I founded Failbetter because I was interested in new ways of telling stories. Our first project was a social game because that was what everyone was doing in 2009, and it seemed the obvious way to make enough money to fund a team. But... I was never comfortable with the aggressive virals that social games often rely on.

So we had something that looked and behaved like a social game but was incredibly polite and gentle. And which was a bit quirky to be mass-market, too. As a result, we didn't get the giant stack of players that social games do, but we still suffered from the shonky reputation that they have. It was, as I've said a few times, like dressing up as Darth Vader but refusing to use any dark Force powers. You still get the bad press and you don't even get the advantages.

So we said hang it all, the game stands or falls on the quality of its storytelling and that's what we care about, let's make the social network thing optional. Let's allow them to sign up with just an email address and a password. (That'll go live in the week of 26th March.)

And as soon as we started thinking in those terms... we realised this is the bright line that allows you to demonstrate we're going to behave ourselves. If a game insists on getting your social networking details, it might use them responsibly, or it might not. If a game lets you play without insisting on access, then you know it's not just going to be all about the viral marketing.

I don't want to suggest that all social games, or even most social games, take liberties. The Wild West days are long past. There are plenty of responsible, high quality offerings with deep gameplay, and plenty of others that want social network access for good reasons. But we all feel that nervousness in the second after we click 'authorise this application'. I wish there were more games that allowed limited engagement. Too often, it's like someone demanding your phone number before they'll talk to you.

Anyway.... on top of that, we've got the only crafting system in the world that runs on character, dialogue and story. And we've got a more advanced version of cliques on the way, as a new focus for socialising and co-operating within the game. I'm quite excited about that. But the big thing is Living Stories, which we're just rolling out now.

We want the stories that we tell on this platform to be a bit more pervasive than just text on a tab. So first of all, we've got access codes that you can pop into your browser that will unlock extra items or stories in the game. We can give those out from Fallen London characters on Twitter, as the results of mysteries or puzzles, or links from other storyworlds. So you might be watching Mr Stones' Twitter feed and see him link to a story about the Tomb Colonies that'll only run for a month, for the people who find that link.

Second, we've got reactive stories that come and talk to you after the fact. People have already seen some of these, with the admirers who start visiting very Persuasive types or the extra dreams that attend some Watchful actions. This means we can have characters who mail you a week or two after another story and say "Our old enemy has returned to plague us..." or, perhaps, "I miss you. Is it really over between us?" It means we can mix up ways of pacing stories - so we can still tell them over days or months, but you don't need to do quite as much clicking to see the end of them.

This is early tech and we're only just working out the best way to use it and how to refine it, but it feels like it might be a big deal.