Create Your First Game

The best way to understand ARC is to build a small game and run it. This walkthrough keeps it simple — one objective, one hint, one display — so you can see the whole shape of things.

Create the game

1. Open the Editor and select New game. A Create game drawer slides in.
2. Give it a Game name (your room's name works well).
3. Set the Duration — how long the countdown runs.
4. Set the Status to Testing while you build — runs in Testing aren't saved to your history.
5. Select Create game.

You can come back to any of this later — the Game details button in the bar reopens the same fields for whichever game you have open.

Add an objective and a hint

1. Open the Objectives tab and select Add Objective. Give it a clear name, like "Open the safe."
2. In the objective's Saved hints section, select ADD HINT and write a short line of text players can be shown if they're stuck.
3. That's it — the Editor saves as you type.

Add a display

1. Open the Displays tab and select Add display.
2. Give it a Display name and set Display type to Countdown, so players see the timer and any hints you send.
3. Select Add display to create it. You can put it on a real screen later — see Displays.

Run it once

Now see it in action:

1. Open the game's control page with the Control button — it sits beside the game picker, and on that game's Dashboard card.
2. Select Start and watch the timer count down.
3. Send your hint to the display, then mark the objective complete. Marking one complete takes a short press and hold, so a stray click can't do it by accident.
4. Select End, then choose Success or Failed to say how the run finished.
5. Select Reset to return the game to the start.

What’s next

Go deeper on running games in Control, or start connecting your hardware in Devices.