gtanczyk/diorama

Type one sentence. Walk around in the painted game it becomes.
Diorama is a local tool that turns a story idea into a small point-and-click adventure: painted places, a hero and characters who walk and talk, things to pick up and use, sound and voices, and endings that are checked to be reachable. Meta's models do the creative work; code measures and checks every result, so what comes out is playable, not only pretty. Every step writes plain files, and every fix you make survives the next rebuild.
See it on grzegorz.tanczyk.pl/diorama: the one-pager, and Paper Boat Storm, a world built from three sketches that you can play in the browser.
## Quick start
You need Node 22+, ffmpeg and a Meta Model API key. Make an empty folder and run Diorama there with npx. Nothing to clone; your worlds are saved in ./worlds.
sh
mkdir my-worlds && cd my-worlds
npx -y @gtanczyk/diorama setup # checks this machine, asks for your keys (typed hidden, stored encrypted)
npx -y @gtanczyk/diorama studio # opens the GUI on 127.0.0.1: describe a world, watch it build, play it
Prefer a terminal? Install it once and the command is just diorama:
sh
npm install -g @gtanczyk/diorama
diorama build lanterns "A girl with a candle lantern looks for her lost cat at a night market by a canal."
diorama play lanterns # http://localhost:4173
diorama browsers # once, for playthrough videos and sprites (Chromium)
To update: npm install -g @gtanczyk/diorama@latest, or add @latest to the npx line (npx -y @gtanczyk/diorama@latest studio).
From a checkout, for working on Diorama itself:
sh
git clone https://github.com/gtanczyk/diorama && cd diorama && npm install
npm run setup
npm run studio
npm run diorama -- # any command, e.g. npm run diorama -- play lanterns
More in docs/setup.md: optional keys (ElevenLabs for sound, Hugging Face for 3D), sharing a world on GitHub Pages or itch.io.
## Made with Diorama
The Night of Small Lanterns : "A small night market by a canal: a lantern seller's stall lit by hanging oil lanterns, a street lamp by a little bridge. A girl carrying a candle lantern must find her lost cat before the lanterns go out."
Midnight Crust : "A night-shift baker in a tiny Kraków bakery must find the lost sourdough starter before the morning rush, helped by a grumpy tram driver."
Each is a four-place world built from that one sentence: about 17 minutes of steps and some 200 Meta model calls, with no hand edits.
## Meta models at work
| Model | What it does in Diorama |
| Muse Spark | Designs the world and the story, lays out each place as a shaded plan sketch (a perspective floor, a silhouette per thing, lights and shadows), critiques paintings, names what to cut out, plans the sound, judges playthroughs |
| Muse Image | Paints each place over its plan sketch, keeping every shape where it stands, repaints only the regions the critic flags, paints the cast, their walk and talk sheets and inventory icons |
| SAM 3.1 | Cuts every thing, floor, stair, puddle and patch of water out of the painting; the masks become the walk grid, occlusion and pick-ups |
| Muse Voice Transcribe | Hears an idea you say aloud, and listens to every voiced line to catch a take that does not say it |