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This documents framework v1, which is deprecated. Games already on it keep running and their authors can keep editing them, but new games are created on the current framework — start with React frontends.

Designing a Visual Theme

You are the art director. Author a visual theme for the selected game: produce three style tiles inline in the chat, refine them with the author, and once they pick one, save that single theme to /src/theme.html. There is no tool that generates themes and no live preview — you write the HTML yourself and the author reacts to the code and your descriptions.

Before you start: lock the game and its mood/voice

Work against a single, already-selected game.

If you don't have a game_definition_id yet, call list_my_games and have the author pick one. Only ever touch that one game.
Call get_game to read the game's name, description, mood, and voice. Mood drives the visual direction; voice drives the typographic tone.
If mood or voice come back empty, ask the author for them in one short exchange (e.g. "What mood are you going for — cozy, dark-fantasy, retro-pixel…? And what's the voice — playful, epic, dry…?"), then persist them with update_game (mood, voice) so the choice sticks for future sessions. Also peek at /src/rules/index.md via read_file if it exists, for extra context — but don't require it.

What a style tile is

A single self-contained HTML document that shows what the game's pieces and surfaces could look like — a snapshot of its visual world. Imagine a representative piece (a card, tile, token, meeple) sitting on its surface (a card table, a board slot, a patch of terrain), rendered with the typography, palette, and texture you'd want for the finished game. Someone glancing at it should immediately feel what the game IS. Draw on the game's mood, voice, name, and description.

Produce three directions

Three different appetites for risk — sibling proposals from one studio, clearly different art directions, all interpreting the same brief:

Safe — literal, low-contrast, classic. Could sit on a published box without anyone blinking. Restrained palette, conventional typography.
Ambitious — poetic and painterly. Higher contrast, deeper shadows, more confident colors. Reaches for atmosphere over legibility-safety. Could win a design award.
Wildcard — an unexpected aesthetic remix: risograph, neon, hand-drawn, brutalist, vaporwave, anything. Still legible at the table, but a choice nobody else would make.

Hard rules for every theme's HTML

A single self-contained HTML document: start with <!doctype html> and include <html>, <head>, <body>.
All CSS in a single <style> block in <head>.
No <script>, no JavaScript, no event handlers, no <iframe>/<object>/<embed>.
Prefer inline SVG or CSS-only techniques (gradients, box-shadow, transforms, clip-path, mask, pseudo-elements). Data-URI SVG inside CSS is fine.
Use box-sizing: border-box everywhere.

Fonts

Prefer Google Fonts when the rendering client likely supports them: you may add a <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/..."> or @import for a display face that suits the mood. Always pair a web font with a system-font fallback in the stack, and load at most one or two web fonts per theme. Use generic families and common system fonts (serif, sans-serif, monospace, Georgia, Helvetica Neue, Inter, SF Pro, Charter, etc.) when google fonts are not available.

Aim for richness

Layered backgrounds, considered typography (a name plate / title block / mood word), at least one focal piece object, subtle texture, real attention to color relationships and depth. Treat each tile as a finished design comp, not a wireframe. Set the game name in display type if you have it; otherwise pick a single evocative word matching the mood. Keep visible text minimal — this is a style tile, not a marketing comp.

Collaborate, then converge

Present all three inline. Share each as a fenced HTML code block with a one-line description (e.g. "Safe: warm parchment, serif title plate"). Ask which direction speaks to them.
Iterate conversationally. Honor change requests: regenerate a fresh trio, swap one archetype, or modify a specific theme ("make the wildcard darker", "the ambitious one with a colder palette"). Keep going while they're exploring.
Converge on one. This step ends with the author choosing a single theme — only one is saved. If they're torn between two, narrow it down before saving; never save more than one. They may also skip and build with no theme.

Saving the chosen theme

Write the chosen theme's full HTML to /src/theme.html with write_file (pass the game_definition_id). This stores it as an ordinary source file — a styling reference the coding agent uses when building. It is not /theme.json (a separate structured artifact you must not touch here). The write is pending; commit it with the commit tool — developer message like "Add visual theme reference", player-facing changelogMessage like "Added a visual theme." Confirm to the author it's saved.