Play Mode

Play Mode runs your Arcweave project as a choose-your-path game, emulating the player's experience. It loads one element per turn and the story progresses choice-by-choice.

This process enables structured testing, debugging, and refinement of the narrative flow.

✅ Story edits update Play Mode. For CSS saved through the REST API or MCP, reload an existing Play Mode tab or open a new one from the editor; see Save and verify styles.

Breakdown

The following steps describe how Play Mode functions:

1. The game begins at the defined starting element.
2. At each turn, Arcweave renders the content of the current element.
3. The current element's cover is displayed at the top of the Play Mode window.
4. The covers of the current element's components are shown below the element cover.
5. The textual content of the current element appears beneath the components.
6. Arcweave evaluates branch conditions and label Arcscript to determine the available options. Each option uses the last label on its path that produces text.
7. Available options appear as clickable option buttons. If an option has no label text, the button uses the target element's title, or the beginning of its content if it has no title.
8. If only one option is available and its labels produce no text, a blinking arrow appears instead of an option button. This is checked after branch and label evaluation, so an element with several outgoing connections can also show the arrow.
9. The player progresses the story by clicking an option button or clicking anywhere within the content area, in the case of the blinking arrow.

ℹ️ To let people who are not project collaborators play your project, make the project or its Play Mode public.

Play Mode access

Depending on their role, users fall into two primary role-based categories with respect to Play Mode access and functionality:

• Commenters & Visitors
• Owners & Editors

Commenters & Visitors

Workspace commenters, project commenters, and project visitors have limited access to Play Mode. They can do the following:

• Play through the story
• Restart the session
• Adjust audio settings
• Choose story language (if translations are available)

For each of these features, see Using Play Mode (next page).

✅ For a quick overview of roles, see workspace and project roles.

Owners & Editors

Workspace and project owners and editors enjoy the following Play Mode features:

• Debugger: Ability to inspect variable changes and force assign values for testing.
• Style Editor: Ability to change the CSS of the story's Play Mode.
• Edit content in Play Mode: Ability to edit the current element's text and its option labels while playtesting, without leaving Play Mode.
• Reorder option buttons: Ability to reorder the option buttons of any element.
• Quickstart Play Mode from any element: Directly playtest any part of the story.

Style Play Mode

Use the Style Editor to preview and save custom CSS, or update it through the REST API or MCP tools. The Play Mode styling reference describes the shared DOM, selectors, defaults, and verification workflow.