Guides
Everything riff.quest does, explained in plain language
This is the manual for riff.quest, written for the person playing the guitar rather than for the person who built the app. No URLs, no field names, no formulas to decode: each article takes one part of the app, explains what it does, what it is worth in points or Fame, and shows the screen it is describing.
Most people read Getting Started once, start logging sessions, and come back later with something specific: why the streak reset, what the Arsenal is for, how the app decides a song is hard, or why note detection is hearing nothing. Nothing here is required reading. The app works if you only ever type in your minutes.
The two articles worth reading on day one: what the app actually does, the ten minutes that get you from signing up to a logged session, and the Home screen you land on every day afterwards with its three daily quests.
What riff.quest actually does, the ten minutes that get you started, and the difference between points and Fame that trips up everyone in week one.
What your Home screen shows you, how the three daily quests and their reward work, and every task that can turn up in them.
Where points come from and why you can never spend them, how the streak multiplier grows everything you log, what Fame buys and why it never touches your level, and why technique, theory, hearing and creative work are all worth exactly the same per minute.
Where points come from, how the streak multiplier grows everything you log, and what your level and your rank are actually built on.
The spending currency: what practice itself pays, the fixed rewards, everything the community pays you while you're not looking, and why it never touches your level.
Technique, Theory, Hearing and Creative work: what belongs in each, why they're all worth the same, and what the split is actually for.
Every way of practising, from the free timer and the manual log through routines, Auto Plan and your own Guitar Pro files, plus how note detection listens to your playing and what the desktop app adds once you plug a guitar into an interface.
A map of every practice mode in the app: what each one is for, and which to pick depending on how much time and direction you have today.
How to save what you practised, with the timer or by hand, what the form asks for, and how to find and fix sessions later.
How routines are put together, how Auto Plan builds a session around the time you have, and how sharing exercises with the community works.
How the app listens to your guitar, which exercises use it, the calibration that makes it accurate, and what to do when it hears nothing.
What the Windows, macOS and Linux app adds over the website: guitar input straight off your interface, lower latency, and a few things a browser tab simply can't do.
The song board you drag a piece along as it becomes playable, what the difficulty tiers mean, what finishing a song pays, and how playlists get built and shared.
The guided routes through the app: the Learning Path and the Scale Map that unlock step by step, the individual guitar skills that grow out of whatever you tag your sessions with, and the personal Mastery Roadmap the app can write for you.
The two guided routes through the app: step-by-step modules with exams, and the scale tree you clear box by box at a target tempo.
How the tracked guitar skills grow from the exercises you play, and how achievement badges are unlocked.
The personal curriculum the app can generate for you, and the nine-level weekly goal ladder that pays Fame for a consistent week.
The parts of the app with other people in them: the five community-voted songs of each monthly challenge, the recordings wall, and every other way other players end up paying you Fame.
The three rankings and what each one measures, how the monthly season resets so a new player is never permanently behind, and the Arsenal, the collecting game that is the only thing Fame is for.
The three boards you can appear on, how the monthly season resets, what finishing in the top 10 pays, and why your rank sometimes lags behind.
The collecting game you play with Fame: opening cases, rarity and item level, restoring and upgrading gear in the Workshop, the Trader, and your Rig Level.
Short questions about pricing, accounts, equipment and how the scoring behaves are answered on the frequently asked questions page. Practice advice that has nothing to do with this app in particular, such as how long to practise or how to drill a scale so it survives contact with a real song, lives on the blog. For anything that looks like a bug, or a question no page answers, the Discord server is the fastest way to reach a human.