Point & Click Engine

Open-source TypeScript engine and editor for building 2D point-and-click adventures with Git-friendly project files, deterministic runtime state, and local-first AI asset workflows. Creator Alpha v0.5.0-alpha is a Windows-first Visual Authoring and accessibility alpha. Static web export is available; a hosted web demo and published SDK are not part of this candidate.

Creator Alpha Screenshots

The public Creator Alpha path is visible in four focused surfaces:

• Player: complete deterministic sample loop
• AI Studio: Advanced open with Candidate Output reachable
• Asset Studio: mock asset inspection and cleanup workspace
• Test Lab: embedded runtime and logical-state comparison

Release page: GitHub v0.5.0-alpha for the Windows x64 package, Squirrel installer, checksums, release evidence, and source archive.

What You Can Try Today

• Open the Electron editor and create, open, or start from a starter project.
• Edit layered 2D scenes, hotspots, pickups, actors, player start, and walk areas.
• Author and diagnose narrative graphs with ten node families, typed connections, deterministic auto-layout, pan/zoom, minimap, and persisted editor positions.
• Browse project content through Resources, including scenes, image and audio assets, animation packs, flows, locales, items, prompt packs, style bibles, workflows, and recipes.
• Import or drop image and audio assets, inspect their usages, and assign them to scenes, actors, pickups, the player, or sound cues.
• Use Asset Studio as the canonical place for asset info, non-destructive chroma cleanup, crop, optimization, generation guides, and animation packs.
• Configure player asset, animation pack, scale-by-depth, and walk speed.
• Run the current project in Test Lab, inspect runtime state, and replay the same logical actions in a browser to find the first state divergence.
• Test waypoint movement, pending interactions, save slots, autosave, and browser/Electron persistence in the runtime.
• Migrate a v1 project with pointclick migrate, including dry-run and backup mode, then inspect Flow graph diagnostics and puzzle dependencies.
• Export a project as a static web build and open the generated output locally.
• Exercise keyboard focus, captions, reduced motion, and narrow browser layouts in the player.
• Generate prompt packs with the deterministic mock provider, LM Studio, or an experimental opt-in cloud provider.
• Ask the local deterministic copilot for reviewable narrative and puzzle beats; it never changes runtime behavior or project files by itself.
• Generate temporary image candidates in batches, review warnings and provenance, then explicitly apply a selected candidate to the project.
• Validate project documents from the CLI and CI.

The current public sample is The Isle of Echoes, a compact two-scene adventure that demonstrates walking, hotspots, inventory, item use, dialogue, scene transition, prompt-pack provenance, and MVP spritesheet animation.

Why This Exists

Classic adventure tools often hide too much state inside editor binaries. Point & Click Engine keeps game content in readable JSON documents, runs gameplay through deterministic commands and events, and treats the editor as a visual authoring layer over the same contracts used by the player.

That makes projects easier to diff, validate, test, review, and eventually extend with custom tooling.

Requirements

• Node.js 22.17.0 (the CI and release toolchain version).
• pnpm 9.6.0, via Corepack.
• Windows is the primary Creator Alpha packaging target.

Optional local AI tools:

• LM Studio for local prompt-pack drafting.
• ComfyUI for local image generation and transparent/chroma asset workflows.

Quick Start

corepack enable
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm dev

pnpm dev starts:

• the web player at http://127.0.0.1:5173;
• the Electron editor.

In the editor, start with one of these paths:

1. Create Blank Project for a clean new project.
2. Create From Starter for a minimal editable project.
3. Open Project and choose apps/sample-game/project to inspect the sample.

Use Play to enter an isolated Test Lab session. From Test Lab, choose Browser to replay the recorded logical actions in your system browser and compare both runtime traces.

Try This First

1. Open apps/sample-game/project.
2. In Scene, move a hotspot, pickup, player start, or walk-area point.
3. In Player, choose the player asset or animation pack and adjust walk speed.
4. In Narrative, open a flow, edit its graph, and run diagnostics.
5. In AI, generate a mock prompt pack or a small candidate batch. Apply one approved candidate; it remains temporary until that action.
6. If ComfyUI is running, install a workflow preset, save a generation recipe, and generate/import one image asset.
7. Drop or import an image in an inspector, then try Remove Background on a flat chroma output.
8. Choose Play, complete part of the dock-to-tavern loop in Test Lab, then open Browser, refresh telemetry, and inspect Compare.
9. Open Build, resolve validation or dirty-draft blockers, and export a static web build to an empty folder.

