The Editors

The editor is where you build and manage goal sets. It lets you design objectives, configure board generation rules, validate your game, and test it before playing or submitting. For the field-by-field data reference, see Schema Reference.

Tip

If you’re new to the editor, load an existing game to see how they’re structured. It’s the fastest way to learn what makes a good goal set.

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Getting Started

When you open the editor, you can:

• Start fresh: create a new goal set from scratch
• Load an existing game: browse and load any game already on the site
• Import a file: load a previously exported JSON file

New goal sets start in Relaxed schema mode with an empty objective list. You can change the schema mode at any time from the Manage Game dialog.

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The Two Editors

The editor has two interfaces that you can switch between at any time.

Form Editor

The visual editor for most workflows. Objectives are displayed as cards in a grid or list layout. Click any card to open the objective editor, right-click for bulk actions, and use the toolbar for game-level operations like validation and export.

Code Editor

A raw JSON editor with syntax highlighting and schema-aware autocomplete. Useful for quick bulk edits, copying data between goal sets, or when you prefer working directly with the JSON structure. Includes a schema info panel for reference.

Both editors work on the same underlying data and stay in sync. Changes in one are immediately reflected in the other.

Caution

The editor periodically auto-saves to your browser’s local storage, but it’s always a good idea to export a backup of your game regularly.

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Objectives

Objectives (also called goals) are the tasks players complete during a game. Each objective has required and optional fields. See Schema Reference for the complete field list, types, and constraints.

Editing Objectives

Click New Objective to add a blank goal, then click on it to open the objective editor. The editor is organised into tabs:

1. Definition: goal text, ranges, tooltip, icons/emoji, text colour, visual options
2. Categories: board and line category assignments
3. Tags: exclusion tag selection, individual limit
4. Progression: zone assignments, progressive ranges toggle
5. Advanced: weighting, forced positions picker (when available)
6. Validation: real-time schema and rule checks for this specific objective

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Searching and Filtering

As your goal set grows, you’ll need ways to find specific objectives:

• Search: filter by goal text, tooltips, or icon names
• Sort: order by alphabetical, errors, warnings, disabled status, and more
• Filter: show only objectives with specific categories
• Layout: switch between grid view (cards) and list view (wide rows, desktop only)

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Bulk Operations

You can edit multiple objectives at once:

1. Select objectives by shift-clicking or using the right-click context menu

2. Right-click and choose Selected → Edit Selected

3. Apply changes to all selected objectives at once

This is useful for assigning categories, changing limits, or toggling properties across many goals.

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Categories & Limits

Categories are labels you assign to objectives to control how boards are generated. There are two types: board categories (overall composition) and line categories (per-line balance). See Board Generation for how they work.

Managing Categories

Click Manage Categories & Limits (in the Manage Game dialog) to:

• Create and rename board and line categories
• Set percentage limits for each category
• Check playability to verify your limits work across board sizes
• Analyse bottlenecks when generation struggles with your limits

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Schema Modes

The schema mode controls how strictly your goal set is validated and which features are available. You can change it at any time from the Manage Game dialog.

Strict

Full validation across all board sizes and game modes. Required for official games on Lockout.live. The most thorough validation profile.

Capped

Full validation up to a user-specified maximum board size. A good middle ground when you know your goal set won’t be used on the largest boards.

Dedicated

Locked to a single game mode and board size. Enables forced positions. Best for competitive or specialised goal sets with known requirements.

Relaxed

Schema validation only, no constraint checking. Enables forced positions without validation. Best for early exploration or experimental games.

Comparison

Feature	Strict	Capped	Dedicated	Relaxed
Validates structure	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Validates constraints	All sizes	Up to max size	One mode + size	No
Objective warnings	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Forced positions	No	No	Yes (validated)	Yes (not validated)
Use case	Official games	Wide compatibility	Tournament / competitive	Experimentation

Note

Strict and Capped modes hide forced positions entirely since they validate across multiple board sizes where fixed positions wouldn’t make sense.

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Validation

The editor has a full validation system to catch problems before players encounter them. Issues are split into two levels:

• Errors Error must be fixed before the game can be played
• Warnings Warning are potential problems that should be reviewed

The Validation Drawer

Open the Validation Drawer from the toolbar to see the full validation dashboard. This runs both schema and constraint checks and displays all results in one place.

Schema validation checks the structural format of your data: field types, character limits, required fields, cross-field rules (like {{X}} requiring ranges), and valid category/tag references.

Constraint validation checks whether your game can actually produce valid boards. It runs through several checks:

• Goal Count: do you have enough objectives to fill the board?
• Category Limits: can your board and line category limits be satisfied?
• Weighting: does the weighted pool have enough objectives?
• Exclusion Tags: do tag conflicts leave enough room?
• Progression Distribution: are there enough objectives in each progression zone?
• Forced Positions: are forced position assignments feasible?
• Generation Test: does real board generation succeed with all constraints active?

Constraint validation only runs in Strict, Capped, and Dedicated modes.

The dashboard also shows a game mode compatibility table that tells you which board sizes each game mode supports with your current goal set, and which check is the limiting factor for larger sizes.

Tip

If validation results become stale (you’ve changed something since the last run), a banner will let you know. Hit Re-Validate to refresh.

Quick Validation

Click Validate in the toolbar for a fast schema-only check without opening the drawer. Objectives with issues show coloured indicators on their cards (red for errors, amber for warnings).

Playability Checker

Inside the Manage Categories & Limits dialog, the Check Playability button tests whether your category limits can produce valid boards across all relevant sizes and geometries.

Results are shown in a table grouped by board geometry (grid, pyramid, etc.), showing which sizes pass or fail for both board and line categories. If sizes are failing, you’ll see a specific reason:

• Not enough objectives for the size
• Category limits too restrictive
• Category limits too brittle for reliable generation

Bottleneck Analysis

If playability checks are failing due to category limits, the Analyse Bottlenecks button becomes available. This identifies which specific categories are causing problems and suggests the smallest limit adjustments needed to fix them.

The results table shows each problematic category with its current limit and a suggested minimum. Categories in the main list also get colour-coded tooltips showing whether they meet the suggestion.

Note

Bottleneck analysis targets the largest failing board size. The suggestions show one way to fix the issue, but other combinations of limit changes may also work.

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Playing Your Game

Once your game is ready:

1. Click Play to open the board generation settings

2. Choose your mode, board size, and any modifiers

3. Click Load to generate and play

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Analysis

The Analysis tool simulates thousands of boards to show you:

• How often each objective appears
• Which objectives appear too frequently or rarely
• Whether your category limits are working as intended

This helps identify imbalances before players encounter them.

Note

Analysis is only available for goal sets with 100+ objectives, on desktop only.

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Exporting and Sharing

• Export: downloads your goal set as a JSON file with a timestamped filename
• Import: loads a goal set from a JSON file to continue editing

Imported files from older schema versions are automatically migrated to the current version. If the migration involves visible changes, you’ll see a preview before it’s applied.

Tip

If you want to submit your game to be added to the site, see Submitting a Game for the full process.

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Tips for New Creators

• Start with objectives: create at least 100 before worrying about categories
• Add categories gradually: once you have objectives, group them into categories that make sense for your game
• Test early and often: use the Play button to see how your game feels
• Validate regularly: check for issues after bulk edits or major changes
• Use existing games as reference: load an official game to see how categories, limits, and progression are configured