I’ve used campfire desktop for awhile know and I love it. It’s feature rich and great for writing. However, the app experience leaves much to be desired. In phone it’s alright, a little clunky but not bad once you get used to it, but on tablet it’s atrocious. You are stuck with phone gui so your screen space is entirely wasted, and the text is far too small to read well. I’m
better off using the browser version on my tablet, and I’d love for that to change in the future. Please develop some landscape tablet support in the future.
I just started using campfire, and I love it. The mobile app is great, in theory, but it has some bugs that need to be ironed out before I can really sing its praises. Currently, I have to restart my phone between every use of the app, otherwise the app will be frozen in a perpetual loading state. For now, I’ll just stick to the Internet and desktop versions and will probably only occasionally access campfire via the app if I’m out and about.
Campfire has become the most important tool in helping me write my book. I absolutely love it and the design of their desktop app really helped me get back into writing. That said, the mobile app is in desperate need of some bug fixes. Every time I hit enter/return it jumps up to the top… and when my chapters are past the 2500 word count, its quite the pain to have to scroll all the way back down to where I was. This only happens when its the last line on the page, and I’ve been able to work around it by entering in a number of blank lines to keep it from jumping back to the top. Another problem is that, unless I do this, once the chapter gets past 1000 words, I can’t see the line that I’m writing on. It disappears below my phone’s keyboard or the bottom of the app if I’m writing with my Bluetooth keyboard. Again, more of an inconvenience since I can work around it but it’s still a pain. This results in a clunky layout/loads of white space when I switch back to desktop that I have to delete or it bothers me, and then I have to remember to add in the extra lines when I switch back to mobile. Another complain I have is that my notes in the desktop version don’t always transfer over to mobile, even if I sync it before signing off. Regardless, the desktop and web apps are so great that I will keep using Campfire unless some major bug renders it unusable.
While the app is useful and offers a lot that can help flesh out characters and settings, it still has a few things it needs to fix. I mostly work on my tablet so maybe other people aren’t having the same issues as me. Even though I pay the monthly fee for the modules some of them don’t work or won’t add elements to certain tabs. It will always say “Loading elements…” but it never does. I have everything synced up, strong internet connection, and I haven’t written in it that often but I do have a few Projects open. If there was a way to fix these issues the app could easily be a 5/5, but until then it’s kind of hard to say which tabs will actually work.
Developer Response
Hi, We have just released the newest version of the app which is a complete overhaul that fixes the text editor bugs and performance issues (lag, freezes, etc.)! More improvements are coming as well. Please give it another look and let us know what you think.I do love all of the stuff you can do with this app. It is amazing. But, I’ve experienced a lot of frustrating problems.
There have been several times that chapters just completely disappear. It’s very upsetting, especially after I’ve works on said chapter for a long time. And they are just gone. They don’t show up in the manuscript anymore and they don’t come back even after I try reopening the app.
Also every time I press enter to start a new line, the page scrolls up. It is insanely annoying. And sometimes the screen just turns half white for no reason.
Also I can’t do anything with the notepad? The insert tag button doesn’t insert anything and I can’t write in it. Seems a bit useless.
If these were fixed, it would be a 5 star app, but for now, it’s just difficult to handle.
I have been using this app for about a week to build and store my characters, and it's been great! There's a variety for what you can do and it's very easy, but sooo laggy! Oftentimes my information wouldn't go through or it would crash and I'd have to restart. This morning, I loaded up the app and it was a completely black screen. I've tried everything and it won't work! So upset because I'm afraid I lost all my characters.
Very versatile and helpful for organizing my thoughts and ideas and characters etc.
Exceeds expectations in all areas except for the fact that it’s ridden with glitches. The app crashes often, and it has many little bugs that mostly don’t cause major issues, but they are certainly annoying. Luckily it saves, so if it crashes or you have to reboot the app, you don’t lose any work. Overall, pretty sweet! Looking forward to a less buggy version though!
I love this app very much! I found out about it online and I had been looking for an organization tool for awhile, so I downloaded it. It was amazing at first, but soon issues came up. The main problem is the glitching and hiccuping that the app does. The more information you input into a project, the glitchier it gets. If one is extremely patient it's only a minor problem, but eventually it gets to be too much. Wonderful app and idea, but it definitely needs more optimization and bug fixes before I can rate it higher.
The sheer amount of information that you can put into this app is SO helpful for worldbuilding and character building, and it’s been absolutely fantastic…until i started filling things in. The more info you have listed for a character, the more glitchy the app is. As other reviewers have noted, the custom tag blinks on and off several times before you can actually type, and as I scroll to try to reach the lower half of the character info, it blinks back up to the stop - sometimes the page goes completely black, and sometimes it just freezes between screens when you swipe back, so you have to restart the app. And it continues to have the same issues.
If these bug fixes were implemented, this would be an EASY 5 stars. Easy. I really adore this app as a writer and will update this score if these get fixed. It just needs that bit of oomph.
I found this app from a tik tok and thought it would help out with a lot of my role plays that I do. I decided to create a project for me and my friend to be able to view. I like the wide range of stuff that I can do with the app but it has some problems. There are a lot of features on the website that aren’t available on the app, which frustrates me. One thing that I can do on the computer is ‘hide’ elements from other people so only I can see it, but this feature is only available on the computer. I won’t be able to do it on my phone at all and it’s annoying. If I want to hide something I need to take out my laptop or wait till i’m at my desktop. It’s also annoying that I can’t edit already made documents if I’m past the limit allowed on the computer without paying. I only want to go in and hide the specific elements, but i can’t without paying for it. The app is also very glitchy and slow. I will have to close it and reopen the app to update things I have put in. I will try to type stuff and write new tags and my keyboard will jump around my screen before closing and sometimes not opening again. The app will sometimes freeze and i’ll have to close it and open it again just for it to crash as soon as i open it. I put in a lot of effort making a theme on the computer just to realize that they don’t even show up on the app. Overall, the app could use a lot of work, and should have all of the features available on it that are on the website. 2.5/5
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