Content Moderation Rules (Mandatory)
All user-created challenges submitted for publication must adhere to the following rules. Our AI will validate your challenge against these guidelines. Failure to comply will prevent your challenge from being created.
- No Sexual Content: Explicit descriptions of sexual acts, nudity in a sexual context, or themes of sexual violence are strictly prohibited. The simulator is not meant to depict sexual scenes explicitly during a run either; explicit content that reaches a public replay or a leaderboard is removed.
- No Extreme Violence or Gore: While conflict can be part of a challenge, graphic descriptions of violence, torture, or gore are not allowed. Focus on consequences and decision pressure, not gruesome details.
- No Hate Speech: Content that promotes discrimination, disparages, or harasses individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other protected characteristic is forbidden.
- No Real-World Harmful Content: Do not promote self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, or dangerous misinformation.
- Respect Privacy: Do not include private, real-world information about any person without their explicit consent.
Fair Play in Ranked Runs
A ranked score measures how well you handle the scenario from inside its world. The AI simulator is the referee, and like any referee it can get a call wrong.
- Allowed: any in-world plan, however unusual: persuading, bluffing, improvising with what the scenario gives you. If the simulator judged a clever plan more generously than it should have, your result stands; we fix the scenario for the next season instead of taking the score away.
- Also allowed: outside help while you plan, such as notes, friends or an AI chatbot. What counts is the move you send into the scenario.
- Not allowed: moves aimed at the software instead of the scenario, such as pretending to be the system, the developers or the challenge designer, writing fake simulator output, claiming the goal or rules have changed, or trying to extract the hidden scenario details. Runs that succeed this way are removed from the leaderboards and season results.
- Found a weakness? Report it privately to support@ploycraft.com instead of using it to climb the rankings. Useful reports may be recognized or rewarded.
Tips for Building a Great Challenge
These are not mandatory rules, but following them will help you create a more competitive and replayable scenario. The AI will also use these principles when offering suggestions.
1. Create a Verifiable Goal
The player's objective must be clear, tangible, and verifiable within the simulation. The AI needs to determine with certainty whether the goal has been met.
- Good Goal (Verifiable): "Get written approval from the hiring manager before the interview ends." The player either has it or they do not.
- Bad Goal (Subjective): "Become respected by everyone in the company." This is too vague and cannot be definitively measured by the AI.
2. Establish a Clear Initial Scenario
Your scenario brief should give the player enough information to understand the situation, immediate surroundings, constraints, and available resources. Do not hide critical information that the player character would obviously know.
- Good Scenario: "You are in a locked service corridor. A camera points at the exit, a keypad is beside the door, and a guard will return in six minutes." This gives the player objects, risks, and constraints.
- Bad Scenario: "You are trapped." This is too sparse and gives the player nothing to reason about.
3. Set a Fair and Motivating Deadline
The deadline adds urgency and strategic depth. It should be challenging but achievable. The time cost of moves is simulated by the AI, so consider the likely number of steps a player might need to take.
- Good Deadline: "You have 15 minutes before the guard returns." This is a clear, motivating timeframe.
- Bad Deadline: "You have 1 minute to escape the fortress." This is likely impossible and will only frustrate players.
4. Write a Useful Brief
Your challenge title and short brief are the first things a player sees. Make them specific and informative. A good brief explains the pressure and stakes without giving away the solution.