Build something big (askr Build)

Quick or Deep

Any chat builds an app or a game: write @askr build us and the idea, or @askr let's play and a game of your own invention. When your words say it is something big, a card under your message offers two ways to build it.

Quick

A small version in one go, at the usual price of a build. The card says the price and the model, with the pictures and sound askr makes for it counted in, as the price beside Send says it.

Deep

askr plans it first, then builds it step by step and saves every step, so it can grow far bigger than one go can write. The card says about what a step costs, and you set the most it may spend.

askr reads the size from your words. A size word near the start counts, such as big, huge, full, whole, complete or epic, and so does saying it outright anywhere: an open world, step by step, 5,000 lines.

• Only the person who asked can choose. Until they do, the card tells everyone else who it is waiting for.
• An offer nobody answers closes after an hour. Nothing was built or charged.
• An ask that does not read as big is built the quick way, as it always was. Keep building makes it bigger afterwards.
• The New app sheet in a chat and Invent a game offer Deep as well, with its price and the most it may spend.
• A guest cannot start a build, and neither can a chat whose rules switch Code and sites off.

Set the most it may spend

Tap Deep, or Keep building on something that exists, and a sheet says the price before anything is spent: about what the plan and one step cost on the model that will build, and about how many steps each amount pays for.

• Pick $0.50, $1, $2 or $5, or tap Your own figure and type one, from $0.50 up to $20. A figure under the least is refused, and the sheet says the least it can be.
• A step is about $0.09 on the model that builds today and takes around half a minute. Up to a fifth of the amount may go on pictures and sound askr makes for the build, each charged only when it is made. Those figures, and the steps the sheet counts for each amount, are estimates. You pay for what each step really costs, so the same amount can pay for more steps than the sheet says, or for fewer.
• The amount is a hard stop. Everything the build is charged, all together, never passes it.
• A step that does not work costs nothing.
• A build is paid like an @askr message by whoever starts it: from the chat's credit, or from their own balance in a chat of their own and where each person pays for their own. The sheet says which. Who pays.

Watch it build

Tap Start building. A card under your message follows the build: the plan first, then each step by number, such as "Step 4 of 9: writing the crafting table", with the line being written, the time so far and what has been spent of the most you set.

The plan

Before the first step askr turns your idea into a short design and an ordered list of steps, the most important first, sized to the most you set. The card says how many.

A step

One part of the app or the game, written whole: a screen, the shop, the enemies, the scoreboard. askr checks that the code holds together, reads it with its safety check, and saves it as a new version with a line saying what it added.

Open

Every step is saved, so Open on the card runs what is built so far while askr keeps going.

A look back

Every few steps, and at the end, askr reads the whole thing against its plan and lists what is broken or missing. The fixes become the next steps.

A step that fails

It is tried once more. If it fails again it is left out, at no charge, and the build goes on.

Its model

Every step is written by the model the build started with, never another. If that model stops answering, askr waits for it and asks again. If it still has not answered after a quarter of an hour, or askr switches it off, the build stops with everything kept, and the step it was on costs nothing.

Stop

For the person who started the build and the person who started the chat. The build ends at once, everything built is kept, and the step it was in the middle of costs nothing.

When it ends

The chat gets one message: what was built, in how many steps, about how many lines, and what it cost. It never posts a message for each step.

• A build ends when its plan is done, at the most you set, or on Stop. A step is never started on money that would not finish it, so a build can end with a little of your amount unspent. Its last message says how many steps are done, and Keep building goes on from there.
• One deep build runs in a chat at a time.
• A big build takes a while. You can leave the chat: it keeps going, and its card is there when you come back.
• While askr builds an app step by step, it takes no other change to that app, in words, by hand or as a page hosted under its name. It says so and charges nothing: ask again once the build is done.
• If the app is changed some other way while askr builds, the build stops so that nobody's work is written over. The step it was writing is not saved and costs nothing.
• A build carries on through an askr update. The step it was on is picked up afterwards, and nothing is built or charged twice.

Keep building

Keep building is on an app's newest card in the chat, in the open app beside Ask askr to change it, on the app's own page for someone in its chat, and on a game's card. Say what askr should add, set the most it may spend, and askr plans the addition and builds it step by step on top of what is there.

• It goes on with what is in the chat, however it started: an app built in one go, a game askr invented, a page you hosted, or an earlier deep build.
• Ask askr to change it still makes one change in one go, and is the quicker way for something small. On an app too big for one go it says so and charges nothing: use Keep building there.
• A game built step by step is already the strong version, so its card offers no Stronger version.

Pictures, spoken lines and music

An app or a game can have real pictures and sound of its own, made by askr for it. Ask for them in your words, or ask for a kind of game that lives on them, such as a platformer, a shooter or an RPG.

