How to Validate Your Game with Decklab AI (Step-by-Step Tutorial)
The Problems panel checks your whole project as you work, catching overflowing text, missing images and rules that don't add up. Here's how to read it, fix problems in one click where you can, and get a second opinion from an AI review.
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Before you print, you want to know that every card's text fits, every image is there, and your cards and rules agree. Decklab AI checks all of that as you work, in the Problems panel. It works like a linter for your game, and it runs on every project, with or without AI.
Step 1: Find the Problems button
The Problems button sits in the project header, before the save status. It shows how many problems there are:
- red when one of them is an error,
- amber for warnings,
- a check mark when there are none.
Checks run a moment after every change, so the count is always current.
Step 2: Open the list
Choose Problems. You'll see a summary, then the problems grouped by kind, each group with its count. What it looks for includes:
- Text that overflows its box on any card, front or back.
- Images that aren't there, such as an image cell naming a file you haven't uploaded.
- Fields that don't exist, like a text box using a column you've deleted.
- Keywords no one defined, used on cards but missing from your game's pieces.
- Resources with no way to gain them.
- A rulebook that doesn't mention a resource, keyword or how the game ends.
- Rulebook references pointing at a piece that no longer exists.
Step 3: Go to the problem
Choose a problem to go straight to where it is: the card, the cell, the rule or the rulebook section. A way back to the list stays on screen while you fix it.
On a card in Design mode, an amber "N problems on this card" pill beside the row previewer lists that card's problems.
Step 4: Fix it
Many problems offer a fix you can apply in one click. Otherwise, fix it by hand: shorten the text, upload the missing image, or define the keyword in Game overview › Pieces. The problem disappears as soon as it's fixed.
Shorten to fit, with AI
For text that overflows, Shorten to fit proposes shorter versions that fit the box. On a group of overflows, Shorten all N to fit does the whole group. You pick from the suggestions before anything changes, and it counts as one undo step.
Step 5: Dismiss what you mean
Some warnings are deliberate: a keyword you'll define later, a card that's meant to be wordy. Choose Dismiss on those. Dismissed problems are hidden under Show N dismissed, where you can Restore them.
Step 6: Check again
Check again runs every check from scratch. Do it before you export.
Get a second opinion: Review my game
The built-in checks catch what can be measured. Review my game asks AI to read your cards and rulebook together, like a careful first-time player, and report what's confusing, missing or contradictory. It's available from Problems once your game has a turn or card types.
The review's findings join the Problems list, and the walkthrough it wrote stays on the project. It uses AI credits, and you see the cost before it runs.
Then try a hand
Once the list is clear, deal yourself a few hands. See How to Playtest Your Cards on the Playtest Table. Then export: How to Export Your Game.
Printing soon?
Check your printer prints at the right size before you print a whole deck:
Printer calibration page
Print one Letter or A4 page with a 50 mm square, a poker card outline and rulers to check your printer prints cards at the right size, and learn how to fix it when it doesn’t. Free, in your browser, with no sign-up.