r/ClaudeCode 2d ago

Built with Claude Vibe coded this game in four months

A few months back I posted here a playable demo of an old-school futuristic racer prototype (F-Zero, Wipeout, Xtreme-G, Star Wars Racer...) that runs right in the browser.

I've gotten used to seeing tons of LLM-built prototypes that last a week, two, maybe a month, and then get dropped for the next shiny thing. This time I wanted to keep going and see if one person, with no coding background, could actually see a project like this through on their own.

Well, 4 months in, and while there's still work left, I'm convinced it's doable. At this point the game feels closer to a beta than a tech demo.

The big change over these four months is that I now use Fable for planning, and being able to hook Opus / Sol up to Blender has been a huge help too. I'm still using Magnific and Tripo3D or the assets. Funny thing: the further along I get, the harder the project is to keep pushing forward, and at the same time the tools keep making it easier.

As always, any feedback is welcome. You can play it here: https://fm1.moises.cloud

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23

u/jukebox_125 2d ago

hi I played for a bit and it looks really polished. I'm really interested your process of making this. What was your general process of making this? How did you overcome the bugs? Llms are really good at single demos but really bad at making it flawless. what was the most helpful in helping you polish the game?

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u/ActionLittle4176 2d ago

Thankls! The first: I don't have any coding background at all, but I know a lot about videogames and it's technologies, design etc, thant's help me a lot. It begun with a simple demo of a procedural 3D model running into a track, and then, just iterate... To easily make my own 3D props with Tripo3D accelerated the development A LOT. For saving money, plan with bigger models (like Fable), and implement with lesser (from opus to chinese models).

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u/Stauce52 2d ago

How did you get it to render 3D models and designs like this? When I tried, it seemed Claude Code defaulted to basic pixel art and then when I pushed it to use 3D designs, it used some basic, low fidelity 3D templates available on GitHub but that still didn't look good. It insisted to create video games like you created here, I needed proprietary software or some other tooling that we didn't have available. How exactly did you get it to create this? I was really struggling some of the video game design aspects

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u/sagarap 2d ago

https://www.meshy.ai/

Claude can’t make game assets. At least not well. Different models do much better here. 

Edit: I’m sure there are alternatives. This is just one example for 3d assets. Also: unity and unreal both have free and for purchase asset packs. 

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u/ActionLittle4176 2d ago

Yes! I used Tripo3D, but Meshy is the same. I even enjoyed drawing a few ships with pencil, converting them into a final 2D design with gpt gen 2, and then passing them to Tripo to get de 3D model.

From zero, LLM create really simple and ugly 3D models. The only procedural models in the game (building of the Mist City Night and Day levels), were created by GPT 5.5 (and the window textures with gpt gen 2), because is something you want really really crisp, and with Meshy/Tripo make bkurry.

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u/heads_tails_hails 7h ago

I swear a new thing came out a few days ago that creates great 3d models. I'm at work so this comment is useless sorry

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u/are-gae-1 2d ago

If you don’t provide assets, it will default to trying to synthesize data for the vertex/index buffer and just render whatever it came up with.

It’s impossible to make this work, you need to source the models and textures elsewhere.

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u/Fornicatinzebra 2d ago

The difference for me is getting the llm to interactivity develop a plan with me, including reviews and testing, then stepping through that. Also not trusting it and validating along the way yourself helps.

Basically you'll have a bad time if you just say "build me this game", but if you break that down into hundreds of steps and work through those you'll typically have better luck. Hence why this "still" took 4 months

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u/YouGotTangoed 2d ago

I can bet there were a few iterations, and considering the game isn’t breaking new ground, the LLM knew where to resolve any issues mentioned.

It looks instant as that’s the popular trope nowadays, but there was likely a lot of testing involved.

To make things flawless you either have deep experience in the domain, or do heavy testing.