Prompt & Circumstance: Custom Bot Experience
Week 5
Competencies: Art and Creativity, Skilling and Productivity
Overview
Design a self-contained interactive experience (game, tool, or interface) that lives entirely within a single AI prompt. The experience should activate when a user types ‘START’ and maintain its designed behavior throughout the interaction.
Details
You are designing special instructions for tailoring a chat bot to a specific task or goal. It can be fun or functional.
For example:
- A structured tool for provided recipes in an easy to read way
- An interactive game (e.g., word puzzles, mystery solving)
- A puzzle or mystery that must be solved through interaction
- A simulated interface (e.g., retro terminal, specialized tool)
- A character-based experience (e.g., specialized expert, storyteller)
Requirements:
- Must maintain consistent behavior/personality
- Must include clear starting instructions for users
- Must handle invalid inputs gracefully
- Should include some form of user progression or engagement mechanism
- Must activate with ‘START’ command
Workshop and test your tool in different contexts!
Examples
I’ve created some examples to get the idea across. Find your own inspiration though.
Completion Details
Submit:
- A text file with your instructions, titled ‘instructions.txt’ (attached)
- (I won’t look at it! I’ll paste it blindly into ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini and type ‘START’)
- Optional: A link to a custom GPT (this functionality is only available to paid users, and not required)
- Necessary context: what does a person need to know about using it? (For fun toy projects, it’s okay to expect somebody to go in blind, with no context).
- Optional: A text file with tips: information to be seen if stuck, or if exploring further. if somebody is testing your bot, they can peek at the first tip, then the second, etc. Call it ‘tips.txt’
[AI-OK] → You can use AI itself to iterate and expand your instructions.
[Group-OK] → You work with a classmate and create a single submission together.
Post to the discussion forum.
Portfolio Details
Size: 2 points
If including in portfolio, include the above, as well as succinct documentation of:
- Overall intent - what were you going for
- The design process and iteration
- Challenges, and handling of edge cases
Test it with other people before you submit! If done in a group, credit your collaborators.
You can iterate your bot from what you posted to the discussion forum. If other people had cool ideas that inspired you, feel free to adopt them, with credit.
Grading will focus on the effectiveness and creativity of your interactive experience design. Does it maintain interest and flow well? How well does it handle different inputs and edge cases? How creative or useful is the concept and execution? How clear and detailed is your prompt.