# Participant Guide — Deadline Run

Welcome. In the next hour you're going to explore, run, modify, and publish
a real playable game — using plain English, not code.

Every prompt below is copy-paste ready. After each step there's a **"what
you should see"** line — if your screen doesn't match, put your hand up.
Nobody should be stuck silently.

This guide follows **EMMA**: Explore → Model → Modify → Actualize.

**Claude moves through those four stages with you, one at a time.** It tells
you which stage you're in, gives you that stage's task, then waits. To move to
the next one, type the phrase it gives you:

| After | Type |
|---|---|
| Exploring | `Ready to Model` |
| You've played the game | `I played it` |
| Rachel says start changing | `Ready to Modify` |
| Rachel says time to publish | `Ready to Actualize` |

**Lost at any point?** Ask your Claude *"where are we?"* — it'll tell you the
stage you're in and what to do. You never have to admit you missed anything. You'll
hear those words during the session — they just mean "look before you
touch, understand it, change it on purpose, then ship it."

---

## Step 0 — Get your project folder

Download the starter project, then **drag the zip onto your Desktop before you
extract it.** Extracting it where it sits is the one thing that makes the rest
of this guide stop matching your screen.

- **Windows:** right-click `claude_project_2d_game.zip` on your Desktop and
  choose **Extract All**, then click **Extract**. Leave the destination box
  exactly as it is.
- **Mac:** double-click the zip.

You do not need to create a folder yourself — the zip brings its own.

**What you should see:** a folder called `claude_project_2d_game` on your
Desktop, with `deadline-run.html`, an `assets` folder, and a few guides
**directly inside it**. If you have to open another folder before you can see
`deadline-run.html`, you have one folder too many — move the inner folder's
contents up a level, or just extract again onto the Desktop.

*If the game later refuses to open, or says something is "locked", your
Desktop is probably synced to OneDrive. Move the whole folder into your user
folder — type `%USERPROFILE%` in the File Explorer address bar, or click your
own name in the sidebar — and carry on from there. Tell Claude and it'll walk
you through it.*

---

## Step 0.5 — Open the project

We're all doing this the same way today, so everyone's looking at the same
screen:

1. Open **Visual Studio Code**
2. **File → Open Folder**, and choose your `claude_project_2d_game` folder
3. **Terminal → New Terminal** (a panel opens at the bottom)
4. Type **claude** and press Enter

**What you should see:** Claude Code starts up in that panel, ready for you to
type to it.

*Using the Claude Code desktop app instead? That's completely fine — open it,
point it at the same folder, and every prompt below works identically.*

**What you should see:** Claude Code is open and ready for you to type to
it, either in its own window (desktop app) or inside your terminal.

---

## EXPLORE — look before you touch

### Step 1 — Explore the codebase

Copy-paste this into Claude Code:

> Explore this codebase and walk me through it using the EMMA framework.

**What you should see:** Claude explores the project and explains what this
game is, how it's organized, and which parts you're expected to change — then
walks you to the next step. It already knows the plan for today, because it
read this project's instructions the moment you opened the folder.

*("Codebase" just means all the files that make up a project. You'll use that
word a lot from now on.)*

You don't need to understand every detail. You just need the shape.

**From here on, Claude will guide you one step at a time.** The rest of this
guide is the same path in writing — use it to follow along, to catch up if
you fall behind, or to skip ahead if you're flying.

---

## MODEL — run it and see it in action

### Step 2 — Get it running

You open the game **from your own folder**, not from inside Claude Code —
nothing in the chat is clickable.

1. Open your file explorer (Finder on a Mac) and go to your **Desktop**.
2. Open the **claude_project_2d_game** folder.
3. Double-click **deadline-run.html**. It opens in your browser.

No server, no setup. That's the only way you need — use it every time you want
to see your changes.

**What you should see:** The game loads in your browser. Bob is sitting at
a reception desk. Play one full round — win, lose, or get zapped, it
doesn't matter. Click the tells in Bob's inbox, watch the mission drop, run
for Kate.

