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Waldo — User Guide

Waldo is a desktop application for connecting to and participating in Plantangenet simulation scenarios. It is a development tool, but it is also an experience: the scenarios it runs are driven by a simulation engine that generates music, characters, narrative moments, and world events in real time.

This guide is for people using Waldo to explore scenarios — whether you are a first-time participant working through a tutorial or a developer running a scenario to test it. Technical documentation for people building panels or extending Waldo lives in the parent docs/ directory.

What is a scenario?

A scenario is a self-contained world hosted by a runner — a server process that runs the Plantangenet simulation engine. Each scenario has its own geography, characters, musical logic, and set of tutorial objectives called quests.

Three scenarios exist today:

Scenario Kind What it is
Kurzz Jazz An improvising ensemble. You join as a player, take a role, and contribute to a live musical form alongside AI musicians. The simulation generates real audio.
Solace Exploration A world with regions to discover, areas to claim, and a civic system that tracks ownership and disputes.
Downbeat Entrance An entrance experience using a zine-style panel. Characters appear and depart; the layout reflows around them.

Where to start

If you are new, start here:

  1. Getting Started — how to launch Waldo, find a server, and connect.
  2. Parties and Activities — the concepts that apply to every scenario: parties, activities, quests, and ren scenes.
  3. Pick your scenario:
  4. Kurzz — Jazz Tutorial — start here if a Kurzz runner is available. It has the most developed tutorial content.

A note on what Waldo is

Waldo is a tool under active development. The scenarios it connects to are likewise in development. Some features described in this documentation may be partially implemented; a few are planned and clearly marked as such.

The simulation is not a game in the traditional sense. There are no scores, no win conditions, and no save files. What exists is a living system: it runs, evolves, and responds to your participation. The best way to understand it is to connect and observe.

For developers