diff --git a/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src-tauri/src/main.rs b/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src-tauri/src/main.rs
index 68d09633b..61d0fddcf 100644
--- a/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src-tauri/src/main.rs
+++ b/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src-tauri/src/main.rs
@@ -1499,7 +1499,7 @@ const GAME_CREATOR_APP_CONFIG_SCHEMA_VERSION: &str = "game-creator-config.v2";
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_BASE_URL: &str = "https://dev.genarrative.world/gpt/v1";
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_MODEL: &str = "gpt-6-astra";
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_API_KIND: &str = "openai_responses";
-const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_REASONING_EFFORT: &str = "max";
+const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_REASONING_EFFORT: &str = "high";
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_CONTEXT_WINDOW_TOKENS: u64 = 128_000;
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_AUTO_COMPACT_TOKEN_LIMIT: u64 = 64_000;
 const DEFAULT_GAME_CREATOR_LLM_TOOL_OUTPUT_TOKEN_LIMIT: u64 = 12_000;
diff --git a/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src/features/runtime-config/RuntimeConfigDialog.tsx b/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src/features/runtime-config/RuntimeConfigDialog.tsx
index 4a733b7d2..da0075a02 100644
--- a/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src/features/runtime-config/RuntimeConfigDialog.tsx
+++ b/apps/ai-game-creator-shell/src/features/runtime-config/RuntimeConfigDialog.tsx
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ const defaultRuntimeConfigDraft: GameCreatorAppConfig = {
     baseUrl: '',
     model: '',
     apiKind: 'openai_responses',
-    reasoningEffort: 'max',
+    reasoningEffort: 'high',
     stream: true,
     webSearchEnabled: true,
     contextWindowTokens: 128000,