GAME PIPELINE

Idea → live on Playgama, Phaser-era edition (v3, 2026-07). Pick a game to track its own checklist state.

Tracking: each game keeps separate progress

0 · Greenlight

Rated in game-comparison — S/A tier or a deliberate exception Art budget honest: procedural/parametric first — every hand-drawn asset costs ~⅓ day (redraw rule: no AI art in final releases) Can answer: "why does a player come back tomorrow?" (D1 ≥30% is the kill-switch)

1 · Bootstrap (Phaser 3 + React)

/new-game [slug] "[Title]" — copies template, sets names, converts to Phaser+React, adds wrangler design/brief.md filled: concept, camera, core mechanic + references, what it is NOT design/ART.md style contract before any art is made (palette, sizes, do/don't) npx wrangler pages project create [slug] --production-branch=main + first pnpm deploy:cf

2 · Skeleton week

Menu → gameplay → complete/game-over all reachable (React shell owns screens, Phaser owns canvas, typed event bridge between — see games/slime-rescue) Core mechanic playable with placeholder shapes — fun test BEFORE any art Game logic in plain TS modules, Vitest green in node env (no canvas) Responsive scale block (fixed design canvas + scale: min(...) pattern) verified at 375/768/1440

3 · Content + style

Jam-scope content in (levels/cards/rooms per brief scope table) Style pass matches ART.md — procedural or hand-drawn, no AI art shipping to final Strings through t(key, fallback) from day one; ja.ts can wait, keys can't ZzFX audio pass (draw/place/win/lose minimum)

4 · Platform + QA

Playgama SDK: game_ready after load · gameplayStart/Stop around play · interstitials (never first match, 120s cooldown) · rewarded pays ONLY on rewarded state — copy tuna's platform.ts Saves via platform storage wrapper, not raw localStorage calls scattered Playwright style-contract suite green: no image 404s, core screens render, screenshots for eyeball review Service worker is network-first for HTML (the black-screen lesson) + bump cache name Bundle ≤20MB ideal / 50MB hard (check nothing ships from assets that isn't referenced — .ai files, orphans)

5 · Ship

pnpm deploy:cf → production URL verified 200 in a clean browser Submission zip: index.html at root (python shutil.make_archive — no zip binary on this box) marketing/store-copy.md: one-liner, short+long description, How-to-Play paragraph, tags 4 portrait screenshots via repeatable Playwright spec + itch build (build:itch) Playgama: upload → QA Tool → moderation chat. Same day: itch page live

6 · Kill-switch (2 weeks later)

Read KPIs: D1 ≥30%? session ≥3min? PASS → double down: content beat, direct CrazyGames/Poki submissions. FAIL → unlist, retro note in docs/retro-[slug].md, next game. No sunk-cost polish.

HARD-WON LESSONS append as they happen

Asset filenames must exactly match imageKeys — a hyphen cost the hound its art for a week
Cache-first service workers on HTML = black screen after every deploy
Playgama does NOT auto-publish to Poki/CrazyGames — direct submissions
negative z-index pseudo-elements paint OVER their parent's background
Test attackers need walls: CPU movement phase runs before the attack phase
Reward only on rewarded state, never closed