World 3 / Quest 14

Ship It

Title screen. Ship report. Send it to someone. You made a game.

Badge: Finish the Small Thing

You’ll learn

• What 'finished' means (and why most games never get there)
• The ship report: telling the story of what you built
• Packaging a game so someone else can play it
• Finish the Small Thing: the most important badge in this whole course

Briefing

Start prompt

Steps

1. 1

   The finish list and the parking lot

   Ask Coach for two lists. Finish list: the small things that make it feel done (title screen, controls text, a name, the win screen works, sounds all in). Parking lot: every cool idea you're NOT doing today. Coach saves both in a file. Look at the parking lot and feel fine about it.

   Say this to Coach

   Make a file called SHIP.md with two lists. FINISH LIST: the small things that make my game feel done — you suggest them and I'll say yes or no. PARKING LOT: every idea I've mentioned that we're not doing today. I'll add to it.

   Copy
2. 2

   Title screen with your logo

   You made a title screen in Juice It. Now it needs the real thing: your game's name (pick it now if you haven't!), your studio logo from Quest 0, controls in one line, Press SPACE. Use your style sentence. Change the name in the box below to your game's name.

   Say this to Coach

   My game's name is Cave Run. Make the title screen show it big, my studio logo from ArcadeLab, the controls in one line (arrows to move, SPACE to jump), and 'Press SPACE to start'. Match STYLE.md.

   Copy
3. 3

   Play it start to finish, like a stranger

   Pretend you've never seen it. Title → Level 1 → 2 → 3 → win screen → restart. Anything confusing? Anything broken? Fix only what's broken. Nothing new goes in — new things go in the parking lot.

   Say this to Coach

   I played it start to finish. Broken things: the win screen shows the wrong coin total. Confusing things: nobody knows SPACE restarts. Fix the broken things only. Put anything new in the parking lot.

   Copy
4. 4

   The ship report

   Coach interviews you and writes SHIP-REPORT.md: what the game is, what you built, what tools you used (Coach, ChatGPT, your Sound Lab), what broke and how you fixed it, what you're proudest of, and what's in the parking lot. Answer honestly. This is the story of your game.

   Say this to Coach

   Interview me for the ship report — ask me one question at a time: what my game is, what I built, which tools I used, what broke and how we fixed it, what I'm proudest of. Then write SHIP-REPORT.md from my answers.

   Copy
5. 5

   Package it

   Ask Coach to zip the whole game folder into one file. Then send it to someone (with Dad's help — email, AirDrop, whatever). Tell them: "Unzip it, then ask a grown-up to run the tiny server from that folder." Your game has pictures, so it needs the server. Or just run it for them on your laptop.

   Say this to Coach

   Zip my whole game folder into one file in ~/ArcadeLab/shipped/ called cave-run.zip. Then tell me the simplest instructions I can send to someone so they can play it.

   Copy
6. 6

   Put it on the shelf

   Go to the Arcade page on this site. Add your game: name, one-line pitch, a screenshot. It's on the shelf now. It's real. Then checkpoint 'shipped'.

   Say this to Coach

   Take a screenshot of my title screen for the Arcade shelf and save it in ~/ArcadeLab/shipped/. Then save a checkpoint called 'shipped'.

   Copy

Side quests +10 XP each

Stuck?

• Want to add one more thing? That's the parking lot talking. Write it down. Ship first.
• Zip won't open for the other person? Ask Coach: "What's the simplest way to send a browser game to someone?"
• Ship report feels awkward? Just answer Coach's questions like you're telling a friend. Coach does the writing.

More ways to get unstuck