What do Light, Medium, and Heavy worlds mean?
Every turn of a journey sends the whole world to the storyteller: instructions, lore, cast, trackers, beats, tables, all of it. That is what makes a world feel consistent, and it is also why a bigger world costs more to play. The size...
Every turn of a journey sends the whole world to the storyteller: instructions, lore, cast, trackers, beats, tables, all of it. That is what makes a world feel consistent, and it is also why a bigger world costs more to play. The size rating on a world's page tells you roughly what to expect before you start, and the editor shows creators the same number while they write.
The four sizes
Sizes are based on the world's prompt, measured in tokens (roughly four characters of English each). Only the author's content counts, not the engine's own instructions.
| Size | World prompt | What it means for players |
|---|---|---|
| Light | under 25k tokens | A compact world. Turns cost about as little as they can. |
| Medium | 25k to 60k tokens | A fuller world with more lore and cast. Turns cost a bit more. |
| Heavy | 60k to 100k tokens | A big world. Expect noticeably more expensive turns. |
| Super Heavy | over 100k tokens | A very large world. Turns are expensive, and smaller models may struggle to follow it. |
The rating appears as a chip on the world page next to the other feature chips. A Super Heavy world gets a red chip with a warning icon.
Why size changes the price
Turn prices scale with how much text the model has to read, and the world is the bulk of it on every turn. The model cache softens this a lot: a world that does not change between turns is mostly re-read from cache at a discount. Even so, a Heavy world costs more per turn than a Light one on the same model, and the gap widens on models with little or no caching. If a world you love is Heavy, a model with a strong cache discount is the cheapest way to play it.
For creators: the gauge in the editor
The world editor shows the prompt estimate under your world's name, with a Light, Medium, Heavy gauge and a bar that runs from green to red between 10k and 110k tokens. Hover or tap the count for a breakdown of what takes up the space (lorebook, NPCs, instructions, tables, and so on).
Past 100k tokens the gauge switches to Super Heavy with a warning icon, and the publish checklist and the publish confirmation both show a red notice that the world will be expensive to play. You can still publish. Past 210k tokens the editor refuses to save at all, so trim the world before you go on.
How to trim a world
Size almost always comes from a few sections, and the breakdown tooltip tells you which:
- Lorebook: lore entries with the "always" scan are sent every turn. Switch entries that only matter in some scenes to keyword scanning, and keep each entry to the facts the storyteller needs.
- NPCs: every NPC's description, sheet, and gallery labels are in the prompt. Cut characters who never get a scene, and move backstory into a keyword-scanned lore entry.
- Instructions: long instruction blocks are read on every turn. Prefer short, specific rules over essays, and drop anything the storyteller already does by default.
- Tables, beats, and settings: reference tables are inlined in full. Keep columns to what gets quoted in play.
A good target is Light or Medium. Heavy is fine for sprawling sandboxes, as long as you are happy for players to know it costs more.
Advanced journey authoring
Imagina gives you tools to shape your story beyond just typing actions. These features are all optional, but they're useful when you want more control over where the narrative goes.
How do I make secret lore entries?
Most lore entries are always available to the narrator: it knows they exist and can pull their content whenever the story touches them. A secret lore entry is different. It stays completely hidden from the AI (it is not in the lore...