GrueWeaverGrueWeaver
A writing app for text adventures — press kit
Page last updated October 16, 2026
A writing app for text adventures. You write the scenes, the people and the things in them. GrueWeaver builds the world: a map the player walks, characters who answer when spoken to, and objects that can be picked up, examined and used. Then it publishes the game as a web game you own. No code.
Facts
| Developer / Publisher | Widget Press, Inc. — Atlanta, Georgia USA |
|---|---|
| Made by | J.P. Freeman, author of The Chronicles of Nether Wallop and the Five Bells |
| Release | Now in beta on the Mac App Store and the Microsoft Store |
| Platforms | Mac (macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel) and Windows (Windows 10 version 1809 or later, or Windows 11, x64) |
| Price | Free to download and write with. Free exports hold up to three scenes. GrueWeaver Unlimited exports games of any size: $29.99, once, as an in-app purchase. No subscription |
| What it exports | A web game that runs in any modern browser, ready for itch.io or any web host |
| Royalties | None, and no attribution required, on the free version or the paid one |
| Engine | The engine behind Nether Wallop, Widget Press's text adventure |
| Imports | Twine: Twee 3 files and published Twine 2 stories |
| AI | GrueWeaver has no AI features |
| Account and data | No account. No data collected. Projects are files on the author's computer |
| Press contact | J.P. Freeman — inquiry@widgetpress.com |
What makes it different
- Words, not settings. Scenes, exits, characters, dialogue and items are plain forms, and characters, items and objects start from templates. The author fills in words; GrueWeaver turns them into a game that plays straight away.
- The map you draw is the map they walk. Lay out places and connect them with a drag.
- Characters who answer. Branching dialogue that players can question in their own words: "what about the lamp?" finds what the character has to say about the lamp.
- Play as you write. Press Play and you are inside your game, at the scene you are writing. Type a command the way a player would; when something reads wrong, fix it and play again.
- Check before you ship. Check finds broken exits, missing descriptions and style slips, and takes the author to the field that needs fixing.
- Told like a screenplay. Each scene has a heading, and the speaker's name sits above each line, the way Nether Wallop reads.
- Coming from Twine? Each passage becomes a place and each link becomes a way through, with the link text as the words a player types. The story arrives as scenes and exits, ready for the author to add people and things.
- A game you own. The export is a folder that runs in any modern browser. Put it on itch.io or your own site, or sell it. No royalties, no attribution requirements.
- A proven engine. GrueWeaver games run on the engine J.P. Freeman built for Nether Wallop, a parser adventure of over 840 scenes.
- Images and sound on scenes, characters and items.
- Nothing leaves your computer. No account, no sign-in, no data collected.
About the maker
J.P. Freeman is a graphic designer turned programmer. He started in print, moved to the web, consulted with Fortune 100 companies on web UI/UX, and ran Widget Press as a software company from 2001 to 2017, shipping FormEntry and ModelBaker for Mac and iOS.
He spent ten years making The Chronicles of Nether Wallop and the Five Bells, a parser adventure told in screenplay style, and the engine it runs on. GrueWeaver puts that engine in other writers' hands, without the code.
He grew up on a Commodore 64, and text adventures held the sweet spot.
About Widget Press
Widget Press, Inc. is J.P. Freeman's company in Atlanta, Georgia. It published FormEntry and ModelBaker for Mac and iOS, and today publishes The Chronicles of Nether Wallop and the Five Bells, and is making GrueWeaver.
The AI question, answered plainly
GrueWeaver has no AI features. Nothing is generated while people play: every reply is pre-written text, chosen from the game.
How it is made: Widget Press is one human, J.P. Freeman, with a staff of six AI colleagues who help plan, build and test GrueWeaver. Everything that ships passes through him first. The full account of how Widget Press works with AI, with its dated record of changes, is at netherwallop.com/how-its-made.
The art: GrueWeaver's app icon, the grue's head, and its key art, the grue weaving story threads, began as generative AI images. J.P. Freeman cleaned them up and gave them depth in Adobe Illustrator.
The short version, for quotation: "GrueWeaver has no AI features. Nothing is generated while people play."
Screenshots & assets
Download the press kit (2.5MB zip) — screenshots, app icon, key art, logo, J.P. Freeman's photo, and this fact sheet. Click any image to view it larger.
Review copies of GrueWeaver Unlimited on request: inquiry@widgetpress.com.
Interviews
J.P. Freeman is happy to join your podcast, YouTube channel or stream as a guest, and is available for written interviews and articles. Ask: inquiry@widgetpress.com.
Credits
Software — the editor is built with Svelte, CodeMirror, Svelte Flow (xyflow) and Bits UI. Exported games run on the Nether Wallop engine, built on compromise (Spencer Kelly), JsStore (Ujjwal Gupta), Svelte and UIkit (YOOtheme). All MIT licensed.