Making it good

The AI will happily give you twelve locations, twenty NPCs and forty items, and every one will be valid. That isn't a game. It's a database, and it plays like one.

A game is pieces that reach each other. Everything below comes back to that.

The deletion test

For every location, character and item, ask: if I deleted this, would anything else change? If not, it's decoration. Cut it or connect it.

• A location should give someone or something a reason to be there.
• A character should want something, know something, or guard something.
• An item should come from somewhere and matter to someone.

Ten connected things beat forty loose ones every time.

Start small

The most common first game has too much in it. Aim for:

• 4 to 8 locations. Enough for a journey, few enough that each one gets a real description.
• 3 to 6 characters who matter. Give each one a want and a secret before you add a seventh.
• One quest with a real turn in it. Not three errands.

You can always add a region later. You can't easily make forty shallow things deep.

Give the player a reason to move

Standing still should never be the best option. At the start the player needs:

1. somewhere they can't get to yet,
2. someone who wants something from them,
3. something they need that isn't where they are.

Put a hint of all three in the opening. If the first turn is "you are in a tavern, what do you do?", you've handed the player your job.

Shape the map

• A hub with spokes plays differently from a line. A line is a story; a hub is a place. Pick on purpose.
• Put distance between safety and danger. A safehouse means nothing if the street outside is just as safe.
• Put things where they belong. The smuggler's cache is in the net-shed, not the chapel. If you could swap two locations' contents without anyone noticing, neither location means anything.
• Lock something. One door that needs a key, a permit or the right time of day turns a map into a puzzle. See entry requirements on Locations.

Write NPCs who push back

• A want makes scenes. A character with only a description answers questions.
• A lie or a secret makes conversations worth having. The harbormaster who lies about the tides beats the one who explains them.
• A speech style does more than any stat. "Speaks formally" is weak. "Uses sailing metaphors and never finishes a sentence" is a person.
• A schedule makes the world feel lived in. "Where is she at midnight?" is a better hook than another paragraph of backstory.

Always use Test Chat before you publish. It's the fastest way to learn your "guarded" character reads as rude.

Make quests a thread, not a to-do list

"Search the wreck" plus "ask around the docks" is two chores. "Find the manifest in the wreck" then "show the manifest to the harbormaster" is one story. Each stage should be made possible, or at least made known, by the one before it.

Something should change when a stage completes: an NPC's attitude, a door, a line of narration. A stage where the journal ticks over and nothing in the world reacts is a wasted beat. See Quests.

Make every system bite

If the game tracks something (hunger, heat, reputation, sanity), it needs:

• something in the world that raises it,
• something that lowers it,
• and the fix should cost something: a trip, a trade, a risk.

A meter nothing moves is a number on the screen. A meter nothing fixes is a countdown the player can't argue with. Neither is a system.

If a system doesn't fit your game, switch it off in the Plugins step. A cozy mystery doesn't need hunger.

Let two things collide

The best moments come from two pieces meeting. The only person who knows the door code is also the one getting sick. The medicine is heavy enough that you have to drop something to carry it. Wiring two existing things together is almost always better than adding a new one.

Write for the narrator

The narrator reads your descriptions every turn and turns them into prose.

• Describe atmosphere, not inventory. What the light does, what it smells like, what you hear. The items in a room are tracked separately and get mentioned on their own.
• Be specific. "An old tavern" gives the narrator nothing. "A tavern with the windows boarded from the inside" gives it a scene.
• Name things properly. "Healing Potion" is a placeholder. "Widow's Draught" is an item someone made.
• Never put numbers in prose. The narrator never sees mechanics, and descriptions that say "+5 strength" read badly when they come back out.

Before you publish

• Every location is connected on the map.
• Every character passes the deletion test.
• The opening gives the player somewhere to go and a reason to go there.
• At least one quest has a stage the story judges, not just a flag.
• Every enabled system has something that raises it and something that fixes it.
• You played the first three turns yourself.
• Finalize passes.

Passing Finalize means the game isn't broken. It doesn't mean it's good. The list above is for that.