Storylines: 5e RPG Campaigns

Storylines is your always-on DM. Play solo or with friends in AI-powered 5e campaigns packed with choices, combat, and character growth.

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Inspiration

We love the immersive storytelling of Dungeons & Dragons but found it hard to gather a group or find a Dungeon Master consistently. We wanted to create an always-available, AI-powered experience that delivers the full depth of 5e gameplay—solo or with friends—right from your phone.

What it does

Storylines is a mobile-first, 5e-compatible RPG system powered by AI. Players can create characters using full SRD 5.1 rules and embark on dynamically generated, persistent campaigns that span from level 1 to 20. The app supports solo and co-op play, with AI acting as the storyteller, combat orchestrator, and worldbuilder—no game master required.

Key features:

Character creation with classes, spells, and gear

Tactical turn-based combat

Branching narratives that adapt to player choices

Shared progress across multiple players

Cloud-synced campaigns you can drop into anytime

How we built it

Storylines was built using Bolt, which allowed us to simultaneously develop the mobile app (Expo React Native), landing website, and Node.js backend in a unified, collaborative environment. Bolt helped us iterate quickly on the frontend and backend architecture while keeping our development process fast and scalable.

We used:

Bolt for full-stack development, rapid prototyping, and deployment

React Native (Expo) for building a cross-platform mobile app

Node.js (via Bolt backend) to handle server-side logic and integration with external APIs

Supabase for authentication, real-time sync, and campaign data storage

OpenAI APIs for narrative generation and text-to-speech

ElevenLabs for rich character voice narration

RevenueCat for subscriptions and IAP tracking

Google AdMob for monetization via ads

The campaign engine uses a templated JSON adventure model, allowing us to create reusable modules for milestones, subquests, NPCs, and branching story logic.

Challenges we ran into

Schema Design: Building a scalable, relational structure to support reusable adventures while allowing individualized campaign progression was complex.

AI Prompt Alignment: Tuning AI behavior to maintain narrative consistency and 5e rule fidelity required significant iteration and testing.

Realtime Syncing: Ensuring multiple players could stay in sync with story progression, combat turns, and AI responses via Supabase proved challenging across mobile devices.

Audio Integration: Combining ElevenLabs and OpenAI TTS in a performant, cost-effective way required architectural optimization.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Created a fully playable mobile experience using Bolt to unify app, backend, and web development

Delivered a production-ready campaign system with character creation, real-time co-op support, and full SRD 5e rules—all in a short development cycle

A functioning mobile app where solo players or friends can collaboratively roleplay through AI-powered adventures.

A reusable, modular story system that supports leveling, branching outcomes, and dynamic world interaction.

Full 5e-compatible character creation and level progression within a mobile-first UI.

Seamless voice interaction pipeline from text generation to voice synthesis.

What we learned

Structuring AI-driven games requires balancing randomness with guided design to avoid incoherent or repetitive outcomes.

Mobile players value frictionless access—auto-progression, persistent saves, and minimal setup are essential.

Open source data (like SRD 5.1) enables rich experiences when combined with structured templates and AI enhancements.

Building tools for adventure creation and templating can massively reduce the cost and time to create new campaigns.

What's next for Storylines

Allow for speech-to-text, enabling players to converse with the Storyteller/GM. This is already started, we are fine tuning it before releasing.

Introduce full combat, including initiative, rolls, and spells casting.

Enable Multiclass characters

Customizable/skinnable dice for players skill/attack rolls

A ton more adventures!

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