Make your first game

This walkthrough takes you from an empty account to a published game in about fifteen minutes. You work in the NEO Studio, which runs in your browser, so there is nothing to install. By the end you have your own project, made from the starter template, with an object you placed yourself, live on the platform.

You need a computer. On a phone-sized screen the Studio shows "The Studio needs a bigger screen" instead of the editor.

Open the Studio#

1. Sign in to NEO with your account. Guests can open the Studio but can't publish from it.
2. Go to the Creator Hub and choose Open Studio, or go straight to /studio.

The Studio fills the window under a slim bar with a NEO button (back to the platform) and the NEO Studio title. While it loads you see "Opening the Studio…".

The first time, the Studio opens the GASP project, the NEO engine's GASP template in its full form. You can play it straight away, but for your own game you make a new project from the template.

Make a project from the template#

1. Open the Project ▾ menu in the Studio's top bar and choose New Project….

2. Fill in the dialog:

   Field	What to enter
   Name	A lower snake case name such as my_first_game. A hint under the field says when a name won't work.
   Title	Optional. The name players see, such as "My First Game". Left empty, it comes from the name.
   Location (in the workspace)	Leave it as projects.
   Template	Leave GASP selected. It is marked "default".

3. Choose Create. The dialog shows "Your title is ready".

4. Choose Switch to it. The page reloads and opens your new project.

Your project starts as the template's starter game: a third-person character on a traversal course, with movement, jumping and vaulting, an orbit camera and keyboard, mouse and gamepad controls. See Projects and templates for what a project contains.

Add an object#

The Studio opens in Scene mode, the editing view. The viewport in the middle shows your world, and the Scene panel on the right lists what is in it.

1. In the viewport's top-left toolbar, choose + Add.
2. Pick Cube. You can also add a Sphere, Plane, Cylinder, Point Light or Empty.

The cube lands on the ground about 6 metres in front of the camera and is selected, so you can move it right away.

To look around, hold the right mouse button and drag to turn, and use W, A, S and D while holding it to fly. Press F to frame the selected object.

Move it#

The same toolbar has the transform tools:

Hold Ctrl while dragging to snap (0.25 m steps, 15 degrees, 0.1x scale). Esc cancels a drag. Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) undoes and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes.

Move the cube somewhere the character can see it, such as next to the start of the course. You can also move the template's own objects, like the player's start point or the course's boxes.

Play it#

1. Choose Play in the mode switcher at the top of the Studio (Scene, Play, Build, Source).
2. Click in the viewport. The game now gets your keyboard and mouse.
3. Walk with W, A, S and D, look with the mouse, sprint with Shift and jump with Space.

Play runs your real game, exactly as players will get it, with your cube where you put it. Press Shift+F1 to take the mouse and keys back for the Studio. The play bar at the top of the viewport has pause, step one frame, eject (fly the editor camera around the running game, also F8) and stop. Stopping, or switching back to Scene, ends the play session. See Play in the Studio.

Save#

You don't need to press anything. The Studio saves your scene 0.4 seconds after each edit (never during Play) to the project's scene.json, and keeps the project in your browser's storage. A reload brings back your object and your moves. Scripts and other files you edit in Source mode save with Cmd+S or Ctrl+S.

Publish it#

1. Choose Build in the mode switcher.
2. Under NEO Platform, choose Publish to NEO Platform.

The status line next to the button shows the progress ("Uploading project files…") and then "Published version 1" with how many files were uploaded and how many were unchanged, followed by the link to your game's page.

The first publish creates a game for this project in your account, titled after the project, and makes it public. Every later publish of the same project adds a new version to the same game. To publish without making the game public, choose Publish as private beta instead. See Publishing from the Studio.

See it on the platform#

Open the link in the status line, or go to the Creator Hub and choose Creations: your game is listed with its visibility. Its page at /games/<id> has a Play button that starts the version you just published, cube included.

A game the Studio creates starts in the Action genre, hosted as Small groups, with up to 8 players per server. Change the title, description and key art from the game's Settings tab in the Creator Hub.

Next steps#

• Scene and objects
• Your first script
• Publish and share a game
• Studio