AI Game Generator From Text: Write a Better Brief
An AI game generator from text builds what you spell out and guesses everything else. You get a far better first result if your text names the goal, the controls, how you lose and at least a few real numbers.
What kind of generator do you have?
The word covers three different things, as of 2 November 2026.
- Coding tools. You describe the game in a chat, and the tool writes code. Your text can be as long and as exact as you like.
- Hosted game makers, such as Rosebud and Astrocade. You describe the game on their site, and it lives there.
- World generators, such as Google's Project Genie. Google calls it "an early research prototype" for creating and exploring worlds, open to Google AI Ultra subscribers aged 18 and over. You walk through a place that appears as you go. Google's page does not call it a game maker, and a world without rules is not yet a game.
The advice below works for the first two groups, and the difference matters. A generator cannot ask you what you meant. It fills every gap with its own average idea, which is why so many first results look alike.
Before and after
Here is a weak brief for an invented game:
Make a fun game about bees with a clockwork theme.
The generator has to decide nearly everything: who you control, what you do, how you lose, and what "fun" means. You will get something bee-coloured with a score.
Here is the same idea as a real brief:
Clockwork Beekeeper. You wind up one brass bee by holding the space bar. Holding longer stores more flight time, up to 10 seconds. Release to fly across a side-on meadow with the arrow keys. Each flower gives 1 pollen. Return to the hive before the spring runs out, or the run ends where the bee stops. Twelve pollen wins. No enemies.
That is about 60 words, and nothing in it needs a guess about how the game works. The last two words matter more than they look, because they stop the generator adding a hornet.
The six blanks
Fill these in before you press generate:
| Blank | Clockwork Beekeeper |
|---|---|
| Goal | Bring 12 pollen home |
| Controls | Space to wind, arrows to fly |
| How you lose | The spring runs out away from the hive |
| How a round ends | Back at the hive, or stopped in the field |
| Real numbers | 10 seconds, 1 pollen per flower, 12 to win |
| Not wanted | Enemies |
Why draw it first?
A paragraph can hide a missing step. A drawing cannot, because an arrow that leads nowhere is plain to see. Most generators only take text, so use any chat AI as your helper: it draws one round, you close the gaps, and only then does it write the text. It uses Mermaid, which mermaid.live turns into a picture. The bee example has one such gap: what happens with pollen you are carrying when the spring runs out? For more on what makes a rule worth building, read what a core game mechanic is.
Paste this to your AI
Here is my rough game idea: [one or two sentences].
Before you write anything for a generator, draw one round of this game as a Mermaid flowchart, from the start to a win or a loss and back to the start. Mark every box that my idea does not explain, then ask me about those boxes one at a time.
Next, write a brief of at most 120 words from the finished chart. It must state the goal, the controls, how I lose, how a round ends and at least three real numbers.
Label each addition of yours with [added], and never present it as something I asked for. If you cannot tell what I meant, ask me and do not guess. If my idea contradicts itself, quote both parts and ask me which one stands.
Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP
How to check it worked
- Count your rules. Paste the brief into the generator and play for a minute. Each rule should show up.
- Give the brief to a friend. Without playing, they should be able to tell you how you lose.
- Change one number and generate again. If half the game changes, the generator is ignoring your text.
- Read the [added] labels. Keep the ones you like, and remove the rest before you generate.