---
type: how-to
title: Customize the games your visitors play
summary: Register a marketplace game, tune its language, skin, and configuration, and manage updates and removal, all from the dashboard.
---

A game from the marketplace runs with the presets its author shipped. From the dashboard you can override those, the game's language, its skin, and its gameplay configuration, so the challenge matches your product and audience. You author the overrides once; Caputchin resolves them on the server and applies them to the rendered game.

This page covers registering a game and managing its lifecycle. The per-axis how-tos branch off from here.

## Where customization lives

Open a troop, open a site key, and go to its **Games** page. Each game you register shows up under **Registered games**; opening one lands you in its editor, which has four tabs:

| Tab | What you set |
|---|---|
| **Configuration** | Gameplay options the game exposes, such as difficulty. See [configurations](/docs/game-customization/configurations). |
| **Locale** | The game's translated strings. See [customize the language](/docs/game-customization/locale). |
| **Skin** | The game's colors and visual assets. See [customize the skin](/docs/game-customization/skin). |
| **Settings** | Updates, auto-update, and removal (below). |

You can also register and customize games once at the **troop** level (the troop's own **Games** page), and every site key in the troop inherits them. A site key sees its own registered games plus the troop's, and can override any value without leaving its page. See [scopes](#troop-and-site-key-scope).

## Register a game

In the **Add a game** panel on the Games page:

- **Marketplace game**: search the box, pick a game, and the editor opens. This is the common path; see [add a game from the marketplace](/docs/getting-started/add-a-game) for the full walkthrough.
- **Custom game**: enter your own id and click **Define** to author a game you host yourself. See [custom games](/docs/game-customization/custom-games).

Registering a marketplace game pins a snapshot of it, so the version your visitors play is fixed until you choose to update it.

## Game settings: updates and removal

The **Settings** tab manages a registered game over time.

### Auto-update

A marketplace game has an **Auto-update** toggle. With it on (the default for a newly registered marketplace game), the game tracks the newest published version that passes its replay check, so you get the author's fixes and improvements automatically. Turn it off to stay pinned to the exact version you registered.

### Update now

When auto-update is off and the author has published a newer version, the Settings tab shows that an update is available and offers **Update now**. Applying it re-pins the game to the current version and keeps the configuration, language, and skin presets you already authored. The previous pin is replaced, so this is not reversible.

### Delete a game

The Settings tab has a **Delete game** action. It removes the game's presets and schema for the current scope (this site key, or the troop) after a confirmation. Once deleted, visitors fall back to the game's bundled presets on their next load. Deleting the customization does not remove the game from the marketplace; it only clears what you authored here.

## Troop and site-key scope [#troop-and-site-key-scope]

Customization resolves most-specific-wins, in this order:

1. **Site key**: an override for this one key.
2. **Troop**: a baseline shared by every key in the troop.
3. **Bundled**: the presets the game author shipped.

A site-key value beats the troop value, which beats the bundled default, computed per value. So a site key can change one color while inheriting everything else from the troop, which in turn inherits from the game. Set a baseline once on the troop, then override only the exceptions on individual keys.

## What applies, and on which plan [#what-applies-and-on-which-plan]

Each axis unlocks at a different plan. The override is resolved on the server and applied to the rendered game at runtime.

| Axis | Plan |
|---|---|
| Configuration | Every plan, including Solo |
| Language (locale) | Alpha and up |
| Skin | Alpha and up |

Customizing the **widget shell** around the game (its brand strip, colors, and links) is a separate, Apex-tier feature; see [white-label the widget](/docs/widget-customization/white-label).

Custom (self-hosted, non-marketplace) games resolve their presets the same way: you author the field schema in the dashboard instead of inheriting it from a marketplace manifest, then author configuration, language, and skin presets against it, and Caputchin resolves and applies them at runtime on the same plan tiers above. See [custom games](/docs/game-customization/custom-games).

## See also

- [Configurations](/docs/game-customization/configurations), [language](/docs/game-customization/locale), and [skin](/docs/game-customization/skin): the per-axis how-tos.
- [Schema reference](/docs/references/customization-schema): every field type a preset can hold.
- [Add a game from the marketplace](/docs/getting-started/add-a-game): the getting-started walkthrough.
- [Games and the game gate](/docs/site-keys/games): require a game to verify.
- [Our philosophy](/docs/understanding-caputchin/philosophy): why each axis sits at the plan it does, and what stays free.