The basics
What it is, and who is behind it.
What is Hopeful Skies?
A cozy productivity app. You pour in what is on your mind, and the big, overwhelming things are cut into small quests of 5 to 25 minutes. Finish one in real life and your floating island changes.
Can I use it today?
Not publicly. It is an early prototype, and the alpha is invite-only, friends and family first. The island on the home page is the real thing. The full app around it is still being built. If you would like to be on the list, send me an email.
Is it a game or a tool?
A tool first, wrapped in a world. Nothing decays, nothing is ranked, and rewards never lock a feature. The island engine comes from Forgotten Skies, the game we are also making, which is why the home page lets you peek at its lore.
Who is making it?
I am: Robyn, from Berlin, at Protagonists! I have made games for 25 years. Hopeful Skies is the first of a series of tools I am building, and I started it for myself.
Why is it always changing?
Because it is a tool I use every day. Every time something gets in my way, it gets fixed, so Hopeful Skies keeps getting better as I use it, and as you do.
I am a developer. Can I build on it or customise it?
I would love that. There is no public developer platform yet, and I am not pretending otherwise. If you make apps, tools, themes or islands, or you want to bend Hopeful Skies and the rest of MyOS to your own needs, write to me and we will talk about what is possible. The idea is a place where people share what they make and everything lives in one home. Anything that comes from outside would run in a sandbox with limited rights, and we would look at it before it reaches anyone else.
Which devices?
The plan is iPhone, Mac and PC. We test on an iPhone 12 as the minimum reference.
Today and ahead
An honest picture of where we are.
No promise dates. When something ships, it moves from the right box to the left one.
Today
- A live island you can explore, following the real time of day, the season and the weather.
- This website, with no cookies and no tracking.
- An invite-only alpha for friends and family.
- The quest engine, the crew and the music are still being built.
- No price, no store listing, no payments.
Where we are heading
- Quests cut to fit your day, a short daily list, and a crew you shape yourself, with Linus as your second in command.
- Zaur, the Saurian cook of your crew, who takes your feedback inside the app.
- Data export and full deletion, in open formats.
- iPhone, Mac and PC.
- A public release when it is ready, and not before.
Feedback
Tell me what you think.
Every piece of feedback is welcome.
How do I give feedback?
Inside the app, you talk to Zaur, the Saurian cook of your crew, the one in the chef's hat. Tell him what you think of the food, and what you think of the app: what works, what annoys you, what you wish it did. Zaur logs every piece of feedback and every request.
What happens with it?
I read it, and I do my best to build it as soon as possible. Because I use the app every day, your feedback tends to land in the next version, not in a someday list. Until the app has Zaur, just email me.
Data and privacy
Your data is yours.
Hosting in Europe as much as we can, and plain words about the rest.
What does this website collect?
Nothing from you. No cookies, no analytics, no ads, no third-party scripts, and the fonts and the 3D island are hosted by us. Our host, Cloudflare, sees the basic request data any web host sees in order to deliver the page. If you email me, I have your email address, and that is all.
Where will my data live?
As much as possible in Europe. The alpha keeps its database in Frankfurt, in the EU. Some parts still rely on providers outside the EU: Cloudflare delivers the app, and some AI services run on infrastructure outside Europe. Before the public release we will list every provider here, with what it does and where it runs.
Can I take my data with me?
That is a rule for us, not a feature on a list. You will be able to export everything in open formats and delete your account and your data. It is not built into the alpha yet, and it is a requirement for the public release.
Who can see my tasks?
You. Friends who join your island see your avatar and that you are around. They never see your tasks, your goals or any streak. There are no leaderboards and no comparing.
Do you sell my data or show ads?
No ads, and we do not sell your data.
Is the alpha safe to trust?
It is an early alpha run by a very small team. Use it, tell us what breaks, and do not put anything in it that you could not afford to lose yet.
AI, openly
Yes, we use AI. Here is where.
Where is AI used?
In the app: language models help turn what you write into small quests. In Linus: his voice is synthetic, and we will not pretend otherwise. In how we build: I make Hopeful Skies with AI coding assistants, and I am responsible for what ships.
Does the AI decide for me?
No. It suggests, you choose. Quests are proposals, and nothing happens on your behalf without a yes from you.
Is my data used to train AI?
No. We do not train models on your data, and we pick providers on the same terms. If that ever changes, you will read it here first.
Money and why
The point is the tools, not the billions.
How will Hopeful Skies make money?
That is not decided yet, and nothing is for sale today. Some promises are already made: no ads, no loot boxes, no paid re-rolls, and nothing in the tool locked behind rewards. When there is a price, it will be written here in plain words.
Why are you doing this?
I am not trying to make billions. I want to build great tools for people and to do something good with them. What the project earns goes back into making it better and, I hope, into letting me keep working on it for a living.
The mission of Protagonists! says it best: equip the protagonists of this world with the tools they need to realize their full potential.
Robyn
For the curious
The geeky questions.
How it works, how it is run. Open the ones you care about.
How does the island work?
It is a 3D island drawn live in your browser (WebGL, with three.js), generated from a seed, not a video. It is the same island engine as Forgotten Skies. The sky, light, season and weather follow your real clock and calendar, with slow, eased changes and nothing that flashes.
How are quests made?
A language model proposes, and rules keep it small: a quest takes 5 to 25 minutes, has one clear action and one finish line, and comes with a first step of two minutes or less for the days when starting is the hard part. Rewards are cosmetic and never gate the tool.
What is it built on?
This website is plain HTML with no scripts on its own pages, served from Cloudflare Workers, with the fonts and the 3D library self-hosted. The alpha app runs on the same stack as my other tools: Cloudflare Workers in front, and a Postgres database in Frankfurt behind.
How is it run?
By a very small team, with AI assistants doing a lot of the typing. Changes go to a code repository and are deployed only when the checks pass. Each person in the alpha gets their own space, and my personal data is never shown to testers.
What about open formats and leaving?
Export and deletion are requirements for the public release. The target is plain files you can read without us, such as JSON and Markdown, so that leaving is easy and your tasks are never held hostage.
I have a question that is not here.
Email me at robyn@protagonists.com. If it is a good question, it ends up on this page.
Still curious? Come aboard early.
The alpha is invite-only, friends and family first. Tell me you would like to be on the list.
Ask for an invite