Shufflo AI: Generate & Balance Cards

Shufflo AI has its own tab in the side panel, alongside Card Details and Notes. It reads your actual project (cards, columns, designs, decks and documents) and can create cards, edit data, generate art, change your designs and build decks without you leaving the spreadsheet.

The Shufflo AI panel

Shufflo is one assistant that you can open in several places. The Cards panel is the one to use while you work on cards, because the sheet refreshes and highlights rows as Shufflo writes them. Shufflo in the sidebar opens the same assistant full screen with your chat history (see Brainstorm a Game with Shufflo). The Cards panel and the Shufflo page show the same chat for a project: start a chat in one and it is open in the other, and a reply keeps running when you move between them. The Shufflo button in a Docs & Rules document opens it with that document in view, and the Generator's Shufflo tab opens it for artwork. When you want to generate an image directly from a prompt, without a conversation, use the Generator's Manual tab (see Generate & Edit Game Artwork).

Opening it

Click Shufflo AI in the side panel tab strip. If the panel is closed, open Panel in the toolbar and tick Show panel; on a phone, tap the eye button at the bottom right of the sheet. If the tab is missing, it was switched off under Panel → Sections.

The bar at the top of the panel holds, from left to right:

Chat history (the first icon): swaps the panel for your earlier chats, grouped by date, each with a line saying what it made (for example "6 cards · 12 images"). Search by title or project name, and switch between This project and All projects with the dropdown. Each chat's ⋯ menu has Rename and Delete; a deleted chat can be brought back with Undo on the notice for a few seconds. New chat sits at the top of the list, and the back arrow returns to the open chat.
The name of the current chat. A chat starts with its first message as its name and gets a short title after the first reply. In the side panel, clicking the name opens the chat history too.
Notify me when Shufflo finishes (the bell). Turn it on and your browser shows a notification when a reply finishes while you are in another tab. The first time, the browser asks for permission.
New chat (the plus), shown once the current chat has a message.

Suggested prompts

The empty state, Let's create some cards, offers three short suggestions built from what your project has. In a project with no cards they are Make 10 cards for my game, Suggest a card game idea and Set up columns for my cards. Once you have cards, you see suggestions such as Add art to the 12 cards without it (when some cards have no picture), Add 5 more cards like these, Check my cards' balance and Tighten the card text.

Clicking one sends it straight away, so write your own in the composer when you want to add constraints first.

The composer

The input reads "Create cards, edit data, or type @ to pick a card...". Below it sits a row of controls:

Attach (the paperclip): Upload from device, Choose from library and Add a document. You can attach images, PDFs, CSV and Excel files, up to 10 MB each. You can also drag files onto the panel and drop them. Attached files show as chips above the input, each with an x to remove it. Add a document lists your Docs & Rules documents grouped by type; a document you pick shows as a chip, and its x takes it out again.
Voice input (the microphone): dictate instead of typing. Click Stop recording when you are done, and the transcription lands in the input for you to check.
Model selector: Shufflo Holo, the default, takes longer to think each reply through and counts against a monthly allowance. Shufflo is the faster everyday model.
Send, which turns into Stop while Shufflo is working. Enter sends and Shift+Enter starts a new line; the rest of the keys are in Keyboard Shortcuts.

Point at a card with @. Type @ in the box and a list of your project's cards opens; keep typing to narrow it, then pick one. The card shows as a chip above the box, with an x to take it off, and your message is about that card. Pick Fire Imp and write "make this cheaper", and Shufflo knows which card you mean. You can pick more than one.

Scope. In the Cards panel Shufflo always works in the project you have open, so no project chip shows. To bring a second project into a chat, add it with the dashed Project chip on the Shufflo page (see Brainstorm a Game with Shufflo). Changing the projects in scope while Shufflo is replying stops the reply. Add a document when the request depends on what you have written: "write cards that match our keyword rules" needs the rules doc.

Write while it works. The box stays open while Shufflo replies and reads Write your next message…. Press Enter and the message waits, with a line saying Sends when Shufflo finishes and a Cancel link; it goes out on its own when the reply is done.

The model selector controls the chat model, not the card data itself. Holo replies count against your plan's monthly Shufflo AI messages: 20 on Free, 80 on Hobby, 230 on Indie and 530 on Professional (each paid plan counting the 30 every plan gets from us). Its menu shows how many you have left this month, and once you have used 80% of them a line above the composer shows the count too. Past the included count you can send 15 more (10 on Free), shown as "extra on us", and the line carries an Upgrade for more button. After that, the line reads Monthly Shufflo Holo messages used up, and sending on Holo opens Shufflo Holo limit reached, where Use standard Shufflo sends the message on the faster model and switches the selector to it, and Cancel puts the message back in the composer unsent. On a paid plan standard Shufflo replies are not counted. On Free, Shufflo answers 100 messages a month in all, Holo and standard together; once they are used, a line above the chat box says when they refill, with an Upgrade button, and sending waits until then.