• The price beside Send counts them before you send: the build, and everything askr may make for it. For a new app that is up to 12 pictures, 4 sounds and a piece of music, so most builds cost less than it says. Each is charged only when it is made, and one that does not come costs nothing.
• Characters and objects come on a see-through background, ready to move over a scene. Backgrounds and portraits come as whole pictures.
• A sound is a line spoken in one of askr's twelve ready-made voices. Music is a piece to play under the app, from 15 seconds to two minutes long.
• Every app askr builds draws a stand-in for a picture or a sound that is not there, so it runs before its files are made and when one does not come.
• The app's card in the chat says what askr made for it and what that cost, such as "Made 9 pictures and 3 sounds for $0.41", and names any that did not come, which cost nothing. The price on the card is the build and everything made for it together.
• Each file askr made is listed in the app's Assets tab, marked Made by askr.
• Change them in words from Ask askr to change it, or in a reply to the app's card: "give the dragon a better picture", "add music to the menu". askr makes only what is new or changed, up to 6 pictures, 4 sounds and a piece of music for one change, priced first.
• A deep build makes the pictures and sound its plan asks for as it goes, inside the most you set.
• The stronger version of a game, and a change to a game that asks for art, make their pictures and sound too, priced first.

The Assets tab

Open an app from its card or from the chat's Apps strip, and Assets sits beside App and Code for everyone who may read its code. It shows every picture and plays every sound that version has.

• Add files takes files of your own: PNG, JPEG, WebP and GIF pictures, MP3, Ogg and WAV sound, and JSON, up to 4 MB each. A version can show 300 files, 64 MB together. Adding files is free.
• askr checks a file before it keeps it: it reads what the file really is, looks at a picture and plays a sound through. A file that could run as code, such as a web page or an SVG, is refused.
• Where the app's own list asks for files that are not made yet, the tab lists them with the price. Make them makes them once you say yes to that price, paid like an @askr message by whoever taps.
• Each file can be replaced or taken off, and one askr made can be made again at its price.
• A version keeps the files it was built with, so an older version looks and sounds as it did. Files change on the newest version only, and a remix carries its files along.
• Everyone in the app's chat can change its files, not only its maker.
• The tab is in the app as it opens in its chat. The app's own page, at heyaskr.ai/a/ and its id, has none.

Engines: 3D, physics, sound and music

An app runs walled off and loads nothing from the internet. What it may load, askr serves itself: its own pictures and sound, and a shelf of well-known engines. askr reaches for an engine when the idea needs one, and a simple app or game stays without.

• An app says what it runs on. Its card in the chat, and its page on Explore, carry a small badge for each kind of engine it loads. Rest the pointer on a badge and it names the engine and its version. A game's page on Explore has them too.
• In 3D you look around by dragging, with a mouse or a finger, and move with the keyboard or with buttons on the screen. Apps cannot lock the pointer or go full screen by themselves.
• Sound starts on your first tap, as everywhere in a browser.
• An engine opens no way out: with one loaded, an app still cannot reach the internet.
• A deep build can use an engine too.

Saves and worlds

Ask for a game that remembers your progress, or one with a big world, and askr builds it to keep them.

Your save

A game can keep your own progress: a level, coins, things unlocked, settings. It is private to you. No other player can read it, and neither can the game's maker.

It follows you

Signed in, askr keeps your save, so the game opens where you left it on any device, in the chat it was made in or from its link, and in its next versions. A remix is another game and starts fresh.

Signed out, or a guest

Your save is kept in that browser. When you sign in you start from what askr keeps for you, and the browser's copy stays in the browser.

A world

The big thing a whole chat shares: a map, a block world, levels people built. It holds up to 64 MB, kept in pieces and loaded only where a player is looking.

Building together

What one person builds shows for the others a moment later. A game askr builds writes shared places so that two people building in the same spot keep each other's work.

Watching

Someone watching a public chat sees the world and cannot change it.

From its link

Opened by someone outside its chat, a game is a private copy, and its world lives in that browser, up to 16 MB.

• A save holds about 1 MB for each player in each game.
• When a save or a world is full, the game is told in askr's own words, which it can show: "This world is full (64 MB). Remove something first."
• The game's maker and the person who started the chat see how full its world is, under About on the game's own page.
• A chat that is deleted takes its worlds with it.

What it costs

• A quick build, and a change in words, say their price before anything is spent. A build that does not come costs nothing.
• A deep build costs what its steps cost, never more than the most you set.
• Pictures, spoken lines and music are each priced before they are made, and charged only when they are.
• Engines, saves and worlds cost nothing to use, and playing is free.
• Where a game uses askr AI as you play, each answer comes from your own credits after you say yes once. Explore.
• askr's fee is inside every one of these prices. How credits work.