Chili Creator docs

The Chili Creator makes small adventure games in your browser. You paint rooms out of 8×8 pixel tiles, put characters and items in them, write what they say, and link rooms with exits. There is no code to write.

Games are Bitsy games. They play in the browser, on Chili Platform, as a web page you can put anywhere, and on the VGC Zero handheld.

• Get started

  Open the creator, find your way around the workspace, and use it on a phone.

• Tutorial

  Build Chili Garden, a two-room game with a quest, a locked gate and an ending, in seven short steps.

• Tools

  One page for each of the 15 tools: Room, Paint, Dialog, Tunes, Play and the rest.

• Reference

  Dialog scripting, keyboard shortcuts, playing on VGC Zero and how the creator differs from Bitsy.

Make your first game in five minutes

1. Open the Creator on Chili Platform and sign in.
2. In Projects, choose New game. A new game has one room, an avatar, a cat and two items.
3. In Library, pick a tile, then click in the Room to draw walls.
4. Pick the cat in Library and open Dialog. Write what the cat says.
5. Open Play and choose Play game. Walk with the arrow keys and bump into the cat.

Your game saves itself while you work. When you want more, follow the tutorial.

How a game fits together

flowchart LR
  Colors[Palette] --> Room
  Tiles --> Room
  Sprites --> Room
  Items --> Room
  Room -- exit --> Room2[Another room]
  Room -- ending --> End[The end]
  Sprites -- talk --> Dialog
  Items -- pick up --> Dialog
  Dialog -- reads and changes --> Variables
  Room -- plays --> Tune
  Sprites -- make --> Blip

Part	What it is	Tool
Room	16×16 tiles, the size of one screen	Room
Tile	An 8×8 drawing for the floor and walls. Walls stop the avatar.	Paint, Library
Sprite	A character. The avatar is the sprite the player moves.	Paint, Library
Item	Something the avatar picks up and carries	Paint, Library
Palette	Three colours: background, tiles, sprites and items	Colors
Dialog	What sprites and items say, with choices and actions	Dialog
Exit, ending	A cell that takes the avatar to another room, or ends the game	Exits & endings
Variable	A number or word that dialog remembers	Variables
Tune, blip	Music for a room, short sounds for sprites and items	Tunes, Blips

Where the creator lives

Place	What you get
platform.chilichip.eu/creator	The creator, saving to your Chili account
Chili Platform marketplace	Games people released and listed
VGC Zero	The handheld plays .bitsy files with citsy
chili-chip/chili-creator	Source code, MIT licensed

Questions or ideas? Ask on Discord or in the platform forum.