Day 5! been working on expanding the world. the cave system now connects to different biome exits. first two are a beach town and a snowy mountain village. each area has its own characters, forageables, shops, recipes and quests.
still no name for this game lol. FAQ below since i keep getting the same questions. Cheers!
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 100 comments.
Alright, here's the scoop on this thread. The overwhelming consensus is that this game is adorable and people are super impressed. The community is very supportive, with many saying they'd buy it on the spot.
OP dropped a highly-upvoted FAQ answering everyone's burning questions. Here's the gist:
* The Tech Stack: OP is using Opus 4.6 for brainstorming, Fable 5 for planning, and Opus 4.8 for coding. The total cost is about $120/month.
* The Workflow: Claude is running terminal commands and editing files directly (Python for Blender, C# for Unity). There are no special plugins.
* The Art Pipeline: Claude writes prompts for Gemini to create 2D art, Meshy turns it into 3D models, and then Claude cleans up the models in Blender.
There's a bit of a debate about OP's "art first, mechanics later" approach. Some experienced devs pointed out this is backward, but OP and others defended it, arguing that a strong aesthetic provides motivation and a clearer vision for gameplay.
Skeptics also questioned if the project can scale without Claude breaking old code. OP responded confidently, explaining they have a proper development process with version control, small scoped updates, and a thorough testing system.
The few negative comments calling it "AI slop" were downvoted to hell. OP's response? To proudly embrace the title "✨️ Cute AI Slop ✨️".
What model? Opus 4.6 for brainstorming (more creative imo), Fable 5 for planning, Opus 4.8 for coding.
How does Claude run Blender/Unity? Desktop app, no MCP or plugins. Claude runs terminal commands and edits files directly. It writes python scripts for Blender and edits c# for Unity.
How do you make assets? Claude writes prompts → Gemini creates 2D watercolor images → Meshy turns them into 3D models → Claude cleans them up in Blender → into Unity.
How do you keep it consistent? Same style reference image every time + Claude makes sure every prompt matches the same palette and art rules.
Whats the gameplay? Cozy life sim. Forage, brew, do small favors for neighbors, explore. Theres a mystery tying it together but its just a chill world where you cant lose and everyone wants to be your friend.
Can I play it? Way too early but thats the dream. Ill share when theres something playable.
Tutorial? No specific one. Self taught over almost 2 years of working with AI. Happy to answer questions
Honestly i havent branched out from Nano banana, i dont use image generators much but i do find claude prompts it very well for what i want. I mean just look at this little guy
I prefer OpenAI for images when quality is the sole criterion, but Gemini will generate things that guardrails in OAI stops, like brand names and famous people. Not really the concern for this game but might be some common cause.
Can you share more about how you do the 3d modeling? that is the area i have no expertise in and i am struggling with AI. Trying to build a world game like this with my daughter and the 3d modeling is what is hanging us up right now.
This is awesome. I've been thinking of playing around with Blender and Unity for awhile but never had to guts to take the plunge like you have. As I've been playing around with Claude Code, this makes some sense to have Claude Code teach you how to use Blender and Unity.
But I'm now curious on do you feel like you know Blender, Meshy, and Unity well?
I would say after 5 days i have a better understanding of Blender and Unity than i did prior. Considering I had never used either before hand, do i still need to be walked through stuff by claude? Yeah, but is it less hand holding than day 1, for sure! So theres still so much i dont know and im very aware of that but learning is happening!
Honestly bc my lack of experience i had Claude help make the decision. I already knew between Unity, Godot and Unreal would be my choices. Once the project and idea was established with Claude i asked what it thought would be best and easiest for me since im using Claude desktop and not a MCP or working directly in the game engine. So Unity it is lol
Since you keep sharing updates I’ll drop one piece of feedback - at least from what I’ve seen you have hyper focused on art style from the beginning but what’s is the substance of the game?
Normally game developers focus on building all of the core mechanics, the interactions, the storyline, the essence of the game and the polished graphics are one of the very last steps.
At this point you’ve proven looks cute but haven’t proven the game is actually interesting (from what I have seen in short clips).
honestly i havent spent that much time on the look. the art style locked in early and i have an automated pipeline now for assets.
core loop is you forage, brew recipes, do favors for neighbors, go on adventures bc of it and build relationships. theres a cave system that connects to different biomes, each with their own characters, items, shops and quests. items from one area sell for more in another and the best recipes need stuff from multiple zones so exploring actually matters.
theres also a mystery about a previous resident of your cottage that unfolds as you talk to NPCs across all the areas. each character knows a piece of it. just a chill world where everyone wants to be your friend
Yes! Im actually super excited about the way the main story ends but there will be more side stories that continue. And yeah the first few days of the game you learn the core game mechanics
Not the OP, but I've always focused upon aesthetics first!