AI Is Local-First And Reviewable

Creator Alpha does not require paid provider keys.

• Mock deterministic works offline and is the default open-source path.
• LM Studio local can draft prompt packs through a local OpenAI-compatible server.
• ComfyUI local can generate image assets from installed 8GB-oriented workflow presets and reviewable recipes. Legacy exported API workflows remain available for advanced users.
• Free target prompts let creators generate a selected scene background, layer, player, hotspot, pickup, or actor directly from Scene with a shared art style preset and chroma/alpha output contract, without drafting a full prompt pack first.
• OpenAI image and Google image providers are experimental opt-in paths for text-to-image generation. API keys, access tokens, cloud project ids, base URLs, and model choices stay in the editor session and are not written to project JSON.
• OpenAI prompt packs are optional and require an API platform key; ChatGPT subscriptions do not replace API billing.

AI output is treated as draft authoring material. Prompt packs are saved only after approval. Generated images first live in a session-only candidate store; only Apply to Project writes the selected candidate as a normal asset, and assignment is a separate authoring action. Discarded candidates never enter the project. Generated image assets record provider id, provider job id, prompt, seed, model, workflow id, recipe id, workflow family, references, masks, parent asset lineage, warnings, latency/cost when available, and prompt pack target links when available.

Verify

pnpm check

The release gate runs unit tests, typecheck, sample validation, starter validation, package builds, release hygiene, and development-mode provenance coverage. A separate strict provenance gate intentionally blocks public redistribution until every review-required item has a recorded rights decision. CI also blocks high and critical dependency advisories across runtime and packaging dependencies.

Useful focused commands:

pnpm test
pnpm test -- --coverage
pnpm test:e2e
pnpm test:e2e:packaged
pnpm validate:sample
pnpm validate:starter
pnpm validate:provenance
pnpm validate:provenance:strict
pnpm build
pnpm verify:windows-package
pnpm --filter @pointclick/editor make

The packaged Windows editor is written to:

apps/editor/out/PointClickStudio-win32-x64/

Packaged preview embeds the player bundle and serves it from an ephemeral loopback HTTP server, so preview does not require a development server.

Repository Tour

apps/editor            Electron/React authoring shell
apps/player-web        Web player and preview target
apps/sample-game       Public sample adventure project
apps/starter-game      Minimal clean starter project
packages/contracts     JSON Schema-compatible public documents
packages/core          Deterministic commands, events, state, and RNG
packages/flows         Narrative flow execution
packages/runtime       Renderer-independent adventure orchestration
packages/renderer-2d   PixiJS layered scene renderer
packages/audio         Runtime audio-cue resolution
packages/cli           Project validation commands

Current Limitations

• Creator Alpha focuses on 2D layered scenes; hybrid 3D is schema-planned only.
• Narrative graphs cover the built-in node families; custom node plugins and free-form third-party graph extensions are not part of Creator Alpha.
• Character Gym has an MVP editor workflow for spritesheet slicing, clip preview, pack editing, and player/actor assignment; generated animation-sheet consistency still needs stronger presets.
• Transparent PNG generation depends on the selected ComfyUI workflow or in-editor chroma cleanup from a flat blue/green background.
• Reference and mask inputs require a project-relative custom ComfyUI workflow API JSON with compatible image loader nodes; the built-in text-to-image path intentionally ignores image inputs.
• Hosted web demo and marketing site are not required for the first public release.
• Hosted web demo, marketing site, SDK publishing, and a full autonomous puzzle-AI system are outside Creator Alpha. Static web export is available. Cloud AI providers are experimental, optional, and must never be required to use the editor.

Docs

• Documentation index
• Roadmap
• Architecture
• Project Format
• Git Project History Guide
• Authoring Tutorial
• Studio Workflows
• AI Prompt Pack Guide
• Character Gym Guide
• Sample Demo Checklist
• Release Checklist
• Release Process
• Creator Alpha Support and Version Policy
• Provenance Inventory
• Third-Party and Asset Notices
• Creator Alpha Release Issue Draft
• Troubleshooting