*If you make it to Kate, she asks you one question at the end. Nothing is
scored and there's no wrong answer — just pick whichever you'd actually say.*

### Step 3 — Understand what you just played

> Explain what happens on screen between Bob handing me the document and
> the run starting — walk me through it like you're narrating the scene.

**What you should see:** Claude describes the sequence — you found the
problem, Bob briefed you in three beats (the mission, a warning about the
electrical pits, and the "it's 4:59, GO!" line), then the clock started.

---

## MODIFY — make it yours

This is the biggest chunk of the hour. Pick from this menu — your
facilitator will tell you how many to do. **Refresh your browser and play
after every single change.** That refresh is the whole magic trick: English
in, game changes, right there on screen.

### Step 4 — Put your voice in Bob's dialogue *(everyone does this one)*

> Rewrite Bob's three briefing lines — the mission reveal, the electrical
> pit warning, and the "it's 4:59, GO!" line — so he sounds like someone
> from my office. Keep the same three beats and roughly the same length.

**What you should see:** Refresh, play through the briefing. Bob's words
are now yours.

### Step 5 — Pick one more (or more, if there's time)

**Swap the scenario entirely:**

> Switch the active scenario from phishing to the HIPAA redaction scenario.

*(This game ships two learning scenarios as data — phishing and HIPAA
redaction. This one prompt swaps the document, Bob's lines, and the ending
all at once.)*

**Change how it feels to play:**

> Give the player a little more jump height.

*(or)*

> Make the countdown timer change color and pulse once we're under 10
> seconds left.

**Personalize an enemy:**

> Rename the Micromanager enemy to something from my own workplace, and
> give it a different color.

**What you should see:** Whatever you asked for — refresh and check every
time. If something looks broken, see "If something breaks" below.

**Change the whole room:**

The game ships with four backgrounds — the sunset office, a brick loft, the
city at night, and the city in daylight. Tell Claude Code:

> Use the brick loft background.

*(The floor changes to match automatically.)* Want your own instead? There's a
fill-in-the-blanks image prompt in `MAKE_YOUR_OWN_BACKGROUND.md`.

**What you should see:** Refresh and play — same game, completely different room.

**Play as someone else:**

Open `assets/sprites/CHARACTERS.png` — that's a lineup of the six characters
that ship with this project, each labelled with its filename. Pick the one
you want, then tell Claude Code:

> Make the player character hero-woman2.png instead of the current one.

*(Swap in whichever filename you picked.)*

**What you should see:** Refresh and play — same game, new character,
running and jumping and swinging exactly like before.

---

## ACTUALIZE — publish it

### Step 6 — Get a shareable link

1. Go to **https://app.netlify.com/drop** and **sign in** to your free
   Netlify account.
2. Drag your whole `claude_project_2d_game` folder onto the page.
3. Wait for it to finish uploading — it takes under a minute.
4. **Click "Make public."** Netlify may set new projects to private, and a
   private link won't work for the people you send it to.
5. Click your new `something-something.netlify.app` link and play your game.

*(If Netlify asks whether to rename a file to index.html, say yes — it's
harmless. It shouldn't ask, because this project already includes that file.)*

**What you should see:** a working URL that opens your game in a brand-new
browser tab.

**Then test it properly:** open that link in a **private / incognito window**.
That's what your colleague will see. If it plays there, you're genuinely
published.

If you'd rather have Claude drive this step:

> Walk me through publishing this project to Netlify Drop.

---

## If something breaks

> The game won't load — find the error and fix it.

*(or, if a specific change broke it)*

> Undo that last change.

That's the whole fix. Ask, refresh, keep going. See `TROUBLESHOOTING.md`
for the most common snags.

---

## What you leave with

- A personalized version of a real, playable learning game.
- A shareable URL you can send anyone.
- A repeatable process — Explore, Model, Modify, Actualize — for the next
  thing you hand Claude Code.

Want to keep going after today? Open `KEEP_BUILDING.md`.
