Your first game

You'll end with a game you can play and share, and you won't write a rule.

1. Describe it

Go to Create. Ignore the form and type into the Prompt panel on the right:

A haunted fishing village on a cold coast. The fish have stopped coming. Something in the water is why.

It fills in the setting, tone and opening for you. Keep talking to it:

Add three families who blame each other for the curse

Give the harbor a lighthouse nobody will go into

It remembers the conversation, so "make the youngest brother the one who knows" works as a follow-up. Every change can be undone.

2. Fill the world

Walk down the step rail and ask for content on each step:

Six locations around the village, including the lighthouse and a flooded net-shed

A harbormaster who is lying about the tides

Big requests show a plan first and wait for you. Read it. That's where you catch "I meant six locations, not sixty."

3. Write the opening yourself

On Story, set where the party starts and what's happening. Prompt everything else if you like, but write this by hand. It's the first thing a player reads, and if it's vague they'll leave.

4. Test it

Open a character's Test Chat tab and talk to them. Then play your own opening for two or three turns. You'll find more problems in five minutes of play than in an hour of editing.

5. Publish

Finalize checks that everything referenced exists and that the start location is real, then publishes. You get a link.

Next

• Making it good: the checklist for a game that plays well
• The editor: what every step is for
• Expressions: when you want something the AI can't invent