The Stars Reach Universe
Take vast experience in the MMO genre and a heap of enthusiasm from the Playable Worlds studio. Let it incubate quietly for a few years “in the dark,” allowing the first green shoots to push through the strong roots into the light. Under the sun’s rays, these shoots gained beauty at lightning speed, and within a few months, they turned into entire lush forests.
Yes, I am talking about Stars Reach. Since its reveal and subsequent Kickstarter campaign in the spring of 2025, the game has been growing incredibly fast. For me, this only proves how strong its roots—formed by a robust cloud solution and a unique game engine—really are. Equally dynamic is the behavior of the world itself and the variety of planets, whether in terms of mineral wealth, fauna, or flora. Boundless diversity everywhere you look.
It is a fully-fledged living simulation of worlds, which is moreover completely persistent. The actions of one player influence everyone, or at least the immediate surroundings. It is a vast universe where the players themselves drive the operation. And even though the game is now only in alpha testing, the emphasis on quality suggests that this will not be a rushed job.
Personally, the initial test weekends absorbed me so much that I backed the development on Kickstarter with an amount that made me wonder if I had lost my mind. But hey, I originally entered the IT world with the desire to develop games. And although I haven’t succeeded professionally (yet), why not fulfill that dream—and support the game—at least in this way?
You can find more about the game on the Stars Reach website or the official Discord.
STS Project Vision
A strong community has been forming around Stars Reach since the very beginning. Given that it is a sandbox game, this is naturally one of the developers’ intentions. This project is my personal contribution to that community and a tribute to the creators.
At the same time, it is a major personal challenge for me: can I build a complex web application using only my own resources and with the help of AI vibecoding?
SharTeal’s Stars Log
This narrative experiment explores the world of Stars Reach through the eyes of SharTeal, whose personal logs and stories serve as the site’s PDA interface to maximize immersion. While grounded in actual game updates and community events, the narrative intentionally diverges from the official canon to expand the lore with original creativity.
Game Tools
The IRIS application represents a set of tools built directly on data from Stars Reach. The goal is to provide players with useful utilities for their own needs. The currency of the data depends on my time availability for regular updates. The project also includes methods for extracting this data from the game.
About the Author
I have been in IT for over twenty years. During that time, I have cycled (literally) through most conceivable roles within Software Delivery—starting as a developer and tester, through full-stack analyst and solution architect, up to delivery management. In the last year, I have been intensively involved with AI; it would be strange not to, given that it is everywhere today. However, IT is only one side of the coin.
The other is personal development, which I have been deeply involved in since 2020. I am a trained facilitator of developmental improvisation, I lead a improv-theater group, and generally, the world of stories, theater, and psychology is close to my heart. Since 2025, I have also been working as a coach focusing on performance and self-development topics.
I love games of all kinds, and I increasingly allow myself to unleash my creativity—it was about time :). And just as I combine technical and psychological-theatrical directions in my personal life, I have connected them within this project. It has become a huge inspiration and source of energy for me, even though I admit—given its scope—it has occasionally been a nightmare too.
A big thanks to everyone who supported me in this!
You can find more about me on my personal page (sorry, currently in Czech only).
Background & Origins
The Three Pillars of Technological Perspective
- Web Application: A frontend built with Astro and TypeScript integrated with a backend infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform and Firebase.
- Content Management: A standalone Python & Gradio application designed to streamline storytelling by generating structured Markdown and JSON content for the web.
- Data Extraction: A Python pipeline utilizing OCR & AI to transform raw game visuals into structured datasets via ETL processes.
The project’s scope currently exceeds 200,000 lines of code with a comparable volume of documentation. While the majority was generated using AI agents (Claude Code & Gemini), the core architecture, system design, and prompt engineering are entirely my own. My primary goal was to verify the feasibility of building a full-fledged ‘greenfield’ web application using modern AI tools. I have been financing and developing this project in my free time since the summer of 2025.
The Dimensions of Imagination
The narrative layer is entirely my own creative work. I take pride in crafting original stories and lore, using AI tools strictly for English proofreading to bridge the language gap.
All narative visuals are redrawn by hand to ensure a unified aesthetic, whether they originate from in-game designs, my own sketches, or AI-generated concepts based on my ideas.
The web design intended to offer an immersive narrative experience that balances the game’s atmosphere with user-friendly functionality.
Appreciation
Enjoy your time in SharTeal’s Space, whether it’s through reading the fan fiction or by finding the IRIS tools helpful for your gameplay.
I had so much fun creating this, and I hope you have just as much fun exploring it!
Thanks so much for the support! If you want to stay updated or just say hi, come join us in the #sharteals-space channel on the Stars Reach Discord.
Important Notice
- Content Origin: While my content takes place within the Stars Reach universe and utilizes elements from it (e.g., my hand-drawn sketches faithfully based on existing designs), the characters’ stories, their destinies, and most of the narrative content are exclusively my original work. This is fan fiction that I’ve created to expand upon and interpret the existing universe.
- Intellectual Property Ownership: All rights to the Stars Reach universe, its characters, concepts, and related intellectual property belong to Playable Worlds. My work is an addition and tribute to this universe and is not intended to infringe upon their copyrights.
- Copyright Notice: If you are the copyright holder of content that you believe has been used without authorization on this website, please contact me at sharteal@jirkadrozd.cz. I will endeavor to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
PEGI 16: Bad Language, Violence, Drugs, Sex, Gambling