Use import when the source assets already exist
If your game is already organized in The Game Crafter, import is usually the quickest way to get a table ready for testing. Your components, artwork, and structure come across ready to play, so you skip the manual setup and start from a stronger arrangement.
Watch a video walkthrough of importing a game from The Game Crafter.
Connect your account
Start from the Import button on the My Games page and choose Import from TGC. The first time, you connect your The Game Crafter account so Playtest Parlor can see the games you own. Once connected, your games stay available for future imports.
Pick a game to import
- Your The Game Crafter games appear in a list you can search by name.
- Use Refresh List if you just made changes in The Game Crafter and want to see them here.
- Click Import next to the game you want. Playtest Parlor creates a new game with the same name and begins pulling everything in.
You can kick off more than one import from the same account and let them run.
Watch the progress
A progress bar tracks the import from start to finish, with status messages as it works through the game, such as downloading decks and processing cards. When it finishes, a link takes you straight to the new game's pieces.
Once every piece has been read, the import is applied to the game's pieces all at once. The progress reads "Applying the import to your pieces (400 of 876)...", and the game's Import Pieces tab shows the same. Until it is done the game shows its pieces as they were before, never half of the new ones, and changes to those pieces wait: they are refused with a message saying the pieces are being updated by an import. If a piece of the game is being copied when the import is ready to apply, the import waits for the copy to finish and then applies itself, even if you close the tab. If the copy stops partway, the import stops too, saying the copy must be retried first; once it is, press Retry on the import. Every card of a deck takes the size of the deck's first card, so a deck stacks neatly.
If applying stops and cannot finish by itself, the Import Pieces tab says "The import of (game) stopped:" with the reason, and a Retry button that carries on from where it stopped. The pieces wait for it until then. If Retry stops with the same reason every time, contact support: they can discard the stopped import. Nothing it had already applied is undone; the tab says "Putting (game) in order after a stopped import was discarded..." for a minute or so while each deck is settled to the cards it holds, and then the pieces take changes again. Import again to bring in the rest.
A deck can hold at most 8,192 different cards, and one import at most 8,192 pieces. A larger deck or game is refused before anything changes, with a message naming the deck or the count and asking you to split it in The Game Crafter.
Import the latest pieces again
After you change the game in The Game Crafter, open the game's Import Pieces tab, choose The Game Crafter, and choose Import Latest Pieces to bring the changes in. The import replaces the game's pieces from that source with what The Game Crafter has now: names, quantities, images and pieces added or removed all come from The Game Crafter.
Deck order is the one exception. If you have set the order of a deck on the Import Pieces tab, importing again keeps your order: cards new in The Game Crafter join the bottom of the deck, and cards removed there leave it. A deck whose order you have not changed follows The Game Crafter's order.
A piece copied with Copy inside a game's Game Crafter pieces is not in The Game Crafter, so the next import of that game removes it. Make a change you want to keep in The Game Crafter itself.
Tables already holding the game follow along. A piece the game no longer has goes to the trash, out of any deck or bag it was in. When a whole deck is gone from the game, any card still in it that is not gone too (one you added by hand, or one the game now keeps in another deck) is put on the table where the deck lay, so nothing you still need goes to the trash with the deck.
What comes across
Import brings in the components The Game Crafter knows about, including:
- decks and cards
- two-sided tile sets
- custom dice
- game parts such as books
Review the imported result
After import, check that:
- the expected pieces are all present
- names are clear enough to recognize during setup
- any pieces flagged for follow-up are easy to spot
If an image was too large to process, the import lists it by name and side (front or back) so you know exactly what to fix. Upload a smaller version by hand from the game's Import Pieces tab to fill the gap. See Manual Uploads for how.
Finish by shaping the table
Import gives you source material, not a final session. Once the pieces arrive, build the table layout that matches the playtest you want to run.