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CreateReferenceFor authorsApplies from 4.2.5

Review pages

Cette page en françaisThis page on the GitHub wiki

Five generated HTML pages let the author check the game away from the computer. Three take annotations: the storyboard, the sprite review and the placement page. Two are read-only pictures: the world and the puzzles. Each page is a single self-contained file (images embedded, no server), made to be published as a claude.ai artifact: the author annotates on a phone, the AI reads the annotations back and acts on them.

Commands

npm run page:storyboard              # → dist-pages/storyboard.html   (needs games/<id>/storyboard.json)
npm run page:storyboard -- --md      # also writes games/<id>/storyboard.md (plain text for agents)
npm run page:review                  # → dist-pages/review.html
npm run page:placement               # → dist-pages/placement.html
npm run page:world                   # → dist-pages/world   (no .html extension: --out world.html for one)
npm run page:puzzles                 # → dist-pages/puzzles (no .html extension: --out puzzles.html for one)
npm run import-layout -- <file|dir>  # merges exported layouts into games/<id>/layout/<room>.json (--dry to preview)

Run them in the engine repository, on your machine. Options: --out <dir> or --out <file.html>. The game is the current one (GAME=<id>, else the game npm run game chose, else package.json's config.game); GAME_DIR=<path> points at a game folder outside games/ (for example tests/fixture).

Images come from games/<id>/art/ (following sources.json, like npm run assets), or from the prepared public/assets/img/ when the game's manifest lists them. With python3 and Pillow installed they are downscaled to WebP thumbnails (cached in .cache/pages/); without, the files are embedded as they are and the page gets bigger. Keep a page under 16 MB, the artifact limit: the generator prints the page's size and warns above it.

The three annotated pages

Storyboard

tools/pages/storyboard.ts, schema in tools/pages/storyboard-schema.md. One section per board: the room's decor, the goal, then every panel with its action, its lines (portrait, name, text), its sounds, and a notes box. Talk topics, optional reactions and hints follow. Notes go to the collection notes (doc id = panel id; also general, <board>__talk__<character>, <board>__reactions, <board>__hints). Whatever Claude writes in the collection rewrites under the same id shows up in green under the note. Ids are kept to letters, digits and _ - . ~ : @ +; other characters become _.

The page refuses an invalid storyboard with the same sentences as the Studio and the MCP's set_storyboard. What the storyboard is for: The storyboard, source of truth.

Sprite review

tools/pages/review.ts. Every folder of games/<id>/art/ is a sheet, every image in it a cell (nested folders, like talk kits, are included: the cell is pose/t1). Each cell is tagged used when the game references it (same rules as tools/refs.ts and npm run assets, so sources.json overrides count), with the ids that cite it. Ids the game cites but no file provides are listed at the top. Per cell: keep / redo / unused and a note, saved in the collection decide (doc id <sheet>__<cell>, value { choice, note, sheet, cell, used, updatedAt }). Filters: all, used, not used, undecided, redo. How the sheets are made: Images.

Placement

tools/pages/placement.ts. One room at a time, on its decor (640 × 400 logical units, scaled to the screen). Drag with a finger or the mouse:

  • props and actors by their body (feet = the white dot), their height with the blue dot, their approach point with the pink diamond ("Add approach" creates one); actors are drawn at their depth scale, as in the game;
  • hotspots (rectangles: move, resize with the corner dot; polygons: drag the points);
  • the walk area points (select "Walk area"; tap a point, then "Add point" after it or "Delete point");
  • the entries (rings; the hero is drawn faintly on default, at its scale) and the two scale lines (blue dashes).

Anything absent from the layout is shown in the middle with a "to place" badge, dashed, and is written only once moved. Each change saves { room, layout } in the collection layouts (doc id = room id). "Export room" gives the room's layout, the same shape as games/<id>/layout/<room>.json; "Export JSON" gives { "layouts": { "<room>": … } }. The page does not edit per-state positions, rotation, z or on: those keys are kept as they are. For fine work, use the in-game editor (npm run dev, then ?edit=<room>) or the Studio: see Placement and stage.

The world page

npm run page:world draws the rooms and the ways between them (declared exits solid, goto commands dashed, rooms on the map marked), lists unreachable rooms and exits with no way back, and prints the DOT source for Graphviz. Read-only: no annotations, no artifact database. The same picture is in the Studio's Check tab.

The puzzles page

npm run page:puzzles draws the puzzle graph: things (items, flags, props, places, events, moved characters) in colour, actions (rules, topics, scripts, listeners, chapter goals) in white; grey arrows for what an action needs, dotted when it is read inside its commands, green for what it produces, red dashed for what it consumes. Tap a thing for its card: acquired by, consumed by, used by, requires first, unlocks, downstream. The page lists what is read but never produced and what is produced but never used, and prints the overview table and the DOT source. Read-only. How to read it while designing: Puzzle design.

Where the annotations go

Every annotated page shows a status line at the top and an Export JSON button. It works in three modes:

  1. Published as an artifact, with the db capability: each change is saved in the artifact's database, and the page follows live changes, Claude's included. Status: "Connected".
  2. Opened as a plain file (a browser, an email attachment): changes are saved in the browser's localStorage. Export JSON copies the data to the clipboard and downloads a .json file: send it back.
  3. Read-only (the viewer may not write in the database): edits stay on the device; Export JSON still works.

A local copy is always kept, so a page reopened on the same device shows what was typed, even offline.

Publish and read back (Claude Code)

  1. Build the page, then publish it with the Artifact tool, declaring the database: capabilities: { db: {} }. Republish to the same URL after each regeneration (same file path in the same session, or pass url): the database is kept across versions.
  1. Send the link to the author. Only people with edit rights (Contributor or more) can write.
  1. Read the annotations with the ArtifactData tool, action: "list", on the artifact's url:
    • storyboard: collection notes; answer by writing rewrites/<panel id> with { "text": "…" } (set);
    • review: collection decide; list the redo cells with their notes, one regeneration prompt per sheet;
    • placement: collection layouts; save the documents to a JSON file and import them (below).
  1. If the author used a plain file instead, they send the exported JSON: same content, read it directly.

The wider method of working with an assistant is in Working with an AI.

Validate the storyboard on a page

The second step of the method, after the story is written as data: npm run page:storyboard renders the storyboard as an illustrated page, every panel composed from the real backgrounds and sprites (once they exist), with the lines, playable sounds, and a notes box under each panel. Publish it as an artifact: the author annotates from a phone, the AI reads the notes back (ArtifactData) and rewrites the storyboard. Iterate until the author says "v final". Only then write the rooms.

Import layouts

npm run import-layout -- exported.json          # one file
npm run import-layout -- ./layouts/ --dry       # every .json of a folder, preview only

Accepted files: the page's Export JSON ({ "layouts": { … } }), Export room (<room>.json, the room is the file name), one database document ({ "room", "layout" }), or a list of documents as ArtifactData returns them ([{ "id", "data": { "room", "layout" } }]).

Only keys present in the export change: hotspots, props, actors and entries are merged id by id (each exported entity replaces the stored one), walk, scale and floor are replaced when present. Removals made on the page ("Unplace", "Remove approach") are therefore not imported: delete those keys by hand or in the in-game editor. The command prints every change (+ added, ~ changed) and <n> room(s) updated in … (would change with --dry). Then run npm run validate and look at the room (?dev&at=<checkpoint>).