again. Documentary playback uses the composer differently: a typed question asks about

the Story's pinned evidence without advancing its sealed sequence, while Continue advances that

sequence. While a turn is still being sent, do not press another choice or submit the same action

again.

Courses and assessments

A course opens as modules and lessons rather than a Story transcript. It can include sourced

explanations, demonstrations, practice steps, resources, accessibility information and licensed

expert testimony. Expert contributors are shown separately from fictional characters.

Complete the available assessment to unlock a prerequisite-gated lesson. Attempts are scored from

the authored options; the course does not send your response to an AI or accept a free-form Story

action. If a submission loses its connection, use the visible retry so the player reuses the same

request rather than consuming a second attempt. Leaving and reopening the course reloads your

recorded attempts and derived progress. An exhausted attempt limit or locked lesson is authoritative;

reload once, then contact support with the course and session identifiers if it still looks wrong.

Optional feedback on a scene

After some confirmed scenes, the player may offer a compact set of narrative feedback choices.

This is optional and accepts no written comment. Choose another category to replace your response,

or choose the selected category again to withdraw it. The control is available on Web, Android,

and iOS only when product analytics is enabled for the account. Responses are retained for a

limited period and shown to creators and operators only in privacy-protected aggregate reports,

without reader identity or Story prose. Turning product analytics off removes retained responses.

The same product-analytics setting controls content-free participation evidence for authored

choices and hotspots. When enabled, Mystrix can record whether an offer became visible and whether

it was selected, skipped, unavailable, expired, or abandoned, plus closed platform, timing, cue,

and accessibility categories. It never stores the Story prompt, choice or hotspot label, generated

narration, or reader-written text in this evidence. Turning product analytics off removes it.

While a response is arriving

On supported web and mobile players, narration can appear progressively while the turn is still

running. That text is provisional until the player receives and reconciles the final scene. Do not

submit another action while it is arriving. If the stream stops before the turn is confirmed, the

player either keeps the provisional scene as an Unconfirmed draft for an idempotent retry or

clears it when retry is not valid. Reopening the session loads the authoritative stored transcript

rather than treating partial text as canon.

On web, the player drawer keeps the most recent 50 messages while you play. Select

View Transcript in the drawer to read the full session history on its paged page.

A session is stuck or progress looks wrong

Leave the session and reopen it before starting a second session. Do not repeatedly submit

the same choice while a response is still loading. If the transcript, current scene,

inventory, relationships, or world clock still looks wrong after reopening, ask for human

support and include the story title and approximate time of the last correct turn.

Reopening asks the service to validate every stored Story beat against the exact current scene

contract before displaying it. If any beat is invalid, the player hides that beat and shows the

rest of your transcript; the stored beat itself is never rewritten or reinterpreted, and the

session is never ended by this check. While any beat is hidden this way, the story cannot

continue: starting a new turn answers `SESSION_DATA_INVALID` once and does not charge you. Do

not keep retrying. Contact support with the Story title and approximate session time so the

stored-data failure can be investigated safely.

A response is marked Unconfirmed

This means part of the story response reached your device before the request failed. The text

is kept only as a draft and is not part of the confirmed story transcript. When Retry is

offered, it continues the same request—including the same authored choice—and replaces the draft

in place. Move on discards the draft. A non-retryable validation or authorization failure does

not offer Retry. Avoid submitting the action again as a new message while an unconfirmed draft is

visible.

If you deliberately stop waiting for a turn, the server may still finish it. Use **Show me the

turn to resolve that same request or Move on without it**. Starting a new copy of the action

cannot tell you whether the stopped request completed.

Audio, images, or other media do not load

Check the device connection, disable any content blocker for Mystrix, and retry once. If

the narrative loads but one asset does not, include the story title and describe the

missing asset. Do not upload private files unless a support team member specifically asks

for them through an approved support channel.

Optional presentation channels fail independently. A missing voice does not remove valid images

or pacing, missing music does not remove valid ambience, and a visual failure does not remove

committed text or valid audio. The player never requires an optional channel to read or choose.

