How Minimo works, how to ask your AI for what you want, and how to keep a bigger game on track.
Copy the words under a card and paste them to your AI, replacing anything in [brackets] with your own.
First, connect your AI to Minimo Games. Connect your AI shows how, step by step for ChatGPT.
Three players make a Minimo game, and each one does what it is best at.
You decide what the game is. Your AI builds it. Minimo keeps it, runs it, and shares it.
Your AI writes the code, makes the pictures, and saves everything to Minimo through its connection. You never have to open the code, but you are always the one who decides: what the game is about, how it should feel, and when it is good enough. The clearer you are about that, the better the result.
A scene is one screen of the game: the title, a level, the game-over screen. An object is anything on a scene: the player, a coin, a button. Controls are how the player acts: taps, drags, swipes. Effects are how things move and react: bounce, shake, explode. The rest of this guide shows each of them, with the words to ask for it.
See Objects on screenA new game, and every change to it, is private until you decide to share it.
After each change your AI gives you links: the preview, to try your latest version on your phone before anyone else sees it; and, once the game is published, the public page and a full-screen link to share. Those two keep the public version, the last one you published, until you publish again, and My Games, the preview, and the public page tell you when your latest version is newer. You can also let other creators remix a published game into their own version.
Give me the preview link so I can try the latest version on my phone.
Your AI can make the images, or you can upload your own. Either way, the same style across every picture is what makes a game look finished.
See Images for your gameYour AI is capable; what it needs from you is clarity. These habits make the difference.
Who it is for, what the player does, how they do it, how it ends, and how it looks.
A first message that covers these five things gets a playable first version instead of a guess. Keep the first version small: one level, one idea, done well. Replace the brackets in the phrase below with your own game.
Make a game for [who it is for]. The player [what they do] by [how they control it]. They win when [...] and lose when [...]. It should look like [art style] and feel [mood]. Start with one short level.
Five changes in one message are hard to check and hard to undo. One change at a time lets you see what each one did, and keeps the game working between steps.
Make only this change and leave everything else as it is: [the change].
You do not need to know how to fix it; describe the difference between what happens and what you want.
"The jump feels floaty" and "the coins are too hard to see" are excellent requests. Your AI turns them into the right change. When you know the effect you want, use its name from this guide: "make it pulse", "fade to black".
When I play, [what happens]. I want [what should happen instead].
For anything bigger than a tweak, let your AI propose and you choose.
New levels, a new mechanic, or a different art style are decisions worth making on purpose. Ask for a few options, pick one, and only then let it build.
Suggest three ways to [goal], explain each in one sentence, and wait for me to choose before changing anything.
If a game hits an error, the player shows a bar with a Copy Error Details button.
Copy the details and paste them to your AI: they tell it exactly what went wrong and where. If a change made things worse, you can also go back to the version from before it.
The game shows this error: [paste the details]. Fix it without changing anything else.
A small game fits in one conversation. A bigger one lasts several, sometimes with different AIs, and needs a little memory of its own.
Your AI keeps a short description of the game inside it: the idea, the art style, the scenes, the images, and the effects for key moments.
It is a plain document saved with the game, called gamedesign.md, so it survives the conversation and any AI you connect later can read it. It describes the whole game as it is now. Read it once in a while from Show game documents on your game's page in My Games, and correct it when it drifts from what you want: the design is where your decisions live.
Show me the game design, and update it with what we just decided.
Keep the ideas you will do later in the game's roadmap, in order, instead of in your head.
Your AI keeps them in roadmap.md, beside the design. A short ordered list, three to five items, is enough: it lets you stop at any time and pick up exactly where you left off, and it keeps you finishing one thing before starting the next.
Add the next three improvements to the roadmap, in the order we will do them.
Every change you notice gets one line in the game's changelog, dated when you publish.
Your AI writes them in changelog.md, newest first and in plain words, so you can see how the game grew and what each published version brought.
Show me the changelog of my game "[name]".
For example: "all text uses the Fredoka font", "no emoji", "the game must stay playable with one thumb". Put them in the game design, and your AI checks each change against them, today and in future conversations. They win over your rules for all your games, so they are also where a game makes an exception.
Add these house rules to the game design and follow them in every change from now on: [your rules].
Say once what every game of yours shares, and every AI you connect follows it.
For example: "write every game in English", "my players are six: big buttons, no reading needed", "always a soft pastel art style". They are saved on your Minimo account, not in a game, so they apply to every game you make or change, whichever AI you use. When you tell your AI about a preference for all your games, it saves the rule itself and tells you. Read them from Rules for all my games on your My Games page, and tell your AI when you want one changed.
Save this as a rule for all my games: [your rule].
A new conversation starts with no memory of the last one; the game and its documents are the memory.
Start by naming the game and asking your AI to read its design and its roadmap. It works the same with a different AI, as long as it is connected to Minimo.
Let's continue my Minimo game "[name]". Read its design and roadmap first, then tell me where we left off and what is next.
Ask for a checkpoint before a big change, and Minimo can bring the game back to it. A copy of the game is there for a risky idea.
A checkpoint keeps the whole game as it is, its images and sounds included, and each game has one: a new checkpoint replaces the last. Changes do not make one on their own, so ask your AI for one before a change you may want to undo, and ask it to go back to the checkpoint if the change goes wrong; everything made since is then lost. A checkpoint counts toward your storage until you replace or delete it. For a big experiment, work on a copy and keep the original as it is. Publish when a version is good; the public game only changes when you publish again.
Make a checkpoint of my game "[name]" before we try [the idea].