Play Mode

Play Mode runs the open scene inside Studio, in the Game panel, Unity-style — no separate window, no export.

Controls

The same buttons sit in the toolbar at the right of the menu bar. Play saves your open documents first, so the session runs what is on disk and in the editor alike.

What runs

Play Mode runs a copy of the open scene: your scripts' OnAwake, OnStart and OnUpdate run against that copy, with the same engine services an exported game gets — scene manager, asset loader, input, input actions and localization — and the project's startup settings. Anything the game changes, creates or destroys lives only in the copy. Stopping throws the copy away, so the scene you edit is exactly as you left it.

Scripts compiled with errors keep the last working build loaded; fix the errors in the Output panel and play again. The Output panel clears when you press Play (configurable in its … menu).

Input

Click inside the Game panel to give it the keyboard and mouse; the game reads them through Input and InputActions exactly as it would in a standalone window. Press Escape to hand the keyboard back to Studio — so a runaway game never traps you.

The Game panel while stopped

When nothing is playing, the Game panel shows the scene through its primary camera: the active CameraComponent with the highest Priority.

Play Mode versus Build & Run

Project → Build & Run builds a real debug executable of the project and launches it in its own window, as a player would see it. Use it to check what only a standalone build shows — window size, startup scene, exported assets. Project → Export produces the final self-contained build; see the Tutorial.

Headless play

turian-cli playmode runs the same session without a window — useful in CI to check a scene still plays:

turian-cli playmode MyGame --load-usercode --frames 300 --out frame300.png

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