I Hid From the World for While. Here's Why.

I kept putting this off because I wanted to sound composed, and unfortunately, that is not what this season of my life has been.

So let me just say it plainly: I totally went off grid because I was building Guildstew, and now it has become real enough that hiding behind "I’ll talk about it later" feels ridiculous.

I’m excited about it. I’m also a little nauseous, a little sleep-deprived, and one calendar notification away from staring into the middle distance for ten full minutes.

Which probably means this is the right time to write this.

For the last few years, most of my energy has gone into building this thing and surviving everything else happening around it. And I do mean everything else. Health issues. Moving. Grief. Money stress. The kind of months where you keep thinking, surely life is done throwing furniture at me, and then it finds another table to freakin' flip.

And still, somehow, Guildstew made it through all of it.

We’ve had 160 alpha testers in it already. Real people. Clicking every button. Breaking things in useful ways. Asking smart questions. Telling us when something feels good and when something absolutely does not. I’ve also been taking it into game stores and putting it in front of actual tabletop people, which is one of the fastest ways on earth to learn whether your ideas make sense outside your own brain.

Also, the Kickstarter launches August 31st. Woof.

So if I sound a little keyed up in this post, that is because I am.

The Weird, Very Specific Origin Story

The origin story for Guildstew is embarrassingly really domestic.

My husband got into tabletop RPGs during COVID, which felt a little miraculous because I had spent years trying to get him to play. For context, we met on League of Legends. I was Caitlyn. He Thresh. So obviously, this relationship was built on excellent judgment and zero red flags.

Anyway, after all that effort, he finally agreed to play TTRPGs, and all it took was for him to watch Dimension 20 with me. (Thanks, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Lou Wilson, for convincing my husband that Dungeons and Dragons isn't just, and I quote: "White people shit."

I put the books in front of him.

He looked at the pile of rules, notes, sheets, and tabs and basically asked, "Okay, but is there an app for this?"

I, being extremely normal and gracious, informed him that this was a foolish question.

Then I sat down and built a prototype in 48 hours.

That was the beginning. Not some elegant lightning-bolt startup moment. Just me being annoyed enough by a good question that I had to answer it.

This Was Not Even the First Game We Were Making

Before Guildstew took over our lives, we were building an action RPG.

We cared about that project deeply. We still do. It had a failed Kickstarter, which sucked. No glamorous way to phrase that. It hurt. We kept going anyway and pieced the funding together through angel investing, our own money, and business loans because we believed in it that much.

That game is still on hiatus.

Not because we stopped loving it. Because life got bigger and uglier and more demanding than our plans. I was dealing with a blood disorder. We were dealing with fertility challenges. There were stretches where the only reasonable move was to stop pretending brute force could solve everything.

That project is not dead. It is waiting for a version of our lives that has a little more iron (har har, microcytic anemia joke) in it.

Guildstew Became the Pivot

If there is one theme running through the last few years, it is pivoting.

Health stuff? Pivot.

Moving to Oklahoma? Pivot.

Loss? Pivot.

Stress so intense it made my GERD almost burn a hole through my esophagus? Pivot.

The occasional full internal collapse, followed by having to keep going anyway? Also pivot.

At a certain point, pivoting stops feeling strategic and starts feeling like the default setting. But I think that’s part of why Guildstew exists in the shape it does. It was built by people adapting in real time. Not pretending things were stable. Not waiting for life to become neat and manageable before making something ambitious.

Just adjusting. Rebuilding. Continuing.

It Took More Than Me

I did not build this alone. Not even close.

During the early mobile prototype stage, Artur from Elevated Web Apps and Devin helped build the app. Devin is also the dev behind Mr. Sleepyman on Steam, which rules, and yes, this is me publicly shouting out his game because he deserves it.

Those early prototypes mattered a lot.

Then the first round of testers got their hands on Guildstew and immediately made one thing very clear: they wanted this on the web. So I took that early code and turned it into a web application, because apparently the universe had decided I was not allowed to choose the easier path at any point.

That whole process shaped the platform in a huge way. It became better because people were honest. It became broader because testers pushed for what they actually wanted. It became real because more than one person showed up and did great work.

Why I Couldn’t Let This Go

I love tabletop games because they are messy and personal and a little impossible.

I love how every table ends up with its own strange logic. I love homebrew. I love lore. I love when players care so much that they derail everything in a way that somehow makes the story stronger.

What I do not love is when the tools around that experience feel like homework.

Too many of them ask you to flatten your campaign into a filing cabinet. Too many make creativity feel administrative. Too many seem built for generic use cases and then act surprised when people want their worlds to be specific and weird.

Guildstew came out of that frustration.

I wanted something that could hold worldbuilding, custom systems, gated lore, and all the tiny details that make a campaign feel alive. I wanted something that respected the way tabletop brains actually work, while actually making players interested in reading and interacting with all the hard work GMs put into their campaigns.

I wanted new players like my husband to actually enjoy their first experience, not feel overwhelmed to fail, or scared to try something new and embarrass themselves because let's be totally honest tabletops are not exactly something that most people enjoy.

But why can't we make it that way?

The Internet Is a Lot Right Now

I also think part of why it took me so long to talk about this is that the internet feels awful right now.

Everything wants a performance. Everything wants volume. Everything wants daily proof that you are visible, optimized, and available for consumption. And a lot of what gets rewarded is the fastest, flattest version of communication possible.

That messes with your head.

It becomes weirdly difficult to share something real without feeling like you’re feeding it into a machine that will turn it into beige paste.

So I’ve been trying to figure out how to show up without sounding like a billboard.

I do not want to talk like a company. I want to talk like a person who made something hard while life kept trying to tackle her into the dirt.

And Yet, It’s Working

That’s the part I still have trouble saying out loud without short-circuiting a little.

People are using Guildstew.

They’re testing it. They’re giving feedback. Actual, real-life feedback.

And yes, I’m still anxious. Of course I am. I look at August 31st and my nervous system immediately starts doing side quests.

But underneath all of that is something solid.

I’m proud of this.

Not in a polished, victory-lap kind of way. In a tired, stunned, emotional kind of way. Like dude, I really did keep going. Through medical bullshit, grief, financial strain, moving, stress, pivots, delays, and all the other nonsense that would have been a very understandable reason to quit.

and just… didn’t.

August 31st Is Coming Fast

So that’s where things stand.

Guildstew has been shaped by 160 alpha testers, by feedback from local game showcases, by early prototyping help from Artur and Devin, and by a truly unreasonable amount of persistence.

And on August 31st, we’re taking it to Kickstarter.

That sentence still does not feel normal to type.

I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m tired. I’m hopeful. I’m probably going to pace a hole in my floor before launch day gets here.

But mostly, I’m grateful we made it this far.

If you want to follow along, get on the list.

I’m really excited to show you what we built.