Publishing your game

Games go out in stages: keep it private while you build, share an alpha link with playtesters when you want feedback, then move to beta when you are happy for anyone to play it. Two tabs are involved: Details is the storefront you wrap around the game, and Publish is where you choose who can reach it. You can keep editing afterward, and you can move back down a step at any time.

The game itself — its table and rules — comes from the AI and from your edits in Layout and Settings. The Details tab is everything around it: how the game presents in the catalogue and on its home page.

The Details tab — your storefront

Everything here shows on the public Game Home. A live mini-preview on the right updates as you type, so you can see the catalogue card take shape.

Formatting the description

The description box has a small toolbar: bold, italic, a link, bullet and numbered lists, a heading, and a quote. It writes Markdown into the box, so you can type the marks yourself too — **bold**, - to start a bullet, ## for a heading.

Select some words and press ⌘B (Ctrl+B) for bold, ⌘I for italic, or ⌘K to turn them into a link. Pasting a web address over selected words links them as well, and a web address on its own becomes a link with no effort at all.

Switch the box to Preview to see exactly what a visitor gets. Only that small set is supported — images, tables and raw HTML are ignored, and links always open in a new tab. Wherever the description appears as a short summary instead of in full (the catalogue card, the live mini-preview, a search result) the formatting is stripped back to plain text, so keep the first sentence or two doing the real work.

Details edits are saved with the Save details button — they are independent of who can play the game, so you can polish the storefront at any stage.

The Publish tab — who can play

Once your game has finished building, the Publish tab offers three steps. Pick one; you can change it whenever you like.

Alpha — playtesting with a link

Choosing Alpha gives you a share link. Send it to whoever you want feedback from: they can open the Game Home, play solo on their own device, and start a multiplayer table and invite others — all without the game appearing anywhere public. They do not need an account to look at it, only to sit at a table.

The link is the secret, so treat it like one. New link replaces it, which immediately stops every copy you have already sent from working — use that if a link goes somewhere you did not intend.

Beta — opening it up

Beta puts the game on a public Game Home at its own URL and in the catalogue, carrying a Beta tag so players know it is still being tested. The share link stops working at this point — the game has a public address now.

Beta needs a rulebook. Someone who finds your game in the catalogue has never seen it before, and the Read the rules button on the Game Home is how they decide whether to sit down — so until there is a rules document, the Beta step stays disabled. Upload one in the Details tab and it becomes available. A photo or scan of the rules counts: this gate only asks that a player has something to read. Building with AI accepts one too — with no text to pull out, taybl reads the pages as pictures — but it does ask that the words be legible; see uploading assets.

Alpha does not need one: a private playtest link goes to people you are already talking to, and a game in progress is exactly what alpha is for. Games already listed before this requirement existed are unaffected.

A paid tier for finished games is coming later. Beta games stay free to play.

What you can publish

Alpha and Beta both put your game in front of other people, so both carry the same requirement: you need the rights to the material it is built from. A game’s rules generally are not protected by copyright, but rulebook text, board art, card art, and illustrations usually are. Publishing or sharing a game built from art or text you did not create and do not have permission to use is against the Terms of Use, and can get the game removed and the account behind it deleted.

Building privately from a copy you own — digitising your own shelf, for your own table — is a different situation. The rule is about what you share. If you are unsure whether you have the rights you need, email admin@tayblgames.com before you publish.

Subject matter has one hard limit: taybl allows no sexual content or nudity of any kind, drawn or photographic, and that one applies to what you upload as well as what you publish. See the Terms of Use.

Publishing changes

Players always see the version you last published, not your working draft — so editing a shared game never disturbs a table someone is sitting at. When you have changes players cannot see yet, a Publish changes button appears in the Studio header and on the Publish tab. Press it when you are ready.

The badge beside your game’s name tracks where it sits:

None of this is a final gate: you can edit, publish changes, and keep refining at any step.

How to edit in the Studio

Open your game → Details tab. Fill in the basics, drag in a few photos (the first is your cover), add any buy/crowdfunding links, and click Save details. Then switch to the Publish tab and choose a step: Alpha to get a link you can send to playtesters, or Beta to list it publicly. Use View public page afterward to see exactly what players will.

Related

• Studio tour — the Details and Publish tabs in context
• Refining and regenerating — keep iterating after launch
• Uploading assets — where Game Home photos can come from