Starting a Game

🚪 Starting a Game

A new game starts at Enter World. One dialog holds every choice before page one: who you play, your starting traits, where you start, and what you add from your library.

After the story starts, see How to Play.

How to Start a Game

1. On the main menu, open the library's Worlds tab and select a world. The world dialog opens.
2. Select Enter World.
3. If the world has an Introduction, read it and close it.
4. In the Enter World dialog, select each category in the list on the left and make your picks. The categories are in The Enter World Dialog.
5. Select Start game. In a world with a 3D model, the button reads Continue to Avatar, and the avatar step comes next.

A world with nothing to choose skips the Enter World dialog.

For the Persona category, see How to Pick a Persona. To add entities from your library, see How to Add Your Own Entities to a Game.

How to Start with the Defaults

1. On the main menu, select a world.
2. Select Quick Start. In portrait it is the icon beside Enter World.

Quick Start skips the Introduction and the Enter World dialog. You get the persona that Enter World picks first. You also get the author's default traits and a random starting location. When the persona is one of the world's own entities, you start at its location. No library additions come in, and the world's own dictionaries are on.

How to Pick Starting Traits

1. In the Enter World dialog, open a category under Starting Traits.
2. Select the traits you want. A round button allows one pick in its group; a checkbox allows several.
3. Do the same for each category under Starting Traits. The category list shows how many traits you picked out of those shown, such as 1/3.

Start game stays off until every group has its minimum picks. A group that is short shows Choose 1 more trait.

How to Pick a Starting Location

1. In the Enter World dialog, open Starting Location.
2. Select a location, or Random to let the world choose.

How to Choose a Game's Dictionaries

1. In the Enter World dialog, open Library Additions.
2. Under Dictionaries, select the checkbox of each dictionary this game should use. Clear one to leave it out.
3. To change the order, drag a row by its grip, or select it and use Move Up or Move Down.
4. To start future games in this world with the same picks, select Remember Additions.

How to Read the Introduction Again

1. Select Enter World on the world.
2. In the Enter World dialog, select Introduction at the top.

To stop the Introduction and the in-game Readme from showing on entry, select Don't Show This Again in either one. The Show Readme on entry checkbox in the world dialog turns them back on.

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The World Dialog

Select a world in the library to open it. The dialog shows the world's author and dates, and these buttons:

Button	What it does
Enter World	Starts a new game, through the choices on this page
Quick Start	Starts a new game with the defaults. See How to Start with the Defaults.
Edit World	Opens the World Editor
Duplicate World	Makes a copy of the world
Export World	Saves the world as a file
Make Available Offline	Downloads the world's linked images. Shows only for a world that has them.
Publish World	Publishes the world to Community Creations. Shows when you are logged in.

Under the buttons:

• Use this world's prompt (or prompts) shows when the world brings its own prompts. Clear it to play with your own.
• Show Readme on entry shows when the world has an Introduction or a Readme.

Note

When its author removed a source the world requires, Enter World and Quick Start are off. See While a Source Is Missing.

The Enter World Dialog

The dialog shows the world's name at the top and a category list on the left. On a narrow screen, a Categories button shows the list.

Category	What you pick	Shows when
Persona	Who you play	The world or your library has a persona to pick, or the world has a Custom Persona
Starting Traits	One category per trait group, and one per entity whose traits you set	The world has traits you can pick
Starting Location	Where the story begins	The world offers more than one starting location
Library Additions	Entities and dictionaries for this game	Your library has something to add, or the world has dictionaries

The dialog opens on the first category. Cancel leaves without starting. Escape does the same.

Starting Traits

General holds the global traits for you. No one owns a global trait, so none of them is your persona's. Each trait group with traits to pick gets its own category.

An entity whose traits you set gets a category with its portrait and name. Your own entity is marked You. This is how a world lets you pick a companion's traits, or the race and class of a Custom Persona.

You see	What it means
A round button	Pick one. Select it again to clear it.
A checkbox	Pick several. When the group is full, the rest turn off.
A check mark with no control	Automatic. The trait is on and you can't change it.
A lock and Requires …	The trait needs something first, such as Requires Knight and not Paladin, or Mercenary. Meet every part of one alternative and it unlocks.
A lock and Locked	The trait needs only traits you can't see
Unlocked by …	The picks that opened it
A stat line, such as Strength: +2	What the trait does to a stat

A world can have Hidden traits. They work like Automatic traits, and they never show in the list.

When one pick switches other traits off, a notice names them: Turned off …, because of …. Select Dismiss to close it.

The author's defaults start picked.

Starting Location

The list shows Random first, then each starting location with its description.

Pick	Where you start
A location	That location
Random	Any starting location, at random

When you play one of the world's own entities, its starting location is picked for you. You can pick another. After you pick a location yourself, a persona change no longer moves it.

Library Additions

The category has a search box and two lists.

List	What it holds	Starts
Entities	Entities from your library. Each one you include joins the game at your starting location. See Entities in Game.	Excluded
Dictionaries	The world's own dictionaries, then the ones in your library	The world's on as the author set them; yours off

Select a row to read it in the details pane. A dictionary row's tag says where it comes from: World for one bundled with the world, Library for one of yours, Linked for the world's copy of a library dictionary.

The dictionary order is the order the AI reads them in. Remember Additions saves both lists as this world's defaults on this device.

Note

One entity has one role per game. A persona you pick leaves the Entities list, and an entity you add leaves the persona list.

The Introduction

An author can write an Introduction for the world. It opens before the Enter World dialog, over it. The in-game Readme is a different text. It opens after the game starts.

The Avatar Step

In a world with a 3D model, Continue to Avatar opens Character Customization. Pick a Player Avatar, adjust it, and select Finalize Character to start. Back returns to the Enter World dialog. See Character Customization.

What Happens at Start

The game applies your picks, then draws one opening:

• An Opening Narration becomes page one at once.
• An Opening Action fills your action box. Edit it if you like, then send it.

How a Game Opens explains which openings can come up for your picks.

Then, in order, these can open:

1. A setup dialog, when the game can't reach your AI. See The Set Up Your AI Dialog.
2. You're Playing on the Demo AI, on your first game on the Demo AI. See The Demo AI Notice.
3. The world's Readme, when it has one.

The Welcome Animation

The first time you open Formamorph, a short animation spells out the name, then fades into the main menu. To see it again, select the © line at the bottom of the main menu. Its tooltip reads Replay intro.

Related

• 🎮 How to Play: what you do once the story starts
• 🪪 Personas: who you are in the story
• 🎭 Entities in Game: the cast, Library Additions and how a game opens
• 🎬 World Editor: Openings: how authors write openings