Why Nocturya exists

Where it comes from

We made Nocturya because we are absolute fans of letter writing and of opening up to the world. For many people, travelling has become a luxury. Some will never get to do it in their lifetime. Something like this lets you “travel” from home, open up to the world and share with people you would never have met otherwise.

A shooting star, and that's it

On Nocturya, you have your own star. It is your ride across the sky. It is the one that travels through the stars to land at a stranger's door. You can choose the gender of the person who will receive your message and an age range, but not the country or the language (coming in a future version). You don't know who will read it, and that's on purpose: here, you answer a letter first, not a photo.

It travels at the real speed of a shooting star

Your letter crosses the sky like a shooting star, at thirty kilometres per second over the real distance between your two countries. In the end, it takes a few minutes to land at a correspondent's door and come back. We did that for a touch of realism. You will see it fly across your sky. (A wind is drawn at random at take-off: sometimes it pushes, sometimes it holds back. We quite like that detail.)

This is not a “contest”

There is nothing to win, nobody to follow, no score. Your star crosses the sky to bring your message to someone. You write, then you wait for the reply. You can slip one short note into the wake of your letter, and then it's the other person's turn.

You show what you want

You choose your pen name. On your star card (your profile), you can say what you really feel like saying. You can customise it, answer a few optional little questions, pick the colour of your star, its mood (YOUR mood), show photos (only if you feel like it). It mattered to us to give you that choice: someone who wants to stay anonymous has every right to, and someone who wants to show themselves should be able to as well. It all depends on what each person is comfortable with.

And we look out for you!

To be honest, we hesitated before writing this paragraph. We were afraid it would sound too much like “the police”, which is not the point. In the end, for transparency's sake, we're leaving it in. On this kind of app, you can come across wonderful people, and bad ones too. There have to be rules to frame all this (the sky charter, which everyone accepts on arrival). To make our “sky” a little more pleasant, you can report messages you receive, photos, and so on. Nocturya is for people aged eighteen and over, but that is no reason to show things some people do not want to see.

What you can expect

Maybe a correspondence that lasts for years. Maybe three letters and then nothing. Both are normal. Here at Nocturya, we can't promise you anything, it would be dishonest of us. The only thing we can promise is that we will do everything we can to look after the sky and make it better. The project is still young, but we hope to see it grow with you by our side!