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. On web, restoring a saved position seeks narration to the same place as the text. Sound effects that already passed do not replay together at that position; later effects keep their authored timing. A save from another tab does not pause the tab you are watching. 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 waits for your click in Manual mode and is also available when a confirmed automatic batch has reached its limit. 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 fiction or hybrid 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. A fresh start needs that episode's prepared opening; an existing save can still offer Resume when fresh entry is unavailable. The Story page's main action names the episode it will start or resume. Slideshow controls move only the cover pictures.

Not ready to start separately yet means that episode cannot be opened on its own. On a Story page with no episode selected, the episode list explains when Story playback is available even while individual starts are being prepared. A link selecting a specific episode keeps the main button tied to that episode's readiness.

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.

Episodes have independent starting states. The creator may connect their plots or tell unrelated stories; opening a later episode does not import choices from an earlier run. After the final scene finishes, the player offers the immediate next playable episode by name. A fresh Next episode starts its newest published content, while Resume keeps your existing save and position. A creator can update one episode without replacing the others.

If you confirm a finite automatic batch, it can continue into the next episode after the current episode finishes. The remaining limit carries over. It stops for a required choice, pause or Stop, an unavailable next episode, a save or opening failure, or the confirmed limit. This also continues from a season finale into the next season's first episode without another click or confirmation. Each episode still keeps its own save.

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, Mute all audio silences documentary footage audio while keeping its picture. Cinematic off immediately hides optional documentary media and exposes its authored alternative, including while playback is paused. Turning it on again restores that paused presentation. The required finite beat-video picture remains controlled by Story playback. Turning Cinematic off also immediately silences optional music, ambience and effects, including music that is fading out during a scene change.

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. Cinematic controls recover from damaged browser settings by loading the account's saved settings. When an optional sound is unavailable, Retry attempts that same sound after its media becomes available. 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 without its prepared authored speech track, 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 read binds an existing exact prepared authored track; it never synthesizes new Reader speech. 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 contextual imagery is not generated or drawn by a background job. A genuinely artless web scene can show governed Story key art from the coherent player snapshot. 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.