How to Build a Milestone, Step by Step

The end-to-end flow for getting one piece of content from an idea to a node players can actually reach on the map.

1. Decide What You're Making

Provide knowledge, or test it. Providing it means a Milestone; testing it means a Challenge. Everything below is the Milestone route. See How to Build a Challenge for the other one.

2. Create the Milestone and Save It

Open New Milestone from the menu, or from the button on Manage Content's Journey tab. On the Basic tab give it a Name, Color, Icon and Main Image, then press Create Milestone in the bottom bar.

Save before going any further. The Steps tab reads "Save the milestone first" until the Milestone exists, and the Conditions drawer stays disabled, because every Step and every condition attaches to a Milestone that already has an ID.

3. Build the Steps the Player Will Follow

This is the real work, and where the design happens. A Milestone is a sequence of Steps, and each Step has a type that decides what the player does at that moment: read a character's dialogue, watch a video, answer a question correctly, upload something, pick a path. There are 28 types in six groups, and picking the right one is most of what makes a Milestone good rather than flat.

1. Add Step. A new step appears at the end of the list and the Edit Step window opens over the builder.
2. Choose the Step Type. The menu is grouped Deliver, Validate, Collect, Profile, Flow and Special, and the editor changes to show only the settings that type needs: a Multiple Choice step asks for options and correct answers, a Video step asks for a file, a Cryptex step asks for accepted answers and a wheel count. The Profile group only appears once the adventure has a published profile.
3. Fill it in — the admin-only Label (so you can find it later), whether the step is Required, the type's own settings, an optional Background, and any Step Rewards it should pay out on its own.
4. Update Step to save it, or Cancel. The ? button in the editor's header runs a short guided tour of it.

Each row in the step list has Duplicate, Edit and Delete buttons, and rows can be dragged to reorder at any time.

Dialogue: Pick a Speaker From the Cast

A Dialogue step's Who is speaking menu lists the adventure's speakers. Pick one and the name and portrait come from the cast, so a character looks the same on every line and a new portrait updates all of them at once. Choose Custom — set a name and portrait below for a one-off character. See Speakers & the Dialogue Cast.

Profile Questions in Bulk

When the adventure has a profile, the Steps tab also offers Paste a question set. Write the questions in a text editor, paste them in, press Check it, then Add these questions. They're added after the steps already there; nothing is replaced. See Profile Tests.

Full detail on every type is in The Full Step Library, and there's a one-screen lookup in the Step Type Quick Reference.

A note on pacing: alternate the groups. A run of four Deliver steps reads like a slide deck; a run of four Validate steps reads like an exam. Deliver, then ask; deliver, then ask.

4. Write the Endings

Every Milestone already ends on a win screen, and has a fail screen for players who run out of attempts, so you don't need to add either as a Step. Their text comes from the Success Message and Failure Message on the Content tab, with standard wording if you leave them blank. Add a Win Screen or Fail Screen step only when you want a custom ending: it replaces the standard one wherever it sits in the list.

5. Set the Requirements and Rewards

Level, dates and the XP/BLOO/EP payout are on the Mechanics tab. The Advanced tab has the Conditions drawer (prerequisite milestones, achievements, a key item, number thresholds) and the Item Reward, Achievement Reward and Skill Reward choices. See Designing Milestones.

6. Update the Milestone

Press Update Milestone. The Conditions drawer saves itself with its own button; everything else, including the two reward drawers, is saved here.

7. Play It, Then Check the Results

Once the Milestone is saved, the builder's header carries two links, each opening in a new tab:

• View Milestone — the play page, exactly as players see it. As a Game Master you can open it whatever its gating says, and a staff bar on the page lets you skip to any step or go back to the editor.
• Review Milestone — every player's submission for this Milestone, where you grade, validate, leave feedback the player can see, and export or import grades as CSV. See Reviewing & Grading Submissions in Bulk.

8. Put It on the Map

Two ways, and most Adventures use both:

• Group it into a Tabi — pick one in the Mechanics tab's Tabi menu. A Tabi is a chapter on the Journey Map that holds a set of Milestones, and it can carry its own prerequisites so a whole region unlocks at once. See The Tabi Editor.
• Use the Journey Builder — drag the Milestone into the exact position you want on the canvas, and resize it if it deserves more visual weight than its neighbours. Milestones always sit on the Base layer, the one players can click. See The Journey Builder.

9. Repeat

Add as many Milestones as the program needs, grouped into as many Tabis as the shape of the content calls for. Build one end-to-end first and play it yourself before mass-producing the rest: pacing problems are much cheaper to find in the first Milestone than in the twelfth.

Related

• Designing Milestones — Rewards & Unlock Rules
• The Full Step Library
• Speakers & the Dialogue Cast
• GM Toolkit — duplicating Milestones between adventures