Check your story and game
Learning paths through this topic
Time-limited boosts: stacking them correctly when one runs out in the middle of a stretch
A double-income boost and a triple-income boost can run at once, and one of them may end while the game is catching up after the player was away. Taking the multiplier at the start or the end of that stretch pays wrongly. This entry splits it at the end times and offers two stacking styles.
Which tiles may be picked in a stacked tile-pairs game, including half-offset ones
A tile may be taken only when nothing lies on it and it can slide out sideways, but tiles sit on half-steps, so a neighbour can block from a corner and a tile above can cover only part of another. This entry shows how to decide cleanly and how to accept a pair.
Check that no level gate asks for more stars than the levels before it can give
Locking later levels behind a star count is common, and it is easy to ask for more stars than exist, leaving the player stuck with no way forward. Even a possible number can be cruel when it needs perfect play. This entry checks every gate and warns about both.
Find the health ranges where my rules overlap or leave nothing to happen
When a rule table reacts to ranges, like low, medium and high health, two rules can claim the same value, or a value can fall between them. This entry shows a quick way to find every such number, including the one on the edge.
My flashback story says A happened before B, B before C and C before A
With several storytellers, diaries and flashbacks, statements about what came first pile up, and somewhere two of them quietly contradict each other. This entry finds the circle and, when there is none, gives one order that fits everything.
Find the scenes of my story that nobody can reach or leave
In a branching story it is easy to write a scene that no choice leads to, or one that players enter and never find an ending from. This entry shows how your AI can list both kinds from the story itself, with the path that leads there.
A choice jumps to a scene that does not exist and the story crashes
One typo in a scene name and the player clicks a choice and lands on a blank screen. This entry shows how to find every such broken link before anyone plays, and how to offer the likely right name instead of just reporting an error.
Can a character be dead and still show up at the wedding?
Rules like "never both of these at once" are easy to state and hard to keep, because a story has many roads and each remembers different things. This entry searches the situations a story can reach and returns the shortest road that breaks a rule.
A line greets the player by name, but on one route the name was never asked
Stories remember things like a name, a gift or a promise, and later lines use them. If one road to that line skips the moment where the thing was set, the text shows a hole. This entry checks every road, not just the one you tested.
Subtitles overlap, vanish too quickly, or end before they begin
A timeline of spoken lines needs more than a start and an end for each. Lines that run into each other on the same speaker line, ones that show for a blink, and ones with the times swapped all happen when many are written fast. This entry lists them by number.
A timed choice runs out while the menu is open or the window was in the background
Countdown choices create real tension, until the game chooses for the player after a pause, a lag spike or a tab switch. This entry makes the clock fair, and decides what happens when the option that would be picked is not available.
Tell a tap from a hold, a swipe and a drag on a touch screen
A finger never stays perfectly still, and the same touch can mean a tap, a long press, a swipe or the start of a drag. This entry shows what to measure, where the lines between them go and the one number most builders get wrong, so that controls feel the same on every phone.