Artwork spends image credits, a separate monthly pool shared with the Generator. Shufflo always draws with Flash, so each image costs 1 credit. For Pro (5 credits an image), use the Generator's Manual tab. When credits run out or the image provider is rate limiting, some cards in a batch can finish without artwork, and the result says so. Your current usage for both pools is in Settings.

Writing good prompts

Be specific about constraints. "Generate 5 common-rarity creature cards, cost 1-3, that reward playing multiple 'space' cards" gets you something usable. "Make some cards" doesn't.

Reference your own properties by name. The AI can see your columns, so naming them (Type, powers, ability) keeps output in the right shape. If you ask for a value the project has no column for, such as HP, Shufflo adds the column.

Ask for analysis before generation. Run a balance pass on what you have, read the reasoning, then ask it to generate into the gaps it found.

Attach art to set a style. Upload an illustration, then ask for cards or artwork: Shufflo draws the new art in that image's style unless you name a different one, and tells you it did. A screenshot or a photo of a rules page is read for what it says and never used as a style.

Keep one style for the whole game. Every new picture Shufflo draws for your cards follows the project's newest Art Style Guide document in Docs & Rules. If you started the project from a template set during onboarding, it usually has one already, named Art style: and the set. Edit the guide and the next picture follows it; delete it and the art has no set style. Ask Shufflo for a different look and it changes the guide first, and says so. The guide is for card art only: the Generator's Manual tab doesn't use it.

Ask how ShuffleKit works. For questions about the app itself (where a control is, what a plan includes, how printing works), Shufflo reads these tutorials before answering and links the page it used.

Iterate in the panel. It's a conversation. "Too strong, halve the effect and add a drawback" is a perfectly good follow-up.

What it writes, and how to undo it

Shufflo writes straight into your project, and each result in the panel says what it did:

New cards go into your sheet, and the result reads Added with the number of cards. Shufflo writes up to 50 cards in one batch and sends another batch for bigger requests. Cards created while a deck was open are also added to that deck.
Cards from your images: attach several pictures and ask for a card from each, and Shufflo makes one card per image. It can put your own image on the card as its picture, or use it as the style for new art.
Artwork: ask for six cards or fewer and they arrive with art: the cards go into your sheet first, and each picture lands on its card as it is drawn. A bigger batch arrives first without art, and Shufflo offers to illustrate it next, up to 15 cards per message. Art for cards that already exist goes straight into their Image column.
Earlier art: ask for a card's previous picture back ("the first version was better") and Shufflo restores it from the card's version history. Nothing is drawn and no credit is used.
Showing cards: ask "show me my cards" or "let me see the Spell cards" and Shufflo lays out up to 60 of them in the chat, drawn with their designs, in sheet order.
Card edits, including bulk maths such as "add 1 to every Cost" and status changes, are written immediately. Each card is saved to its version history before it changes.
Columns: new columns, renames, required or not, added choices and choice colours apply immediately. Changing a column's type, removing choices or deleting a column rewrites every card, so those arrive as a proposal with Accept All and Reject.
Icons: Shufflo can search your own icons and ShuffleKit's Game art, then use what it finds in an icon column, in card text, or on a design.
Designs: Shufflo can see every design and what each element shows, so it can answer "why is the Cost blank on my Spell cards". It can change a design you already have: connect an element to a column ("show the Cost in the top corner") or disconnect it, add a text box, image frame, shape, badge, icon or a row of each card's icons, move and resize elements, change their colour, font, size and other styles, make a text box shrink long text to fit down to a smallest size (so long names get smaller and short ones stay big), show an element only on some cards ("a gold frame on Legendary cards"), hide or remove an element, and put a picture behind the whole card. It adds and moves only what you asked for.
Which design cards use: it can make a design the default card front or back, give a design a rule so it is used for the cards that match, and change the order rules are checked in. It can duplicate a design as a variant ("a version of this design for Spell cards"), give the copy a rule and restyle it in the same reply. It can also change a design's card size, for example Poker to Tarot, and fit the design to the new size in the same step.
Decks: it can create a deck, rename one, add or take out cards (picked by name, by a column such as every card whose Type is Leader, or all cards) and set how many copies of each card a deck holds.
Documents: it can write a new document or edit an existing one, and saves a version of the document first.

