Nerdofepic: Created page with "= RefractTrack: the board your team will actually keep open = '''Refract Odyssey Studio needed a tracker that felt like it was built for a small game team — not a boxed-up enterprise tool with fifty menus for the ten things people actually do all day.''' RefractTrack is that tracker: a self-hosted kanban board purpose-built for tracking tasks and bugs across one or more game projects, with real role-based permissions, per-project workflows, and zero monthly seat fees...."

2026-08-27T23:39:32Z

Created page with "= RefractTrack: the board your team will actually keep open = '''Refract Odyssey Studio needed a tracker that felt like it was built for a small game team — not a boxed-up enterprise tool with fifty menus for the ten things people actually do all day.''' RefractTrack is that tracker: a self-hosted kanban board purpose-built for tracking tasks and bugs across one or more game projects, with real role-based permissions, per-project workflows, and zero monthly seat fees...."

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= RefractTrack: the board your team will actually keep open =

'''Refract Odyssey Studio needed a tracker that felt like it was built for a small game team — not a boxed-up enterprise tool with fifty menus for the ten things people actually do all day.''' RefractTrack is that tracker: a self-hosted kanban board purpose-built for tracking tasks and bugs across one or more game projects, with real role-based permissions, per-project workflows, and zero monthly seat fees.

Below is a quick tour of the features that tend to win people over first.

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== It's a real board, not a spreadsheet pretending to be one ==

Drag-and-drop task cards across as many swimlanes as your workflow needs, with priority and type badges, group tags, and assignee visible at a glance — no click-through required to know what you're looking at.

[[File:01_board.png|thumb|center|750px|The board view: five swimlanes, color-coded priority and type badges, group tags, and assignees, all visible without opening a single card.]]

Prefer rows to lanes? The same tasks are one click away as a sortable, filterable table — search by text, or filter by stage, assignee, or group.

[[File:02_list.png|thumb|center|750px|List view: the same project, filterable and sortable by any column.]]

== Bug reports that actually carry the information a developer needs ==

Flip a task's type to '''Bug''' and three extra fields appear automatically: '''Expected behavior''', '''Actual behavior''', and '''Steps to reproduce'''. No more bug tickets that are just a title and a shrug.

[[File:03_task_detail.png|thumb|center|750px|A bug ticket with structured repro steps, review status, and one-click stage/assignee updates — all on a single screen.]]

Every task also gets its own threaded '''comments''' tab (rendered through a lightweight Markdown engine — bold, italics, headings, lists, and syntax-highlighted code blocks) sitting right next to an automatically generated '''activity log''', so discussion and system history never get tangled together. Mention another ticket's code — <code>RFO-4</code>, for instance — anywhere in a description or comment and RefractTrack turns it into a live link automatically.

[[File:04_task_comments.png|thumb|center|750px|Comments and Markdown formatting in action, including automatic task-code linking (see "RFO-4" turn into a link on its own).]]

== Approvals: a real sign-off step, not an honor system ==

Give playtesters and QA a stripped-down reporting form, and every ticket they file lands in a review queue before it ever touches the board — '''approve''', mark '''won't do''', or send it back, and every decision is reversible.

[[File:12_approvals.png|thumb|center|750px|The Approvals queue: tickets from reporters wait here before they count as "real" work on the board.]]

== Bulk-create a whole biome's worth of tasks in one pass ==

Paste a list — enemy names, biome names, whatever repeats — write one title/description template with a <code><nowiki>{item}</nowiki></code> placeholder, and generate the whole batch at once. Save the list for next sprint if you'll need it again.

[[File:05_bulk_create.png|thumb|center|750px|Bulk create: one template, any list, instant batch of tickets — with saved lists for anything you'll reuse.]]

== Stages and groups that bend to your project, not the other way around ==

Every project gets its '''own''' independent stages and groups — rename, reorder, hide, or add to them freely, and it never touches any other project. Hide a stage from the board without losing its tickets; delete one only once it's actually empty.

