Making a simple playable game
Can I make a game I can play on my phone just by describing it in Bangla?
Yes. Describe the rules in Bangla in the Builder and you get a quiz, a memory game, Snake, a catch the falling fruit game, a word game or a ludo style board game that plays with your thumb on a phone. Scores, levels and a best score all work, but a score stays on the phone it was made on. Send the share link and friends can play.
What you are making
A game does not have to be big. The best place to start is a small game that opens in a browser and plays with a finger on a phone. The rules are short, they are easy to explain, and the moment you send a friend the link they can play. Nothing to install, no account to open.
These are the kinds that come out best here:
- Quiz: ten questions, four answers each, a score at the end and a list of what went wrong.
- Memory game: flip cards over and find the pairs. Wonderful for children.
- Snake: swipe to steer the snake, it grows when it eats, it ends at the wall.
- Catch it: mangoes fall from the top and you slide a basket left and right to catch them.
- Word game: rearrange jumbled letters into a Bangla word, or hunt for hidden words.
- Ludo style board: dice, tokens, counting squares, two people taking turns on one phone.
Step by step
Step 1: Go to the Builder, give the game a name and start building. The moment you give a name, a starter prompt appears in the box for you to polish.
Step 2: Write the rules as if the reader has never seen the game in their life. Four things are enough: what appears on the screen, what the player does, when the score goes up, and when the game ends.
Make a quiz game about the history of Bangladesh. 10 questions, 4 options each. A correct answer turns the box green, a wrong one turns it red and immediately shows the right answer. 15 seconds per question with a shrinking time bar on top. At the end show my score out of 10 and a play again button. All in Bangla, and it must look good on a phone.
Step 3: When the first version appears, play it yourself. Say the things that bother you one at a time, like "make the buttons bigger" or "give a little buzz on a wrong answer". Asking for five changes at once gives poor results, one at a time gives lovely ones.
Step 4: Spell out the scoring yourself, because if you do not, the AI will assume something. How many points for what, whether a wrong answer loses points, how many points move you to the next level, write it all down.
Make a Snake game built entirely for a phone. Swiping steers the snake and there are also four big arrow buttons at the bottom. Eating food gives 10 points and makes the snake one square longer, and every 50 points the snake speeds up slightly. Hitting itself or a wall ends the game. Show the current score at the top and my best score beside it.
Step 5: When you are happy, press Share. Put the link on WhatsApp or Facebook and whoever gets it can play right on their phone. You can also say "make it something I can put on my phone home screen", and the game will sit there with its own icon and run even without internet.
Tricks that make it better
- The one thumb rule. Ask for every button to sit low on the screen, and for buttons to be bigger than a fingertip. Small buttons make people give up and leave.
- A screen before the game. Ask for a first screen with the rules and a start button. Someone new arriving on the link will know what to do.
- Sound and colour give it life. A small ping on a correct answer and coloured confetti at the end make the game feel alive for very little effort.
- Questions in their own file. For a quiz, ask for the questions to sit in a separate list file. Later you only need to say "put these 10 new questions in".
- The truth about scores. A best score is kept on the phone it was played on. You cannot pool everyone's scores into one table, because a built app has no data store of its own out on the internet.
Mistakes many people make
- Telling half the rules. Ask for "a fun game" and what arrives is not the game in your head. Write the rules out, on paper first if that helps, then type them.
- Designing for a computer. Most people will play on a phone. Say so in your very first line.
- Asking for many levels at once. Get one level working properly, then add levels. If something breaks you will know where.
- Hoping two phones can play together. Two people can take turns on one phone, but two phones cannot join the same match. A built app cannot talk to someone across the internet.
What to do next
Once the game stands up, add the small things: a box for a name, a share button at the end that says "I scored 80", or cards decorated with pictures. If you need pictures, pick them from the image search button in the Builder, or describe one in Bangla and let the AI make it. Remember that Bangla words cannot be drawn inside a generated picture, so keep the text on the game page and not inside the image. And everything saves by itself before each change, so try anything you like without fear, and go back to an earlier version if you do not like it.
Beginner questions
I heard games are really hard to make.
Studio games are hard. Snake, quizzes and puzzles take one prompt. Try it, this is the most fun place to start.
Will my game go on the Play Store?
It can. Put the game live, then press the "Android app" button in the builder's tools row. In 5 to 12 minutes you get two files: an .apk to send friends on WhatsApp and an .aab for the Play Store. The first app is free, and each build after it is 10,000 Premium Token; the free daily AI Token does not cover it. Upload the .aab from your own Google Play developer account; Google reviews it before release. Early on the link is enough, friends play in one tap.
Is there a shared scoreboard?
Each phone keeps its own best score. Comparing screenshots is the easy way to crown a winner.