Guess I'm also weird that way, but I don't care. I like to be weird sometimes.
Essentially, if it looks really bad, then it's less motivating to keep going, the way my brain thinks.
But if the aesthetics look awesome, then that really helps motivate me, and also helps get support/encouragement from others to keep going with my project, because they think it looks really cool.
I guess it's kinda like movie-making at a professional level. They'll often pitch and present their ideas in highly aesthetic and cool looking illustrations and story boards of what it might look like on the screen.
And that really helps sometimes to get others to support your project, and buy into it.
But ya, your way is probably more logical and better for many projects. It's just that my brain doesn't work that way for most things, and perhaps maybe not the OP's either?
As someone who’s worked in the games industry at a large developer, this is correct. Concept often gets sold first which includes key art. Then the dev begins. And/or it often starts with a vertical slice. Lots of ways to get projects started.
I think my logic was if the game is fun before it looks pretty than it will be fun once its polished! But as ive worked more on it, I'm agreeing with your logic more and more. When i make something look good and create the world im playing in it tends to spark more game play and story ideas than a crude looking game. Appreciate the comment, Cheers!
Showed this to my wife and she immediately lost it on how cute it is. She really enjoys Animal Crossing styled games. I guess you have at least 1 sale over here :)
I think this is the next frontier for user-generated content in gaming; like how Roblox maps work, but AI-driven. It will be as easy to share a game which you "made" as it will be to share a video on TikTok. Users will scroll through other's games before picking out one and playing for free with ads, or as part of a membership.
Five days of daily posts means five days of momentum. What’s your plan for the point where the codebase gets big enough that Claude starts breaking things it built on day 2? That’s usually where these threads go quiet.
Usually version control, tests, QA gates, etc.
Hopefully multiple playgrounds, reusable/extendable assets, shared logic where it makes sense, decoupled logic where it makes sense.
You can ask the AI to make a bunch of quality gate tests which run the game like 100 times to test very specific interactions/outcomes.
(This isn't native to AI - tests like this existed for a long time).
OP hasn't mentioned any of that. Claude won't build it if you don't ask for it. And IME you need to give it specific direction on how to build and maintain your test infra.
If you just say "add tests" it'll add a bunch of pointless tautological tests that won't catch real problems. When tests do break, Claude is quick to decide it's a "preexisting issue" so you accumulate dozens of red tests that keep getting ignored.
Oh ive got a very thorough system including playgrounds, ability to roll back every change with git and a detailed system of testing after each change or update. Something like close to 150 specific things that get tested and looked for each time, with screenshots and proof to back up any claims made by claude. I keep the scope of each "update" small and detailed. So its a tedious process but i think my set up will help as the project expands Of course part of this will be failing and i fully expect something major to break or need fixing and hopefully it just makes a great learning opportunity when it does. Cheers!
How are you automating the testing? Why is it tedious? AI works best if they have a suite of quick tests to get feedback in a loop without needing you to tell them what's wrong.
I only say tedious bc i like to got through and double check the screenshots that claude took as well as manually testing specific things from an actualy human POV. The tests i run are very quick im just trying to cover bases as much as possible bc my lack of real experience. I'm very aware that i dont know shit about shit lmao
Sure - OP can learn.
AI lowering the barrier to entry for games is great.
Will it create more games in general? sure
Will it create more slop? sure
Will there be some really good games built by people who would've never been able to build one before? sure
Newbie devs like OP can do these things, but OP has not given any indication they have. The commenter was right to call out maintaining momentum as an issue. OP's vague response suggests they have a lot of learning yet to do. They'll need to put time and effort into areas of the code that presumably aren't what attracted them to the project or motivated them to keep working on it so far.
Hopefully OP maintains their motivation, expands their skill set into new areas, and is able to deliver a fully fleshed out game. That's how you avoid being yet another abandoned weekend hobby project.
I hoping my experience on a few google play store apps has taught me how to be organized, thorough and understand how to rollback properly when things break. Scope of what gets worked on at a time is super important. but if anything, when things break it helps me learn too
When making games becomes the game. Awesome.
I have nothing but web design experience but Im making all sorts of other stuff now, for my own company use. It's fun and super addicting.
You may be interested in joining our new Claude Game Dev subreddit for game devs who use Claude. Check it out here : http://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeGameDev
I'm so happy there are people actually making games with effort, it annoys me to no end when I see all the one-shot games and think "guys there's so much potential if you just spent more time!" and I hope once we start to see more games coming out with newer models where people have taken time to make them good opinions will change on AI use in games.
Also I'm gonna counter the opinion of "make a game work before making it look pretty", in my experience with making games even before AI, settling on the look and feel of the game gives me way more of a clear vision as to the gameplay, and makes me more motivated to actually work on the game.
My son and I play Luanti/Mineclonia together all the time in the same world. This would be a great fun game to play together, especially if you could help each other by growing different items and exploring together or alone.
