You can now build your game in the browser

Until now, making a game with Summer Engine started with the desktop app: a big download, an installer, a project folder, a first launch. Plenty of people with a good idea never got past it.

Today the first step is a sentence. You can go from an idea to a game you can play without leaving your browser.

How it works

1. Say what you want to make. Type the idea into the prompt on the Summer home page. A sentence is enough: "a cozy game where you run a tiny night market," "a platformer where gravity flips every ten seconds."

2. Answer a few questions. Summer asks short, specific questions about your idea, one at a time, and the next question reacts to your last answer. Who do you play? What makes a run end? How should it feel? You can skip the rest whenever you've said enough.

3. Plan it on a board. While you answer, Summer draws a storyboard of your game on a Summer Board: the main character, the world, the moments that matter, and a few possible looks. Click the look that feels like your game to make it yours, or click any card and tell Summer what to change.

4. Build it and play it. Press Build. Summer plans the first playable version and builds it in steps on the real Summer Engine runtime in the cloud. On the left is the chat, where Summer says what it is doing. On the right are the Game, Code and Board tabs. After each step a new version of your game is ready to play, right in the tab.

5. Keep talking to it. "Make the jump floatier." "Add a timer." "The enemies are too fast." Every message goes to the builder, and the game updates after the next step. If you close the tab, the build carries on and your project is waiting on your Summer home.

Why we built it this way

Most people don't think about a game in terms of scenes and scripts. They think about what it feels like to play. So the flow starts with your idea and with questions about the experience, and leaves the engine details for later.

We also wanted it to feel fast. Questions show up as soon as you've answered, the board fills in while you're still thinking, and the engine starts loading during planning so your first version is ready to play as soon as it exists.

The board is there because a picture settles things a paragraph can't. Choosing between three looks takes a second. Writing a style guide takes an afternoon.

What's under the hood

This is not a separate, lighter tool. Your game is a real Summer Engine project, written in GDScript and run by the same engine runtime as the desktop app. What changed is where it runs: the build happens on our machines and the game plays in your browser.

Tips for a great first game

• Start with one verb. Jump, dodge, collect, build, sneak. A game that does one thing well is a better first version than one that does five things poorly.
• Describe feel, not code. "Snappy," "heavy," "floaty," "tense" give Summer more to work with than numbers.
• Use the board. If a card is off, say so on the board before you build. It's the cheapest moment to change your mind.
• Change one thing at a time. Small follow-ups ("slower enemies," "a brighter sky") land better than a long list.

Try it

Open Summer, type your idea into the prompt and press Enter. If you want to go deeper later, the desktop app gives you the full editor.