{| class="wikitable"
! Stages !! Groups
|-
| [[File:06_stages.png|thumb|none|360px|Stage management: reorder, hide, and flag which stages require an assignee or count as "done".]]
| [[File:07_groups.png|thumb|none|360px|Color-coded, per-project group tags — Art, Boss, UI, whatever cross-cutting areas make sense for this project.]]
|}

== Permissions that go far deeper than "admin or not" ==

RefractTrack ships a genuine role-based permission system: '''45 individual permission keys''' across tasks, comments, attachments, projects, stages, groups, saved lists, backups, themes, and user management — combinable into named role presets so setting up the next hire takes ten seconds, not ten menus.

[[File:08_users.png|thumb|center|750px|A whole studio team, each with a role-derived permission set and project access shown at a glance.]]

Role presets are just a starting point, not a leash — apply one to copy its permissions onto a user, then adjust freely from there without ever touching the preset itself.

[[File:09_roles.png|thumb|center|600px|Role presets: Admin, Developer, Reporter — or build your own.]]

== Make it look like your studio's tool, not somebody else's ==

Fifteen accent-color themes (yes, including an animated '''Rainbow''' option) and a custom application name, both changeable in two clicks from inside the app — no file access, no redeploy.

[[File:10_app_settings.png|thumb|center|750px|Fifteen themes to choose from, changeable without touching a config file.]]

== Your data is never locked in ==

Export an entire project — every ticket, every comment, every history entry — to JSON or CSV whenever you want, and import it right back into this instance or a different one. Task codes are renumbered cleanly on import and cross-references between tickets are rewritten automatically, so nothing breaks.

[[File:11_export.png|thumb|center|750px|One-click export of an entire project's tickets and activity history, in either JSON or CSV.]]

== Nothing important is ever really gone ==

Archiving clears finished work off the board without deleting a single byte — everything stays searchable and can be restored in one click.

[[File:13_archived.png|thumb|center|750px|Archived tickets stay fully intact and restorable — archiving tidies the board, it doesn't destroy anything.]]

== And it scales from a two-person prototype to a whole publishing slate ==

Run as many projects as you want from a single install, each with its own prefix, task numbering, stages, and groups — switch between them from the same nav bar without losing your place.

[[File:14_projects.png|thumb|center|750px|Multiple projects, one install — Refract Odyssey and Frostbound Skies, side by side.]]

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== Why teams pick RefractTrack ==

* '''No seat fees, no usage tiers.''' Self-hosted on plain PHP and MySQL/MariaDB — one server, no per-user billing.
* '''No framework tax.''' No build step, no bundler, no JavaScript framework to keep patched — just PHP pages you can read top to bottom.
* '''Bug reports with substance.''' Expected/actual/repro fields built into the task type itself, not bolted on as free text.
* '''Real RBAC.''' Not "admin vs. everyone else" — forty-five permission keys, role presets, and per-project access grants.
* '''Everything is reversible.''' Archive instead of delete, "won't do" instead of losing a ticket, edit history preserved on comments.
* '''Your data, your format, your call.''' Full JSON/CSV export/import with clean cross-reference rewriting, any time you want it.

=== At a glance ===

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Feature !! What it means for your team
|-
| Multi-project, per-project stages/groups || One install covers your whole studio's slate, not just one game
|-
| Bug-specific fields || Every bug ticket comes in with the information a developer needs to start
|-
| Approvals queue || Reporter/QA tickets get a sign-off step before they clutter the board
|-
| 45-key permission system + role presets || Onboard a new hire in seconds, restrict a contractor in seconds
|-
| CSV/JSON export & import || Never worry about being locked into one instance or one host
|-
| 15 color themes + custom app name || Make it feel like it belongs to your studio
|}

'''RefractTrack: track everything, lock in nothing, and keep it a tool your team actually wants to open.'''

RefractTrack Sales Pitch - Revision history