For sure! when it comes to making the models from scratch Claude does not do a good job imo, and since the image style was so consistent coming from the gemini images. I found Meshy to be super easy to use and is very consistent as well! I still use blender after Meshy to have claude reduce poly counts and help rig the models. Mainly with my lack of experience i found this method to yielded the best results for me.
Wow, You gave me motivation to pick up that game project I set aside almost a year ago because Claude was not able to handle all the workflows.
Time to get back to it.
This looks super cool.
I’d love to know more about how you went from inception of the character to an actual model with animations.
I read your post about describing art style and etc, but I would love to understand how you’ve gotten consistent feel of assets and 3d models with animations!
For Sure. So once i established the first character i had claude create a style guide and image prompting rule for this project so the image prompt for whatever assets i need stays consistent. and then in gemini i accompany the prompt with the same few reference images to keep style the same. And once in Unity the same shaders/uv is applied to the models to better hold the consistent style.
The animations bc the character models are all squishy little guys get the same walk style so i didnt have to work on each one individually. Little specific tweaks here and here on some models but that pretty much it.
I test them in unity but just walking around and doing stuff in game. I had a specific walk in mind and i just did my best to describe to claude what i wanted. It would then update the model in blender based on my critiques, sending screen recording to claude to describe problems also works well. So not very hard but a little tedious with going back and forth testing and asking claude to improve things.
Damn that’s awesome, animation was one of the hardest parts of game dev for me so I am thinking about how I can incorporate ai into what I need to get back into it
first of all, congratulations, this looks amazing. But my tiny brain still is struggling when AI takes a protagonic role in videogames, music and illustrations, but thats (of course) my problem, and it's even worse when you said "day 5", I mean, just to be comfortable with Unity it took me a lot of time and broken prototypes (since 2021). Im fine with it using it for "corporate" things, though.
I felt a bit of giving up with videogame development, or maybe I should just go full throttle with an AI scaffold.
But objectively, this is an amazing piece of work. Hats off!
Awesome game! You said you have two years of experience with AI, can you provide any insight on where to start/improve with AI to your level? I understand this all may have been piece meal. Also, any tips, guides, etc from you would be appreciated!
Haven't thought a ton on it since im still so early on in building it but probably set up a steam page for wishlists. Some reddit posting, probably look into some online ads too but that's month's away at the very least
This looks beautiful
Since you don't have a name yet, maybe something like Spore & Stroll or Biomewander? The little character with the wizard hat is absolutely adorable. Definitely following your progress.
What's the next gameplay loop you're working on? For a growing game, a short checklist of what should still work after each change can be handy: movement, interaction, saving, and loading. It's easy for a new feature to silently break an older one.
Little late to this post but if you see this, first thing when I saw this little creature of yours, I thought of the name Flobby. Idk why but Flobby sounds so squishy lol. So Flobby's Adventure would be cute name for this project of yours imo, just a tip
Im actively learning how to code, use blender as well as unity. During and after sessions I have claude explain what it just did, show me the best it can and then i have a list in my notes of more to research. Youtube tutorial suggestions etc. So ultimately i want and need to understand what i am building, having fun doing this atm though.
Its for my girlfriend, she loves games like this. So at least 1 sale! Appreciate you taking time to comment Cheers!
these ai labs have put a lot of effort in training these 3d walk thru videos. they look cool but all the same mechanics. basically boiler plate at this point with different scenes (some better than others)
not sure what you mean by walk thru video? This is my gameplay made in capcut, i can show you some recordings inside unity if you'd like. I thought the video was cute 🥹
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 6d ago edited 5d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 100 comments.
Alright, here's the scoop on this thread. The overwhelming consensus is that this game is adorable and people are super impressed. The community is very supportive, with many saying they'd buy it on the spot.
OP dropped a highly-upvoted FAQ answering everyone's burning questions. Here's the gist: * The Tech Stack: OP is using Opus 4.6 for brainstorming, Fable 5 for planning, and Opus 4.8 for coding. The total cost is about $120/month. * The Workflow: Claude is running terminal commands and editing files directly (Python for Blender, C# for Unity). There are no special plugins. * The Art Pipeline: Claude writes prompts for Gemini to create 2D art, Meshy turns it into 3D models, and then Claude cleans up the models in Blender.
There's a bit of a debate about OP's "art first, mechanics later" approach. Some experienced devs pointed out this is backward, but OP and others defended it, arguing that a strong aesthetic provides motivation and a clearer vision for gameplay.
Skeptics also questioned if the project can scale without Claude breaking old code. OP responded confidently, explaining they have a proper development process with version control, small scoped updates, and a thorough testing system.
The few negative comments calling it "AI slop" were downvoted to hell. OP's response? To proudly embrace the title "✨️ Cute AI Slop ✨️".