Concepts
Every framework borrows vocabulary from somewhere — vibesmith borrows from established game engines, web standards, React, and the broader gamedev tradition. This section explains the words without assuming you already know what a “scene” or a “prefab” is from another engine.
If you’re coming from Unity / Godot / Unreal / Bevy and want a mapping instead of a first-principles read, Engine patterns has the cross-engine Rosetta. Use that page when you already have a mental model and need the translation.
This page is the other entry point — for complete newcomers and for anyone who’d rather start from the question “what is this and why does it exist?” than from a mapping table.
Conventions
Section titled “Conventions”- One concept per page. Each entry is short (≤ ~1 screen) and link-out heavy.
- No assumed engine background. A reader who’s never opened Unity should still be able to follow.
- Plain language. No “this is just X with extra steps.” Concepts that genuinely simplify into something the reader already knows get said plainly; concepts that don’t, don’t.
- Cross-linked to the reference docs. Each concept page links to the matching reference entry for the API surface — concepts pages are narrative, reference pages are contract.
The shape of a game
Section titled “The shape of a game”- Scene — what your game looks like at one moment in time.
- Script — code that runs every frame on a part of the scene.
- Prefab — a reusable, generative content unit.
State + iteration
Section titled “State + iteration”- Snapshot — a saved game state you can launch into.
- Intent — a player action expressed as data.
- Signal — a one-way notification between scripts.
AI substrate
Section titled “AI substrate”- Recipe — a curated, AI-readable pattern for something hard to generate from scratch.
- Capability — a thing the framework can do (generate an image, embed text) abstracted over which service actually does it.
- Provider — a concrete service that implements a capability (ComfyUI, Anthropic, OpenAI).
Authoring surface
Section titled “Authoring surface”- Extension — a panel or feature that plugs into the editor.
Where to next
Section titled “Where to next”Once a concept clicks, jump to its reference entry for the API surface, or to a cookbook recipe for working code.
- Reference — the per-API contract pages.
- Cookbook — working code snippets.
- Engine patterns — the cross-engine Rosetta if you arrive from Unity / Godot / Unreal / Bevy.