# 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`.