Plan

Plan a game: the interview and its Game Codex

You are in a Homie studio (a folder with studio.json) with a game in games/<id>/. The plan comes out as the game's Game Codex: games/<id>/CODEX.md (the source of truth, in the studio's repository) and a page drawn from it in the game's own look, with cards, tables and a Build status tab. People who never read code see the game in it and steer it; you keep it true.

1. The interview: natural, not a form

Collect all eight topics, in whatever order the conversation goes:

1. Game type and genre: what kind of game, what a player does in the first ten seconds, how a round is won. Why it is fun with strangers who just pressed Play.
2. Style and art direction (the Style phase): pixel, painterly, low-poly, neon, hand-drawn; mood; two or three games, films or pictures it should feel like; the palette. Ask once whether they want to steer the look closely (the style board) or have you pick, and the art budget (free only, a small budget on their own fal account, or their number). Then the decisions: npx --no-install homie-studio style init <id> --prompt "<their words>" (add --hands-on and --budget <usd> from their answers) fills every look decision with a pick and a why, which the codex's Art direction tab draws; the style skill has the rest.
3. Devices: phone, computer, TV with phones as pads. Every Homie game plays on phones and computers; say what changes on each (touch on the lower left, keys, the big screen).
4. Players and rooms: how many in a room (up to 32), teams or free-for-all, round length, what bots do in empty seats, what a player who arrives mid-round gets.
5. Progress and saves: always ask it plainly: "Does progress need to persist across sessions or devices?" A round that is all there is (a brawl, a race) needs nothing. A character that levels up for days, unlocks, a collection, a hardcore mode with one life: yes. Then the game keeps it in cloud saves (player accounts with passkeys, a guest's progress kept until they make one), never in the room, which forgets everything 60 s after its last player leaves. Ask what is kept (the hero, the inventory, unlocks), what lifetime stats count (kills, gold, time played), and whether a death can be forever (hardcore: a wipe and a memorial in the hall of the fallen). Write it into the codex under Rooms and players as "Progress that lasts", with a dated line under Latest; the game skill wires it in.
6. Art and film: characters, creatures, places; the cover; a trailer or a cutscene; what is made from the game itself (free) and what is painted or generated (the art and video skills, on their own accounts, under a budget).
7. Music and sound: the theme's mood and tempo; the sounds that matter (a pick-up, a hit, a win); synthesized here for free (the sound skill) or songs from ElevenLabs (the music skill).
8. Scope: what the first playable version has, what comes later, and the milestones between.

How to ask:

• Two or three questions a message, never all seven at once. Start from what you know: the starter they saw, the change they asked for, the studio's name.
• Each question offers concrete options and your pick, so "yes" is an answer: "Pixel art, painterly, or clean vector shapes? For a fast arcade game I'd go pixel: it reads well small on a phone."
• Say back what you heard in one line before the next questions ("So: a relay race in a burning valley, two teams, 90-second rounds.").
• "You pick" means pick, say it in one line, and move on.
• Stop when every topic has an answer or a default, usually after three or four messages. If they say "just build it", fill the rest with your own choices and list them under Open questions.
• references/INTERVIEW.md has questions with options for each topic and genre.

2. Write the codex

npx --no-install homie-studio codex new <id>      # games/<id>/CODEX.md with every section, in the studio's colours

A new studio has no game yet: its game is planned before it is made. With no game <id>, codex new <id> --name "<Name>" starts the game's folder with only the codex in it, and once the plan is agreed, game new <id> --from gem-rush --name "<Name>" makes the game around it (the codex stays).

Never replace an existing codex: change it. Fill every section from the interview (the format, with an example: references/CODEX.md):

• The look in the frontmatter: the game's own palette (bg, ink, accent for headings, accent2, danger, good), fonts (a Google Fonts family that fits: "Press Start 2P" or "Silkscreen" for pixel games, a font file from the game's folder, or none), pixel: true for pixel art, a cover from the game's folder, an eyebrow and a tagline.
• Cards, not prose, wherever there are several of a thing: characters, creatures, classes, items, places, levels. Each ### Name has its picture, a chip line (`C-01` `good: Ally` `danger: Boss`), an italic one-line subtitle, a sentence, and **Key:** value stats.
• Controls as a table with a column per device; Milestones as a checklist (- [x] done) that matches the scope; Latest as dated decisions (- 2026-10-01: ...); Open questions as a list.
• Pictures only from the studio's folder (a real frame of the game, its sprites, its cover, art the art skill made). Until the game has art, a card without a picture is fine; never present a mock-up as the game.