01 · Idea and task
Fairy-tale therapy is a method in which a person works through their situation via metaphor — via a story. The idea behind Voobrazharium is to bring this to the phone and make it personal: not just hand someone a tale to read, but first understand their concern through a test, then assemble a personalized therapeutic comic for them — a story in which they recognize their own “money,” “love” or “anxiety.”
The task: build an app for adults with a short psychological test on a chosen topic, a personalized comic generated from the results, a library of therapeutic audio and text tales, recommendations by mood, a profile with history and favorites, a subscription and push notifications. Content is prepared in advance with AI and stored in the cloud, and the app and backend had to run without a dedicated server — on managed Firebase services.
02 · What was hard
- A personalized comic based on test results. The core of the product isn't a catalog — it's addressing one specific person's concern. First comes a test on a topic (money, love, anxiety), then a personalized therapeutic comic is assembled from the result. We had to carefully link the test answers to the selection of a fitting story and save the finished comic to the user's personal library.
- The test as part of the therapy. The test is designed so that answers can't be changed. This is a deliberate decision: in therapeutic terms, the first honest reaction matters, not an answer “adjusted” after the fact. It meant designing the test flow and its state on the client side so that it is one-directional and easy to follow.
- Two formats of therapeutic content — audio and text. Besides the comics, the app has a library of tales: the same story exists as audio with a voiceover and cover art, and as text with illustrations. Both scenarios had to work well — a full-featured player with progress, pause and favorites, and a comfortable reader.
- All content and data without a server of our own. Comics, tales, voiceovers, illustrations, topics, the “phrase of the day,” favorites and history are all stored and served through Firebase Realtime Database in real time. There was no need to set up and maintain a separate backend: the content team adds to the database, and the app shows it right away.
- Account, subscription and privacy. Sign-in by email and via Google, a profile with a personal library of generated comics and favorite tales, subscription management, notification settings. Images and covers are cached and load smoothly (shimmer placeholders), so scrolling stays smooth even on a weak connection.
The point isn't a library of stories — it's meeting the person's actual concern: you take a test on your topic and get a comic in which your own situation plays out.
03 · How the app works
Test and personalized comic
The key flow is “Create.” The user picks the topic of their concern — money, love, anxiety — and takes a short test (five minutes at most). Answers can't be changed after the fact, and that's intentional. Based on the results, a personalized therapeutic comic is assembled for their concern and saved to their personal library of generated stories.
Recommendations by mood
The “For you” home screen has an “I want…” block with states (to fall asleep, to calm down, to feel safe, a bit of magic), popular stories and a favorites block. The user picks what they need right now and sees matching content. Alongside are short tips, for example on breathing practices and meditation.
Audio tales
A catalog of audio tales with covers, durations and filters by topic and mood. Each story has a full-screen player: illustration, title, short description, progress, pause, rewind, repeat and add to favorites. Voiceovers and covers are prepared in advance and loaded from the cloud.
Text tales
The text tales section has cards with a cover and short description, plus search and topic filters. Inside is a reader with a large illustration and the story text laid out for comfortable reading, with options to add it to favorites and share it.
Profile and subscription
The profile holds personal details, notification settings, libraries of favorite audio and text tales, the library of generated comics, subscription management and support. Sign-in is by email and via Google; push notifications arrive via Firebase Cloud Messaging.
04 · Result
The result is a complete fairy-tale therapy app for adults: onboarding, a concern-based test that generates a personalized comic, a home screen with recommendations by mood, audio tales with a full-featured player, text tales with a reader, a profile with libraries of generated and favorite content, a subscription and push notifications. Builds ship for iOS and Android from a shared Flutter codebase.
Architecturally, all content and data live on Firebase: Realtime Database serves comics, tales, audio, illustrations, topics, the “phrase of the day” and favorites in real time; Auth handles email and Google sign-in; Cloud Messaging handles notifications; Analytics tracks user behavior. AI is used at the content-preparation stage: comics, tales, illustrations and voiceovers are created with it and stored in the database, and the app assembles them to match the test result. There's no separate server to maintain.
05 · What's next
The app is at the MVP stage and evolving: new topics for tests and concerns, broader personalized comic generation, finer tuning of recommendations to test results, a history of completed tests and mood trends, rituals and practices. The content structure in Realtime Database makes it possible to add topics, formats and stories without rewriting the app.
Builds ship for iOS and Android from a single Flutter codebase, and the entire server side runs on managed Firebase services. So new content (comics, tales, voiceovers, illustrations, topics) reaches users without an app store release, while new screens ship as a regular app update.