On web, a failed ambience track or sound effect shows a warning with Try again. That button

starts a fresh attempt for the failed sound while the story remains readable.

Some authored beats use one finite full-frame video instead of layered Stage art and separate

voice. The clip starts from its beginning, pauses the Story clock while buffering, does not loop,

and advances the beat once when it ends. The ordinary Story controls remain reachable; the next

beat restores its own Stage or replaces the clip directly when it also has an authored video.

A browser can require a direct gesture before it allows a new page to produce sound. In automatic

playback mode, if the web player pauses while the opening text is visible, press its visible

Play control once. That gesture resumes the retained narration, music, ambience, and

sound-effect channels together; it does not require separate hidden audio controls. In

tap-to-advance mode, when the current line owns blocked narration, the same first Play press retries

that retained media without advancing the text; a later press keeps its ordinary advance action.

Tapping the story text in tap-to-advance mode takes that same Play action. Tapping the prose never

interrupts automatic playback.

A scene can still omit any channel the Story did not author.

The narration bar also shows a short voice-state message and enables Replay voice after a

failed, current, or completed turn track is available. Replay restarts that same continuous track

at the selected playback speed; it remains disabled when there is no track to replay, and mute and

narration preferences still apply.

If Play resumes the text but every authored channel stays silent, first confirm that master sound

is not muted and that the applicable narration and media preferences are enabled. Then include the

browser, device, Story title, playback mode, and approximate scene time in the report.

If a published artifact opening was stored during a temporary voice failure, a later authenticated

opening load may rebuild its derived cinematic payload to restore voice when cinematic and

narration have not been explicitly turned off and the exact sealed opening, canon pack, and owning

session still match. This voice repair does not require an artwork-release pin. The authored text

does not change; when those checks fail, the text remains available without guessed audio.

An opening that already has voice but lacks current editorial visuals may independently gain those

visuals on a later load when cinematic visuals have not been explicitly turned off. That repair

does not request speech again: it preserves the stored dialogue, voice, ambience, music, and pacing

and replaces only the visual member. A generated opening with no sealed opening artifact is not

reconstructed by either repair path.

The web player joins cinematic media to the opening line that is already playing instead of waiting

for the next line, and it selects the image for that line's current position. The opening voice and

its image run on the same clock, so they stay together. When synthesized narration includes exact

word timing, the player uses it to select the caption line; the line remains steady while its words

are spoken. Performed audio without word timing keeps the normal line-level progression. If an opening remains silent or its

image stays stale for the entire scene, include that exact symptom in the report.

Story text and choices remain usable when optional artwork is unavailable. A session keeps the

same verified artwork release after it starts, so ordinary publication of a later approved

attachment cannot replace an image midway through that run; a newer session may receive a newer

reviewed release. An explicit Creator Studio correction can rebind an active session. Missing

imagery remains absent, and no background job generates, draws, or edits a substitute. Visual

application never adds choices, tappable hotspots, overlays, or other interactions.

Layered scenes start with the performance for the current beat. If a replacement image fails

to load, the player removes the obsolete scene instead of showing earlier characters under new

dialogue. Text and available audio continue; a later successfully loaded scene can display normally.

When one block has no new quality-admitted image, the player keeps the most recent image that

passed the automated admission boundary until a later image cue or a new scene replaces or clears

it. Retired or malformed visual data is handled

differently: the player drops the complete optional visual lane while committed text and valid

narration, music, ambience, and effects continue.

On Android, rich scene media pauses before loading on a metered connection. You can keep reading

the text-only story, select Load anyway for the scene, or select **Don't ask again on mobile

data** before loading to remember that device-wide choice. This setting applies to media fetching;

it does not block the transcript, choices, or input.

Authored visual actions can continue after a spoken line ends. The player keeps the scene

on screen until those actions finish. Pause and resume control both the spoken line and

its remaining visual actions.

Quiet action moments also remain valid when you reopen the session; they do not add

empty paragraphs to its transcript.