Chitmunk Cloud: Save, Share, and Design Together in Real Time

Product Update · 8 min read · March 2026

Your board game designs now live in the cloud. Open them on any browser, on any computer, anywhere. No more emailing ZIP files to yourself. No more "which version is the latest?" No more losing a week of work because your laptop decided it was time to die.

Chitmunk Cloud is the biggest update we have ever shipped, and it changes how you save, share, and collaborate on game designs. Save your projects automatically. Share them with your artist, your co-designer, or your entire playtest group. And when two people open the same project at the same time, they can edit it together, live, with cursors moving across the canvas in real time.

Here is everything that is new and how to use it.

Cloud Save: Your Projects, Everywhere

Every project you create in Chitmunk can now save to the cloud. Hit save (or let autosave handle it) and your entire design, every card face, every element, every linked image, uploads to Chitmunk Cloud. Close your laptop, open a different computer, sign in, and your project is right where you left it.

Behind the scenes, Chitmunk uses content-addressed storage. That is a fancy way of saying: if two cards use the same background image, we only store it once. Upload a 4 MB texture to ten different cards and it still only takes up 4 MB of your storage quota, not 40. The same applies across your entire account. Reuse assets freely and your storage stays lean.

Your dashboard shows exactly how much storage you are using. Common (free) accounts get 500 MB, which is enough for several projects with unique artwork. Rare subscribers get 5 GB, and Epic accounts step up to 20 GB — enough for, well, a lot of card art.

Saving is designed to be invisible. You design your game; Chitmunk handles the rest. But if you want control, you can manually save at any time, and the bottom bar shows your save status so you always know where you stand.

Sharing and Invites

Board game design is rarely a solo act. You have an artist creating card illustrations. A co-designer tweaking mechanics. Playtesters who want to see the latest cards. A publisher who asked for a preview. Until now, sharing meant exporting a ZIP, uploading it somewhere, and hoping the other person could figure out how to open it.

Now you just invite them. Open your project's sharing settings, type in an email address, and choose their permission level:

• Viewer: They can see your entire project, browse every card and face, but cannot change anything. Perfect for playtesters, publishers, or anyone who just needs to look.
• Editor: They can modify the design, add elements, change properties, and work on the project as if it were their own. This is for your co-designer, your artist, or anyone actively contributing to the game.

Invites are sent by email. The recipient gets a link, signs in to Chitmunk (or creates an account), and the shared project appears in their dashboard. If they already have an account, the project shows up immediately. No file transfers, no version confusion, no "can you resend that ZIP?"

You can also copy a magic link and paste it into Discord, Slack, or wherever your team communicates. Same result: click, sign in, project appears.

As the project owner, you stay in control. Revoke access at any time. Change someone from editor to viewer (or vice versa). See who has access and when they last opened the project.

Share Links for Quick Access

Sometimes you do not need a full collaboration setup. You just want to show someone your card design. Maybe you are posting a preview in a Discord server, or sending a link to a friend who wants to see what you have been working on.

Share links let you generate a URL that anyone can open, no Chitmunk account required. You control the permissions:

• View-only links: Recipients can browse the project but cannot edit or download.
• Edit links: Recipients can make changes (they will need to sign in).
• CSV visibility: Choose whether your spreadsheet data is visible to link recipients. Keep your card stats private while still showing the visual design.
• Download permission: Control whether viewers can export card images from the shared view.

Share links are great for getting quick feedback. Post one in your game design community, let people flip through your cards, and collect reactions, all without giving anyone permanent access to your project.

Real-Time Collaboration

This is the one that changes everything.

When two or more editors are working on the same project at the same time, Chitmunk opens a live connection between them. You see each other's cursors moving across the canvas. When your co-designer drags a text element to a new position, you see it move on your screen in real time. When your artist drops in a new illustration, it appears on your canvas immediately.

