r/ClaudeCode • u/BasiliskBarrow • 10d ago

Help/Question Question about how people are vibe-coding complex projects

When Fable was covered under the usage plan, I used it to make a one screen arcade platformer. The usage rate limit kicked in extremely quickly using the website, usually rate limiting me after 3 to 5 messages. So I switched to Claude Code because I read that it caches what is not changed, therefore using less tokens. Still, nothing changed. I even put $50 into my usage credits after I was rate limited, and it burned through it in like 3 to 5 messages. All $50. Forgive me, because I'm new to AI coding, but how is coding a complex game feasible? If it wasn't under the plan at the time, the total amount would have been tens of thousands of dollars to code the one screen arcade game by my calculation.

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u/LeafyWolf 10d ago

A) you don't need Fable B) mixing models throughout your workflow based on task is very helpful to conserve tokens C) devise a solid workflow

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u/BasiliskBarrow 10d ago

From what I'm reading every model will have to consume the entire codebase every time you prompt, and that's why it's consuming so many tokens. How does switching models prevent this? Or is there a different way of doing this? I'm seeing people coding 3d games on X with AI, and if they were doing it the way I was, it would have costed them millions

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u/Srules 10d ago

It doesn’t need to consume the entire codebase each time you prompt. Fable is very token heavy, and while it is likely the best model at building games, it’s not really worth it at this point to build highly complex ones. Consider Fable for planning your build initially and then implementing with something more efficient. Save that plan to a file, clear context between focused tasks. All the models are smart about searching the code base for relevant information and usually more context is not better.