Your first game

This page is a checklist: it walks the whole first session through in order, from signing in to a playable, testable version. Each step says only what you have to do there, and sends you on to the page with the detail; it does not repeat them.

If you are unsure how the interface is laid out, skim The screen first.

The order at a glance

#	Step	Without it you cannot go on
1	Sign in
2	New game	everything else belongs to a game
3	A set	an item only exists inside a set
4	Images into the set	an item is born from an image
5	Size	no version can be made playable without a size
6	A rule	(not needed to make a version playable)
7	Make playable	nobody can play a draft
8	Testing

The game’s Overview page carries the same list under Ready to make playable?, and on every missing point the Fix this button takes you straight to where the gap is. It is worth using as you go. The list also keeps track of the rules and of the approval for public play, but only a missing size or a missing required image stops you from making a version playable.

The Builder offers three ways in: Discord, Facebook and Google. There is no guest entry here, editing needs an account, the same one you use on the rest of the platform.

Once you are in, you land on the Games page.

2. New game

The New game button stands at the top of the Games page, on the right; the dashed first tile of the grid opens the same thing, and so does the button in the middle of an empty page. There is no such row in the sidebar. The button opens a modal that asks for two things only: the title (in at least one language), and where the game comes from. The form opens on My own design, so for a game you bought flip it over to Purchased copy.

After Create game the interface takes you straight to the game’s Overview page, and the game’s menu appears in the sidebar. The rest of the details (author, cover, minimum age, player count, play time, categories, description) you can fill in at any time on the Details page.

In detail: The Games page and The game’s details.

3. A set

In the sidebar’s Components group, the New set row opens a modal. The title (in at least one language), the type (Card, Board, Dice, Token, Figure) and the container are all required. The container list only comes alive once you have picked a type. The icon is free to choose and can be left out. The Quantity starts at 1, and is fine that way: change it only if the box holds more than one copy of the whole set (three identical decks, say). It is a whole number from 1 to 99.

A game has several sets: the deck, the board and the dice are each a set of their own. Start with the one that will hold the most items.

You can take back a step you got wrong on a set: Ctrl+Z, or the toolbar’s Undo button (up to ten steps), and the Redo button brings it back.

In detail: Sets, on the quantity The quantity, and on taking steps back Undo and redo.

4. Images into the set

Items are born from images, not from a button. Open the set’s page and drop the images onto the gallery. Each image becomes one item, with the image on the item’s front.

The game’s Images page is a separate matter: you can upload images there in advance, and search and filter among them. From there an item comes about by dragging the images onto a set row in the sidebar, or by selecting them on the Images tab of the set’s panel and pressing Create items.

⚠ Two images upload at a time and the rest queue up; do not navigate away while it runs. ⚠ PNG, JPEG and WebP get through, everything else the interface turns back before the upload starts.

In detail: Images and Items.

5. Size

Every item needs a width and a height (mm). You either give them per item (select the items and fill in the Dimensions fields in the right-hand panel), or once, on the panel’s Set defaults tab, and then every item inherits them.

Starting from a default is quicker: the cards of a deck are all the same anyway, and you can still write its own size onto the odd item later. No version can be made playable without a size: the Make playable modal lists per set how many items are incomplete, and takes you there.

In detail: Items.

6. A rule

The sidebar’s Rules row opens the rules editor, where the + New Rule button creates a document. A game can have several. The languages are tabs, and on a wide screen the Side by side switch shows both at once.

The text saves itself, there is no save button. Players only see it once you press the Publish button, though; until then an Unpublished changes tag stands in the header.

So you publish the rules and make the components playable (sets, items, images), and those are two separate steps. A rule is not a condition of making a version playable, and is not part of one either: a version can be made playable without it, and a published rule does not wait for a version.

In detail: Rules, and on the difference Three separate steps.

7. Make playable

The draft saves itself all along; the top bar says where it stands. You make a version playable on the sidebar’s Versions page, with the Make playable button.

The modal tells you what it will be: a Major version if an image or a size changed (the images are then packed again, which takes a few minutes), a Minor version in every other case (that one is instant). The Make playable button stays greyed out if an item has no size or no required image, or if nothing has changed since the last version.

The packing runs on the server: you can close the modal and carry on working.

The new version starts private, for you and your testers. Making it playable does not publish the rules, and does not make the version public: those are three separate steps, see Three separate steps. You can only start a party from a version, never from the draft, so even your own trial run needs the first version.

In detail: Draft and versions.

8. Testing

A tester only gets the versions, never the draft, and a party can only be started from a version, so without step 7 there is nothing to test.

Three steps:

On the sidebar’s Groups page, create a group with the New group button. A group does not appear by itself.
Open the group and hand the code out to the testers with the Invite code button. They redeem it in the controller app.
Add the game to the group from the game’s Access page (only the game’s owner has that page), with the Add to group button. In the window you pick the group and set what it should allow right there: it switches on the Play a version that is not public switch of the Play section to begin with, and for testing that is enough. The Add button saves. ⚠ If you switch that off, members see the game is there but can do nothing with it.

Once the group is in place, the testers start a party on their own device in the usual way; there is nothing extra to do on the display or on the controller.

In detail: Groups.

What is fixed in the order, and what is free

Fixed, because the interface allows no other way:

No game, no sets, images or rules: they all belong to a game.
No set, no items: an item is born from an image that landed in a set.
No size and no required image, no version: the Make playable button stays greyed out.
No version, no testing: a tester does not see the draft, and no party can be started from it.

Free, in whatever order you like:

The optional fields of the details page can be filled in at any time, even after a version.
You can write and publish the rules whenever you like; they are not a condition of making a version playable, and making one playable does not publish them.
You can upload images to the Images page in advance, but that alone makes no items of them.
A size can be given per item, or in one go as a set default.
With several sets, it makes no difference which one you start with.
You can create the group and invite the testers before you make a version playable as well.

What is beyond the first session

Making it public is a road of its own, the third step beside publishing the rules and making a version playable: you have to ask for a review first, and you can only mark a version Public once the game is approved. The Making it public page covers that.

An organisation and a brand come into play once you are not working alone, or you publish the game under your own name and domain. The Organisations and the Brands pages cover those.