To build a great game using AI, the most important tip is to be specific and descriptive in each prompt. For example, instead of:
Make a platformer.
you should prompt:
Create a 2D platformer, where the player is a blue circle that can jump on green rectangular platforms and collect yellows coins.
In this article we’ll explain how to write better prompts for Waffle, while building up your game or debugging issues.

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Give Clear Visual Descriptions

A strong prompt specifies the size, shape, and position of any new object added to the game. It’s a good idea to initially create the game with only geometric shapes - circles and rectangles - then replace them with real game assets later. One way to describe objects effectively is to compare them to existing objects in the game. E.g. “add a red circle on each platform that is half the size of the player”. Let’s look at some more examples. Weak prompt:
Add some enemies
Strong prompt:
Create spider enemies that are black circles with 8 thin white lines as legs. They should crawl along the ground at half the player’s speed, and when the player touches them, the player should bounce back and lose one health point.
Weak prompt:
Make the UI better
Strong prompt:
Add a health bar in the top-left corner that’s green when full, yellow at 50%, and red below 25%. Also add a score counter in the top-right using a bold white font that increases by 100 points when collecting coins.
By giving visual cues, we can turn vague requests into clear and actionable prompts.

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Give Context About What’s Not Working

When something isn’t working as expected, give Waffle information about:
  1. What is currently happening in the game?
  2. What do you want to happen instead?
Rather than just saying
Power-up doesn’t work.
explain that
When the player hits the purple orbs, they disappear as expected but there is no effect on the player. I want it to make the player jump higher for 5 seconds.
This helps Waffle understand the exact issue, and the intended game design. Don’t worry about technical implementation details - focus on describing the experience you want players to have. Let’s look at some examples. Weak prompt:
The game is laggy
Strong prompt:
The game runs smoothly until I have more than 10 enemies on screen, then it starts stuttering. Is there a more efficient way to run this?
Weak prompt:
Can you make it more fun?
Strong prompt:
Players are getting bored after 30 seconds because there’s no challenge progression. Can we add a system where enemies spawn faster over time, and introduce new enemy types every 100 points?
Overall, you want to give the AI as much context as possible about the game’s current behaviour, the desired behaviour, and the steps to cross along the way. In Waffle, the chat mode is a great resource to brainstorm ideas for prompts or walk through design choices.

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Next steps

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