A Complete Guide to Creating AI-Powered Storytelling Games on Pikoo

How are stories and games related?

Most uninitiated minds would see these two as completely different spaces. The interesting and ironic thing is that they’re extremely related. In fact, an argument can be made that stories are just documented games. Stories have a fixed beginning, middle, and end for every reader or listener. And games are nothing but stories whose beginnings, middles, and ends can differ for different people. Players’ actions in the games can change these.

That’s how we see games. Did you know that historically, games and play predate stories? That’s because there is a literal biological need for play. Anyway, I digress; you can consult Brian Boyd’s book “On the Origin of Stories” (solid alliteration there:) if you want to go deeper into this. For now, we use only documented games.

So what? Who makes stories from games or games from stories?

Short answer… everyone! For the slightly long answer, let me tell you the story of an Italian plumber. The plumber falls in love with a princess, but a dangerous villain abducts the princess. Now, the plumber needs to go through a long, perilous journey to save the princess. Do you know which story this is? It is the story of Mario.

Suppose stories are merely documented games. You need a clear idea, world, or story to make a good game.

But how do I make good storytelling games?

No fear, kind Lear. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Who is my hero?
2. What do they want?
3. What’s stopping them?
4. How do they overcome this?
5. What did they get?

Once you have the answers for these questions… ask “How can I represent it? For each question.

1. Who is my hero? – How can I represent it?
2. What do they want? – How can I represent it?
3. What’s stopping them? – How can I represent it?
4. How do they overcome this? – How can I represent it?
5. What did they get? – How can I represent it?

You’d always want to go all in on the details from day 1. But that’s kind of a bad idea. Start small.

Let’s try to make a game with AI to tell the story of wild brains and how we can calm them.

As soon as we have the answers for all of it, we can make a game on Pikoo. You make the prompt more articulate, but including the details of your representation in the prompt box will yield a fully playable game.

A leaf is trying to get to a circle.

No action will drag the leave away. Swift actions will pull the leaf away.

If I tap gently at a slow speed, which pushes me to take a breath in between, I bring the leaf closer to the circle.

I win when the leaf gets to a circle.

This is literally the prompt that I entered to get me the game:

We have done this using a single example. You can try more such things yourself on Pikoo.ai

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Start with simple ideas and stories
2. Simplify the representations as well
3. Keep the prompt focused on the representation component, as it may become confusing to combine the story and the representation.
4. It will take more than a few attempts to start getting it right.

This is an effortless way to make your storytelling games with Pikoo.ai

Even the most proficient, prompt engineers take some time learning how to vibe code things. AI as a technology is relatively new so that you may feel some frustration at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll start to see exponential growth. I’d encourage you to try to make at least 10 straightforward games before deciding whether you can make what you can. If you still struggle, please feel free to tell us more about it on our Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, or any other social media.

We look forward to playing the games you make and experiencing the stories you tell!