How to publish and share your game

New games start as private drafts. Publish one with a free account to give it a public page, put it in search, let others remix it, and share it with a link, a QR code or an embed.

When Go Bananas finishes making your game, only you can see it. That's a draft: a place to play, test and change the game before anyone else does. Publishing makes it public. This guide covers what publishing does, how to share your game once it's out, and the features that come with a published game, such as leaderboards, remixes, comments and reviews.

Drafts and published games

Every new game is saved as a private draft, including games you make from ChatGPT or Claude and games you import. A draft:

is visible only to you,
doesn't appear in search or browsing,
can't be remixed by others,
has no public share link, QR code or embed.

You can play and edit a draft as much as you like. Each change is saved as a new version, and you can view or restore an older version from the editor's Versions tab.

If you made your first game without an account, you can play it, but to change it, share it or publish it, you need a free account with a verified email address.

How to publish

Open your game in the editor.
Press Publish.
Confirm. Go Bananas tells you when it's done: "Game published! It's now visible to the community."

Publishing needs a free account with a verified email. If you haven't made one yet, Go Bananas asks you to create one first.

Before you publish, it's worth filling in the editor's Search Description box (up to 300 characters). It's the text people see in search results and in link previews, so describe what the game is and how to play it.

What publishing does

Once your game is published:

It appears in search and browsing on Go Bananas, and it can show up in trending lists. Trending is based on recent plays, weighted toward the last 24 hours, and on how many different people played.
It gets a public page at gobananas.co/game/<id>. That page includes the title, the description and a preview picture, so links to it show a proper preview when you paste them into chat apps and social networks.
Other people can remix it to make their own versions.
Players can leave comments, reviews and favorites.

You can unpublish a game later. Unpublishing makes it private again and removes its public preview picture.

The preview picture

The preview picture is taken automatically a few seconds into the first time the game is played. If it caught a loading screen or a dull moment, open your game and use Update Game Preview to take a new one at a better moment. Pictures are saved as JPEG images up to 1,280 pixels wide.

Sharing your game

Open your published game and use Share Game:

On a phone, this opens your phone's share sheet, with the game's preview picture, so you can send it straight to a chat, a message or a social app.
On a computer, you get the link to copy.

To get someone playing on their phone from your screen, use the QR code ("Scan to play on mobile"). They point their camera at it and the game opens. You can also download the QR code, for example to put on a poster or a slide.

Sharing options aren't available for drafts, because a draft is private.

Embedding a game on your own site

You can put a published game on your own website or blog. In the game's window, open the embed option to get a snippet like this:

<iframe src="https://gobananas.co/embed/<id>" width="800" height="600"></iframe>

Paste it into your page's HTML. The game plays inside your page, under a slim bar with a "Play on Go Bananas" link and credit to the original game if it's a remix. Embeds are available for published games only.

Some site builders and blogging tools can also turn a plain link to your game into an embedded player automatically, because Go Bananas supports oEmbed.

Inviting friends to a multiplayer game

If your game supports multiplayer, you don't need to publish anything extra to play together:

Open the game, choose Multiplayer, then Create Room.
The lobby shows "Share this link with friends", a 6-character room code and the list of players. Copy or share the link.
Your friends open the link, type a name and press Join Game.
When everyone is in, you (the host) press Start Game.

Friends can also join a game that has already started, as long as there is a free slot. Invite links get their own preview text: "Join me in [your game] on Go Bananas!"

Leaderboards

Games with a score usually come with a leaderboard. Go Bananas gives every game a leaderboard helper, and the AI uses it by default when a game has a score. When a round ends, the game submits the score and shows a "Game Over" board with each player's rank, name and score, and a Play Again button.

A few rules:

Only published games show leaderboards.
Players must be logged in to save their score; others see "Log in on Go Bananas to save your score to the leaderboard."
Each player's best score counts.
Very short sessions, under 2 seconds, are ignored.

If your game doesn't have a leaderboard and you'd like one, ask for it in the edit chat, for example: "Add a leaderboard that shows the top 10 scores when the game ends."

Remixing

Remixing lets someone take a published game and make their own version of it. When a logged-in player remixes your game:

They get a copy of the code as a new draft titled "[your game] remix", which opens in their editor.
The remix credits your game, and the credit shows in the game window and in embeds. Credit for an unpublished or deleted original is hidden.
You get a notification: "Your game was remixed!" There are also milestones at 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 remixes.

You can't remix your own game. To experiment with your own game without changing it, use the Versions tab to go back if needed, or make a copy with the duplicate tool from ChatGPT or Claude. Remix chains can be up to 10 levels deep, and each person can make up to 5 remixes an hour.

Comments, reviews, favorites and collections

Published games get the social features of Go Bananas:

Comments: up to 2,000 characters, with replies. Players need to be logged in to comment.
Reviews: 1 to 5 stars, with an optional title (up to 100 characters) and text (up to 1,000 characters). You can't review your own game.
Favorites: players tap the heart to save a game to their Favorites tab.
Collections: players can group games into collections, up to 20 collections of 100 games each.

Followers and notifications

Registered players can follow you. When you publish a new game, your followers are notified, and it appears in their Following feed.

You get notifications for new comments, replies, reviews, new followers, play milestones and remixes. You can choose which ones you receive in your notification settings. Go Bananas can also email you when a game you started is ready, even if you closed the tab while it was being made.