I want to give people a sample of how combat works in my world, but I don’t want them to see the whole of it. I wouldn’t want to have to create a world just for testing purposes either. So what do I do? Move all cards except the combat storylet to Service area, set world state to Finished, then publish an invite here? Can I set the state back to In Progress later, lock people out?
You could make it so that the storylets you don’t want people to see need the "key of dreams" to play (I believe this is the default). The key of dreams is an item that only the developers of your game have. You can show people your game without putting it in the "finished" or "in progress" categories. If you use the link to the game (example: Rat Sending Simulator 2kXX | Storynexus.com) you can play it even if it isn’t released yet (that game is released though, it’s just an example of a storynexus game).
Key of Dreams, right. But does what you said mean that anyone can play my game even now? They can just log in and start playing, whether I want them to or not?
Yeah, if you give someone the link to you game (it’s the link from when you click "play this world" under the "godlike powers" tab) even if your game is unpublished, people can still play it via the link. So if you don’t want to put your game up on storynexus, you could give someone a link to your game, and they could play it. Just to clarify, people can only play your game when it’s unpublished, if they have the link to it. You don’t have to worry about random people just hopping into your game. You can also change the link, if somehow someone gets it and you don’t want them to play your game. I hope that helps :)
Certainly, thanks!