Refining & regenerating
Generation gets you a first draft, not a finished game. Two tools in the Studio help you close the distance: refining with AI feedback to revise the table toward how your rules actually read, and an automatic update that keeps a game current as taybl’s schema evolves. Neither ever blocks you.
Refining with AI feedback
On the Preview tab, the Refine with Feedback box lets you describe what is wrong in plain language — for example “the knight should move in an L-shape” or “add a draw phase at the start of each turn” — and the pipeline revises the game definition for you. The loop is the same every time:
- Describe the change in the feedback box and send it.
- The AI revises the definition.
- Play it back with Try It (or just look at the preview).
- Repeat until the table plays the way your rules read.
Treat each revision as a draft — you remain the judge of whether the table now matches your rules. For anything you would rather change by hand, edit it directly in the Layout tab or in Settings instead.
Stuck on how to model something? Use the Ask the assistant button in the Studio for a docs answer without leaving your edit.
Keeping an older game current
taybl’s schema gains new fields over time, so a game built months ago is described in slightly older terms than one built today. You do not have to do anything about this. When you open a game in the Studio, taybl brings its definition up to date as it loads it — filling in the new fields, dropping settings that no longer exist — and saves the result. Your hand-edits are untouched, nothing is sent to an AI, and there is nothing to click.
This used to be a banner asking you to press Update game. It was asking permission for work that never had a downside, and it could not be dismissed by doing it: the update did not mark the game as caught up, so the same banner came back on every game, forever.
When taybl can’t do it for you
Rarely, a game is written in a way the current schema cannot express at all, and the automatic update has nothing it can safely do. Then — and only then — you get a banner saying “This game couldn’t be brought up to date”, listing what it could not resolve.
Take it seriously even though the game still looks right in the Studio. Nothing that draws your game checks the definition, so the preview stays perfect while the parts that do check it refuse: players may not be able to start a session, and saving a rename or a layout change can fail.
The banner’s Repair game button is the fix. It is the one path here that uses AI — it rebuilds the parts that no longer fit from the rules you originally uploaded — and it is offered only because the free, automatic repair has already been tried and could not land. If it cannot either, the message says so, and re-uploading your rules to build the game again is the way back.
What the build did with your uploads
Every component you upload reaches your game. If generation doesn’t find a use for something — a deck you cut from a print-and-play sheet, a spare token, a board — taybl adopts it anyway rather than leaving it out: a deck is gathered and dealt into a draw zone, a board becomes the artwork of a play area, and anything else joins your components ready to place. You are never handed a list of your own uploads to go and rescue by hand.
When that happens, the Studio says so right under the header — as a receipt, not a warning:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| N uploads the build missed — put back | Your art is in the game. A rescued deck is gathered into one group and placed in a draw zone, and an uploaded board becomes a zone’s surface — both are on the table. Anything else waits in the Layout tab for you to drag into a zone. |
| N components using stand-in art | Your rules called for a component you didn’t upload art for, so taybl drew a placeholder. Swap in your own art any time. |
Neither is a warning, neither blocks you, and neither means an upload was lost — every file you have ever uploaded stays in your asset library until you delete it yourself, and the Files tab lists the lot. Both rows should be rare: the first means the build dropped something it should have kept, and taybl put it back.
How to edit in the Studio
Open your game → Preview tab. If the Update game banner is showing, click it first so you are refining the latest definition. Then use the Refine with Feedback box for AI-assisted changes, or jump into the Layout / Details tabs for edits you want to make by hand. New or redrawn art goes in on the Files tab.
Related
- Studio tour — where the Preview tab and the update banner live
- Uploading assets — how the first draft is generated
- Rules reference — the rulebook players open, and the rules text you write yourself
- Publishing