The Journey Builder is where you design the map itself. Your milestones and Tabis are already on it once you've made them; the builder is where you arrange them and add everything else players will see — artwork, labels, live panels, shortcuts — at the depth you want. Open it from Journey Builder in the menu's Admin Tools. In an adventure made from a template, the map belongs to the template, so design it there.
The Palette
The toolbar along the top is a palette of things to place. Everything you add lands on the canvas ready to drag, resize and arrange.
- Add Graphic — drops an empty frame; use its Set image button to choose the picture. Fill in the optional Link URL first and players can click the graphic to open that link in a new tab.
- Add Text — real words on the map, with an optional link. Text stays sharp at any zoom and can be edited later, so use it rather than pictures of words.
- Add Task — pick one of the adventure's tasks by name and it lands as a hexagon bound to that task. Only there when Tasks is switched on.
- Add Widget — a live panel that shows each player their own information.
- Add Point — an invisible marker you can drop anywhere on the map purely as a destination, useful for a spot that doesn't need its own graphic. See "Naming Elements and Gliding to a Place" below.
- Active Tabis — tick which Tabis appear on the map as chapters.
- Nav Links — a button that takes players to another part of the adventure.
- Working layer and Layers — for working with depth, below.
- View journey — opens the live map in a new tab.
The widget and link menus only offer what the adventure has switched on in Adventure Settings, so you can't place a shortcut into a feature players can't use.
Widgets
A widget reads whoever is looking at it, so two players see different numbers in the same spot.
- Status — the player's picture, level, and XP and BLOO bars (plus EP when Energy is on). Clicking it opens their profile panel.
- Journey progress — how far through the whole journey they are.
- Leaderboard (needs Leaderboard) and Guild leaderboard (needs Guilds).
- Tasks (needs Tasks) — the tasks they can do, available ones first.
- Messages — a button that opens the player's direct messages.
- Ways to help (needs The Garden) — open help requests, plus the player's own.
- Achievements (needs Achievements) and Backpack (needs Backpack) — badges earned and items carried.
Widgets are drawn at their real size in the builder, filled with stand-in data. Drag the corner handle to size one: unlike a graphic, which keeps its image's proportions, a widget takes whatever height you give it. The widgets that show a list also have a length, named after what they count:
- Leaderboard — Players shown, 5 by default
- Guild leaderboard — Guilds shown, 5
- Tasks — Tasks shown, 3
- Ways to help — Requests shown, 3
- Achievements — Badges shown, 12
- Backpack — Items shown, 12
Any number up to 50 works; clear the field to go back to the default. The Achievements and Backpack panels say how many more there are beyond what fits. A tall Achievements panel beside a short Tasks list is exactly what this is for.
Task Hexagons
A task hexagon is one task drawn like a milestone. Where the Tasks widget lists several tasks in one panel, hexagons let you lay a routine out as a map: one per task, placed where it happens in the story. Players click one to open the task and complete it without leaving the Journey. The hexagon keeps its shape when you resize it, and its bar has a Task picker if you want to point it at a different task. If its task is deleted, the hexagon stays on the map drawn as unavailable, so you can find it and remove it.
Text
A text object has its words, an optional link, a font and a size. The three fonts are Normal, Normal Condensed and Special. Size is in pixels, from 8 to 200; leave it blank for the default of 28. Enter starts a new line, and the text saves when you click away (or press Ctrl+Enter, Cmd+Enter on a Mac). Resizing a text object sets where it wraps; its height is whatever the words need.
Nav Links
Put a button to any of the adventure's player-facing sections right where it belongs in the story, instead of leaving players to find it in the menu — not just the Item Shop, Magic Code and Journal, but any of the 24 sections the platform offers: the Journal, Achievements, Leaderboard, Item Shop, Backpack, Tabis, the Garden, Tasks, Missions, Guilds, Help Board, Wall, Posts, Resources, the Event Schedule, Speakers, Cooper, My Account and more. Each option is offered only when that feature is actually on, and each uses your platform's own name for that section.
Posts & Resources Feed Widgets
Two widgets put your news feed right on the map: a Posts feed and a Resources feed. Point either one at a single post or resource to show it in place, or leave it open to show the newest items as a scrollable list — handy for in-world instructions or announcements players read without leaving the Journey.
Arranging Things
Hover over an object and its control bar appears above it. Double-click any element to open it in the Layers panel docked at the side instead, where the map stays fully visible while you work.
- Move — drag the object. Positions save when you let go; there's no Save button.
- Size — drag the corner handle. Most elements resize freely now, rather than being locked to their original proportions; hold Shift to keep the proportions. Milestones and task hexagons always keep their shape. Reset Size on any image returns it to its natural size.
- Rotate — graphics, text, widgets, nav links and task hexagons have a rotate handle to drag, with a one-click Reset back to zero.
- Opacity and colour — graphics and text can be faded, even down to fully invisible (handy for an invisible clickable "hotspot" over a piece of background art), and text can take its own colour.