Shufflo can look at one or two of your cards drawn with their design, the way they print, and check them for problems such as text past the safe line, art below 300 DPI or a field the design shows empty. It can also search the web, for example for the rules of an existing game.

It can delete cards, and the reply's Undo puts them back; a card with playtest notes it leaves for you to delete in the sheet. It cannot delete a deck or a design, start a new design from nothing or apply a template. Pick a template or start a design in the Layout Editor. It cannot export, print or order your game either.

Undo sits under Shufflo's message, once per reply, and puts back everything that reply wrote: cards, edits, columns, design changes and decks together. It shows on the latest reply, and on older replies when you hover them. After an undo, the button reads Undone, and so do that reply's results.

Undo works after a reload too. If you have edited a card yourself since Shufflo wrote it, Undo leaves your edit in place. In a project you can only view, Shufflo proposes cards instead of writing them, and the result has Accept and Reject buttons.

Click a card thumbnail in a result to see it large. View in Detail shows the whole batch drawn with your design, and Show in sheet scrolls the grid to those rows. If your plan's card limit is reached partway through (120 cards on Free), the result says how many cards were left out.

While it works, and after it replies

While Shufflo works, a line under the reply reads Reading your project… or Thinking… (or names what it is thinking about), with the time so far once it passes five seconds. Then comes a status line for each step, such as Adding cards, Drawing card art or Editing the layout. A finished step reads in the past tense (Added cards), and one that failed says so (Couldn't add the cards). If a reply is slow, a notice says so and suggests pressing Stop and sending again; if the model is busy, a notice says Shufflo is retrying on its own. An error shows a Retry link.

A reply that did not finish carries a label saying why: Stopped early (you pressed Stop), Connection lost, Stopped on error, or No reply. The latest one has a Retry button, unless the reply had already changed something: then it reads The changes above are saved. Shufflo's reply was cut off after them, so check what's there before you ask for more., with no Retry, so the same changes are not made twice. If your connection drops while Shufflo is working, the reply keeps going on our side and the panel picks it up again. When Shufflo says it made cards but no result card backs it up, a notice says the cards did not come through, with Retry.

Hover a finished reply to rate it with Good response or Bad response (the thumbs); press the lit thumb again to clear it. Hover your own message for Edit, which opens it for changes with Save and Cancel, or Resend, which sends it again as it is.

Other result cards and their buttons:

Images from a chat appear as thumbnails. Click one to open it large, where you can download it, copy its prompt, view the original for an edit, or press Generate More for one to four more from the same prompt. Open in Generator takes the images to the Generator.
Documents Shufflo wrote or changed have Open.
Design changes and design rules have Open layout. Decks results list each deck Shufflo made or changed.
Proposed cards (in a project you can only view) have Accept with the count and Reject; click a card to edit it before accepting.
In the large card view, the arrow buttons or the left and right arrow keys step through the batch, and Show in sheet finds the card's row. From the Shufflo page or a document, Open in Cards takes you to the rows instead.

Two habits are worth keeping anyway:

Undo while it is fresh. The Undo under a reply is the quickest way back from a bad batch. For a change you notice days later, every edited card's earlier values are in its version history. See Notes & Version History.

Read every generated card. AI is good at plausible-looking rules text and less good at rules text that's actually unambiguous under a real rulebook. Generated cards are drafts: check wording against your Docs & Rules, and mark them Draft status until they've been playtested.

Other ways in

Generate more cards at the foot of the grid fills the composer with a request for more cards and opens the panel. Nothing is sent until you press Send.
Right-click a cell or a selected range for a fill item (Fill "Cost" with AI for one cell, Fill 12 cells with AI for a range, up to 40 rows) or Ask Shufflo about this…. Both fill the composer for you to check before sending.
Right-click a single image cell for Generate artwork (or Regenerate artwork), which draws one image for that card directly.
The support box is for messages to the ShuffleKit team. Its ask Shufflo link moves what you typed into Shufflo's composer instead.

Where it fits

Shufflo AI is most useful at the two ends of a project:

Early, to get from a blank spreadsheet to fifty cards you can react to. A bad first draft you can edit beats an empty grid.
Late, as a second pair of eyes on balance across a set that's grown too large to hold in your head.

In the middle, when you know exactly what card you want, typing it yourself is usually faster.

Generated artwork lands in Image properties like any other art, so it flows straight into your layouts. See Properties & Columns and Connecting Properties.