Changes merge automatically. There are no save conflicts, no "your version vs. their version" dialogs, no overwrite warnings. If you are resizing an image on the front of a card while your collaborator is editing text on the back, both changes are saved without either of you doing anything special. Even if two people edit the same element at the same time, the system resolves it cleanly.

The collaboration indicator in your toolbar shows who is currently online. Each collaborator gets a colored cursor with their name, so you can see exactly where everyone is working. It feels like designing at the same table, except the table can be as wide as the internet.

A few things that make this especially useful for game designers:

• Art handoff in real time: Your artist can drop illustrations directly onto cards while you watch, give feedback immediately, and iterate without any export-email-import cycle.
• Playtester walkthroughs: Share your screen or just share the project, walk a playtester through your cards live, and make adjustments on the spot based on their reactions.
• Game jam sessions: Two designers, one project, zero friction. Build a prototype together in a single sitting.
• Remote co-design: If your design partner lives in another city (or another country), you can work on the same project as naturally as if you were sitting side by side.

Smart Connection Management

You might be wondering: does Chitmunk keep a live connection open all the time? No. That would waste resources for solo designers, which is most people most of the time.

Chitmunk uses presence detection to decide when a live connection is needed. When you are the only person with a project open, there is no live connection. Your saves go straight to the cloud the normal way. The moment a second editor comes online, Chitmunk detects their presence and opens the real-time channel automatically. When one of you closes the project, the connection closes and you are back to standard cloud saving.

The conflict resolution system uses technology similar to what Google Docs and Figma use: changes from different users are merged automatically at the operation level. If two people edit different properties of the same element simultaneously, both changes are preserved. It is designed to be invisible. You should never have to think about conflicts; you just design, and the system keeps everything in sync.

Privacy and Security

Your designs are your intellectual property, and we treat them that way.

• Encrypted in transit: All data between your browser and Chitmunk Cloud travels over encrypted connections. Nobody can snoop on your card designs.
• Content-addressed storage: Files are stored by their content fingerprint. This means deduplication is automatic and verifiable: what you upload is exactly what you get back.
• Quota enforcement: Storage limits are enforced atomically. Your account can never silently exceed its quota. If a save would push you over the limit, you get a clear message and an option to upgrade, never a corrupted half-save.
• Access control: Only people you explicitly invite can see your projects. Revoking access takes effect immediately, even if the other person has the project open.
• No training on your data: Your designs are yours. We do not use your projects, images, or card data for any purpose other than providing the service to you.

Storage by Plan

Cloud storage is included with every Chitmunk account:

• Common (free): 500 MB of cloud storage. Enough for several game projects with unique art on every card.
• Rare ($7.99/mo or $59.99/yr): 5 GB of cloud storage, plus high-resolution export, PDF crop marks, CMYK, batch ZIP, and everything else in the Rare tier.
• Epic ($12.99/mo): 20 GB of cloud storage, plus real-time collaboration, multiplayer playtesting, and team sharing.

Real-time collaboration works on any plan. If you have shared a project with an editor, you can collaborate live regardless of your subscription tier.

Getting Started with Chitmunk Cloud

If you already have a Chitmunk account, you are ready. Here is how to get going:

Save a Project to the Cloud

Open any project in the editor. The save button in the bottom bar now saves to Chitmunk Cloud automatically. Your first cloud save uploads the project and all its images. Subsequent saves are incremental: only changed data is uploaded, so they are fast.

Share with a Collaborator

Open your project's sharing settings from the dashboard or the editor. Enter an email address, choose Viewer or Editor, and send the invite. They will get an email with a link to join. You can also copy a magic link to share however you prefer.

Start Collaborating Live

Once a collaborator opens the project, real-time collaboration starts automatically. You will see their cursor appear on your canvas. Start designing together. Changes sync in real time. That is it. There is nothing to configure, no "start session" button, no room codes. Just open the same project and go.

If you have been designing solo up to this point, cloud save alone is worth the switch. Your projects are backed up, accessible from any device, and you never have to think about file management again. And when you are ready to bring someone else in, the collaboration tools are there waiting.