Install Gamewright Studio

Gamewright Studio is the app you make games in. It is built in Godot, the engine your games run on, and it runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. One download holds the Studio, the engine its checks run on and the gamewright command line, so there is nothing else to install. The same Studio also runs in a browser.

Download it

The downloads page has the newest version for your system first, with its size and its SHA-256 to check it against. Every version is kept there, and in the releases repository on GitHub that the files come from.

Builds are not signed yet, so macOS and Windows ask you to confirm the first time you open the Studio.

macOS

macOS 13.5 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.

1. Open the .dmg and drag Gamewright Studio to Applications.
2. Open it. Until builds are notarized, macOS stops the first launch: open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, and choose Open Anyway.
3. If it says the app is damaged, that is the download's quarantine flag on an app that is not notarized. Remove it and open the app again:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Gamewright Studio.app"

Windows

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.

1. Unpack the .zip anywhere you like (Extract All); you need no administrator. Open gamewright-studio.exe in it.
2. Windows may say "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway. Where Smart App Control is on, it blocks unsigned apps outright, and the Studio will not open there until builds are signed.

Linux

x86_64 with glibc 2.28 or later: Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 10, Fedora 29 and newer.

• The AppImage is one file that runs in place. Make it runnable, in a terminal or with "Allow executing file as program" in its properties, and open it. It mounts itself with FUSE; without FUSE, add --appimage-extract-and-run.
• The .tar.xz is a folder. Unpack it anywhere and open gamewright-studio.x86_64 in it.

chmod +x Gamewright-Studio-*-x86_64.AppImage
./Gamewright-Studio-*-x86_64.AppImage

The first time it opens

The Studio opens on its welcome: the games you opened lately on the left, and on the right New game, Open a game folder and the ten sample games as cards. Click a sample and the Studio copies it into Documents/Gamewright and opens the copy, yours to change. Your first game goes on from there.

The Studio can tell you when a newer version is out: the switch is at the foot of the welcome and in Settings. It asks gamewright.diy and installs nothing; download the new version as you did this one.

The command line

Every package has the gamewright command line beside the Studio. It is the same core the Studio runs for every check, build and Director turn, and the guides write it as gamewright. Where it is:

Put its folder on your PATH, or make an alias, and the commands in the guides work as written. gamewright help lists every command; the command line is the same list.

In a browser

The same Studio runs at gamewright.diy/app. You sign in with a code sent to your email, and for now only people who have been invited can. Your games there are kept on Gamewright's computer, and the web Studio makes, plays, checks and directs them as the desktop does. It cannot open a folder of yours or export a zip, and its Director runs on your own Anthropic key.

Your own computer can do the heavy work instead. Pair it once from Your computers, which gives you a code and the command to run, then run gamewright runner --games <folder> on it: the games in that folder list in the web Studio beside the ones kept online, and they build, playtest and run the Director on that computer. With Claude Code signed in on your Claude plan, --plan runs the Director's turns on your plan instead of an API key. The runner is new: the command line has it from the version after 0.2.1 on (the changelog says when it is out).

For contributors: the Studio from source

To work on Gamewright itself, run the Studio from a checkout of its source. The source is private for now, so this is for people who have been given access. It needs Linux or macOS, Git, Node 24, pnpm 10 and Godot 4.7.2. On Linux, tools/godot/install.sh downloads the pinned Godot and its export templates and checks their hashes; on macOS it checks the Godot you installed.

git clone git@github.com:Xaxis/Gamewright.git
cd Gamewright
pnpm install
tools/doctor.sh             # checks every tool; installs nothing
tools/engine-check.sh       # imports the engine once and loads every script
"$(tools/godot/install.sh)" --path engine res://studio/studio.tscn -- studio

tools/doctor.sh prints the fix for anything missing, and tools/engine-check.sh ends with engine-check: ok. From a checkout, node core/src/cli/main.ts stands in for gamewright, and git pull and pnpm install update it. Work on Gamewright from source runs every check.