- Animation — give any graphic a slow spin, clockwise or counter-clockwise, as a simple way to draw the eye to something on the map.
- Stacking — Bring forward and Send back decide what draws on top. The number between them is the object's position within its depth, counting from 1.
- Type — on a placed graphic, widget, nav link or task hexagon, the dropdown switches it to another of those kinds without losing its place.
- Duplicate and Remove.
- Locked with Tabi — tie an object to a Tabi and, while that Tabi is still locked for a player, the object shows greyed out and can't be clicked. Useful for a signpost or shortcut that belongs to a chapter. The picker appears once the adventure has Tabis.
- Shown from level / Hidden from level — show or hide any element, not just milestones, once a player reaches a given level. Set either or both to make something appear for a window of levels only. If an element has a level rule, a small tag on it says so directly in the builder, so you're never left guessing why a test player can't see something.
Showing or Hiding by Achievement
Beyond the level rule, any element you place on the map — a graphic, a Tabi, a milestone node — can also be shown only to players holding a specific achievement, or hidden from players holding a different one. Combine it with the level rule freely; both apply together. As a GM or admin, you'll still see a hidden element yourself, dimmed, with a plain-language note explaining why ("Shown from level 2; only to holders of Pilot"). Players never see it at all. This is also the recommended way to build "staff-only" content on the map: give your staff an achievement and gate the content to holders of it, rather than needing a separate staff flag.
Naming Elements and Gliding to a Place
Every element you place can now have a real name (shown in pickers and layer lists), instead of just a filename or a snippet of its text. Give your important landmarks a name once, and renaming your content later won't change it.
A Point (see the Palette, above) is an invisible marker you can drop anywhere on the map purely as a destination. A Glide button — or any graphic or text element — can be set to glide the camera smoothly to any named point, Tabi, milestone, or other element on the map when clicked, instead of opening a link or a post.
Every placed element, Tabi and milestone also has a Link to this spot button that copies a direct URL — opening that link (or typing it in) glides a player's map straight to that location when they land on the journey. Handy for pointing players at something specific from an email or announcement. One thing to keep in mind: if the destination is hidden from a player by a level or achievement rule, the glide link simply does nothing for them — give the button or link the same visibility rule as its destination if you want it to always work.
Depth
Everything on the map sits at one of four depths, and each moves at its own speed when a player pans or zooms — that's what gives the map its parallax:
- Deep (Deep background) — moves the slowest.
- Back (Background).
- Base — moves with the map. The only depth players can click.
- Front (Foreground) — moves slightly faster than the map, for things nearer than the milestones.
Behind all four, the grid backdrop drifts slowest of all.
A fifth option, Fixed, pins an element to the screen itself rather than the map — it stays in the same corner or edge as players pan and zoom around, instead of scrolling away. Useful for a decoration, button or link you want always on screen, like a persistent call-to-action.
Graphics, text, widgets, nav links and task hexagons have a Depth row in their bar: press Deep, Back, Base or Front to move the object there, and it lands at the bottom of that depth's stack. Anything a player needs to click — a linked graphic or text, a widget, a nav link, a task hexagon — has to stay on Base, because the other depths are decoration only.
- A milestone is always on Base, whatever you do. It has no depth buttons.
- A Tabi that holds milestones is always on Base, because its milestones can only be reached through it; its bar shows the lock and how many milestones it holds instead of depth buttons. A Tabi with no milestones is scenery and can go at any depth.
- If you file a milestone into a Tabi that's sitting at another depth — from the Tabi editor, Manage Content or the milestone's own builder — the Tabi snaps back to Base, and a message tells you it moved.
The builder itself doesn't pan or zoom — it scrolls — so all four depths line up exactly as they will at the player's starting view. Open View journey to see them move.
Blur
Beside its depth, each graphic, text, widget, nav link and task hexagon has a Blur field, in pixels from 0 (sharp) to 40. A little blur on something in the background sells distance. Milestones and Tabis don't take blur.
Working Layer
Working layer lets you edit one depth at a time. Choose Deep background, Background, Base or Foreground and everything at the other depths stays visible but ghosted, and stops taking clicks — so you can work over a busy canvas without grabbing the wrong thing. Everything puts it back.
The Layers Panel
Layers opens a side panel listing everything on the journey, front to back, grouped by depth — Foreground, Base, Background, Deep background — with a count for each and a note saying which one players can click. Its job is finding what the canvas makes hard to reach: something ghosted, buried under three other objects, or scrolled off the edge. Click a row to find it on the canvas, and use its depth buttons to move it. Milestones, and Tabis that hold milestones, show as locked to Base, and any blur is listed next to the object's type.
Related
- The Tabi Editor — chapters, their milestones and their pieces
- Evolving Tabis & the Scene Builder — artwork that grows inside a Tabi
- The Journey Map — what players see
- Garden Tasks — what's behind a task hexagon