Publish and updates
Draft until you are ready. Publish when you want it in the library.
First publish
- Fix any Studio warnings
- Playtest the important routes. Share with friends from Publish -> Playtest links
- Submit for review on the Publish tab
Cover, title, and description are what people see before they hit Play.
The base story must be written in English. That is the version the library lists. A story written in any other language will not appear there. Other languages are translations you add later. See Translations.
Playtest links
On Publish, Playtest links is how you let other people try the story before (or without) putting it in the library.
Create a private /t/… URL, copy it, send it. Testers need a Sexter account. You can make several links, label them, and optionally limit one to specific chapters. Chapter links always start at the first included chapter. Playtest progress is separate from a normal save. Revoke a link when you are done with that group of testers.
Drafts (__draft__… slugs) are not shareable with the public story URL. Use a playtest link on the draft's Publish tab instead.
Share your story link
Every live story has a public URL:
https://sexter.io/story/your-slug
Copy it from the library story card (Share button next to favorite), or build it from your story slug. Post it on Patreon, Discord, or anywhere else.
Set or change the slug in Studio → Info → Story URL (live stories only). Changing a published slug breaks old links, so pick something you want to keep. New stories use the slug you type when creating them.
What visitors see:
- Not logged in. A tease page with cover, description, and chapters, then the normal signup / login flow. After they sign up they land back on this overview.
- Logged in. The same overview. The purple button is Play (new save), Continue playing (in progress), or Replay (finished). It does not jump straight into the chat.
- Play / Continue / Replay opens the story. If the next chapter is tier-locked or still Being written, Play stays off and locked chapters show the lock.
- What's new (yellow) shows if you posted an update note for this version. Same notes as the library card. Guests and new players see this drop. Players who already played or dismissed it do not.
Tier-locked early-access chapters are the usual Patreon pitch: patrons with the right tier play, everyone else sees the locked chapter and can upgrade.
Drafts (__draft__… slugs) are not shareable this way. Use a playtest link instead.
Version bumps
Stories have an integer version (starts at 1). When you ship meaningful new content, bump it. Players who already played see an Update badge when story.version > progress.playedVersion.
If the next live chapter is still Being written, players who reach it are marked complete and leave Continue. They can keep playing once you clear that flag. Bump version if you also want the Update badge. Writing the next chapter only in a draft (not published live) also lets the current ending mark complete, same as a finished story.
Two places can bump:
- Publish draft — checkbox Bump version (shows Update badge). On by default. Untick for a quiet hotfix (players get the new content, no badge).
- Update notes on the live story — same checkbox when you post a note. On a version draft, notes stay quiet; use the Publish draft checkbox instead.
Unticking does not clear a badge from an earlier bump. Players keep the badge until they play the newer version.
Publish only some draft changes
A version draft can hold WIP (a new chapter) plus a hotfix to something already live. You do not have to ship the WIP to fix the live chapter.
- Open the draft → Publish
- Click Publish draft
- Everything in the change list is ticked. Untick the WIP you want to keep in the draft
- Publish
Unticked conversations, TheGram posts, and so on stay in the draft. The draft is not deleted.
Pictures those selected conversations actually use are moved onto the live story even if you did not tick them in Extra media. Extra unused uploads (concept art for the WIP chapter, for example) stay on the draft unless you leave them ticked. Ticking everything, the default, still moves the whole draft library and then deletes the draft, same as before.
Use Compare with live first if you want a read-only look at the same change list.
Update notes
On Publish you can post short "what's new" messages (a few hundred characters). On the live story, optionally bump version when you post so the badge lights up. Leave bump off to add a note to the Updates history without notifying.
Players with unread notes see a callout above the description on the library card and on the public story share page. They can dismiss it; the Update badge stays until they actually play the new version. Guests and people who have not started yet also see the notes for the current version on the share page. Full history lives in an Updates tab on the story sheet when notes exist.
After you publish
Ink and Studio data live in the shared database. You do not FTP story files to a server. Save in Studio, players get it on the workers automatically.
If someone is mid-play on an old knot, be careful with destructive Ink rewrites. Additive chapters and new side content are safer than rewriting early knots out from under people. Offer a note when a restart is the honest fix.