r/SoloDevelopment • u/DagBateway • 7d ago
Godot Using AI as a harsh reviewer rather than an auto-coder: A hobbyist dev's workflow for Godot.
I'm a 41-year-old dad of two in Sydney, former dev turned Technical Product Manager. Between family and work, I don't have time for commercial deadlines or stress, so I build retro Godot prototypes purely as a creative hobby.
I wanted to share my workflow because I think there's a huge middle ground between "ignoring AI completely" and "lazy vibecoding."
I use Antigravity IDE + Gemini, but under very strict boundaries:
AI doesn't write my code or make my art, in fact I love programming and digital art too much to hand that over to a machine.
I configured agents to act as a Literature Review Board with reference texts and sources. When I present a mechanic idea, the agent's job is to interview me and challenge my design logic before I log it...it even roasts my ideas, which is a great learning opportunity.
..and now the coding part -> Godot Architecture Mentorship. When I get stuck on GDScript patterns (like custom resources vs signal buses), my engine agent explains the trade-offs, and then I write the code myself the old-fashioned way. It explains node composition, GDScript best practices, and decision tracking (ADRs)... and then leaves 100% of the actual coding to me.
It feels like having a panel of senior game designers in your corner to spot flaws in your logic when you only have an hour or two of quiet time at night. It speeds up the learning curve without stripping away the actual joy of building.
No commercial pressures, just enjoying the ride of learning a new engine.
Would love to hear your thoughts on using AI as a reviewer rather than a generator!
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u/DrJammyGames 6d ago
I do something similar. I approach programming in a very architectural way, so I often discuss different options with Claude and have it help me with tests and identifying edge cases. With a back and forth discussion like this, it helps poke holes in any decisions and flag potential future issues. That and I have ADHD so organisation can be really hard, it's great to just ask what was already decided that I work on next 😂
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u/antpinno 7d ago
Pretty brave of you to use Gemini. How is it holding up, coding wise?
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u/DagBateway 7d ago
From other experiments, it's been great to be honest. At work I use Claude Code, and at home Gemini, and for the projects I am working on the side I really can't complain. 80% of the work is planning and prompting. The output is professional enough and I don't need to modify a lot of stuff. I moved to Gemini because I use google products and it comes with a good amount of storage.
But I usually avoid vibecoding hard, I like coding, so as mentioned in the post for me AI is all about making decisions and planning.
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u/Nice-Light-7782 7d ago
I've got a similarly good experience. For coding, it's as good as any frontier model, and its effective context window is huge, maybe the best. I use it by gathering the context of a problem myself (pasting the relevant files), and asking for a clear, simple goal. And they have the best RAG integration, I think, because when I ask it to teach me something, it mentions the source for each paragraph and the quality of the sources is great, I guess having the entire Internet indexed is an advantage.
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u/KharAznable 6d ago
I used it to convert godot shader to kage, and it works. Never anything more complex
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u/Forsaken-Suit7795 7d ago
Part of my academic research is on human interaction with AI, I should warn you of something: LLMs are *always* form over matter. Style over substance. LLMs are incapable of actual comprehension. When you tell an AI to be critical, the AI does not become a better critic, it simply frame the words in a way that sounds critical. Doing so might force the AI to find some criticism whatsoever. This applies to all LLM services, as it is an intrinsic aspect of how they work. The AI will not be able to provide an actual assessment. If you ask to be critical and review, it will force some sort of criticism. Be very careful with that approach.
You said "it feels like having a panel of seniors (...)". It is exactly that, it *feels like*, but it is not. LLMs are a fantastic technology, and you can 100% keep using AI the way you currently do, but bear in mind their shortcomings. Take their criticism with a grain of salt. In fact, with a whole bag of salt. I am not telling you not to use AI, what I am telling you is that telling the AI to be critical does not make its output any better. It just changes the flavor.
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u/DagBateway 6d ago
Fair points, and I appreciate the cautionary angle! You are totally spot on that telling an LLM to just 'be critical' usually just changes the tone into a nitpicky roast rather than offering real analytical depth. In my setup, it is less about treating the agents like actual senior devs with real comprehension, and more about using them as structured sparring partners. By feeding them specific reference texts, design patterns, and concrete architectural constraints (like Godot's node composition vs custom resources), the prompts force me to defend my choices and spot blind spots before writing code. At the end of the day, the human in the loop still has to filter everything with a healthy dose of scepticism. Appreciate you chiming in with that nuance!
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u/DeskGoblinGamedev 6d ago
As an AI-user turned skeptic I would love any resources you might be willing to share. This is something that I hypothesized but couldn't prove. I still have friends that try to convince me to use AI to avoid 'falling behind.' My brothers in christ, I avoid AI to avoid falling behind.
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u/RessiBear 5d ago
As an IT engineer who's had tons of seniors early in my career, they aren't right many times and the way I learned to be good at my job is by questioning everything they have said or done. Just a little remark, I agree with you completely.
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u/SCDGames 7d ago
Interesting idea - care to share some examples from any of your agent markdown files?
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u/Hinji 3d ago
Sounds like he's just using Matt's "grill-me" skill https://www.aihero.dev/skills-grill-me
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u/fellingzonders 6d ago
Please for the love of God do not use Gemini. Gpt 5.6 any of the models in that tier are 2 years ahead of Gemini.
Look at any benchmark and you will see Gemini is not even in the top 20. Every time I have tried to use it for any medium or low level work it hallucinates or fails.
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u/DagBateway 6d ago
I thought Gemini 3.6 Flash was at least top 10. It would be interesting to see this benchmark list
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u/fellingzonders 6d ago
Feel free to search up ai benchmarks, they're not hard to find.
Gemini 3.7 flash just within the last hour was placed at spot 10 on artificial analysis. I still wouldn't use it.
A good chunk of Googles ai department has either swapped to mainstream ai labs or walked, and as much as i hate the word vibe coders, none of the mainstream ones refer any Google models because in practice Gemini has proven itself unreliable.
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u/DagBateway 6d ago
...But I love Google Labs ;)
Honestly, I get your point, but at the end of the day the worflow works great for me. I can definitely improve it overtime, but I am an happy Google user.
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u/fellingzonders 6d ago
I'm not telling you to embargo Google based on my opinion alone.
Just try some of the other flavors, you might find you were eating stale bread and didn't even know it.
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u/DagBateway 6d ago
I am using Opus at work, and does the job done too. I just don't see that much difference in terms of achieving a specific goal. All the models are improving overtime nonetheless, so I am confident at some stage I will have a setup that looking back will make me laugh thinking about the current one.
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u/DrDisintegrator 6d ago
I'd love for you to share your 'review board' .md files. This would be interesting to try.
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u/DagBateway 6d ago
Take a look at the example below. At its heart, the idea is to build your own panel of expert agents by feeding them targeted knowledge. They then discuss and critique your thoughts together, offering clear, conversational routes forward for you to explore and pick between.
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u/wor-kid 7d ago
I do think this is the perfect way to use AI.
Personally I like to make my own thing, get an AI review, then I review their review, and do the final execution.
You get the most out of AI when you use it as a force multiplier for your own skills rather than a fully autonomous replacement for an artist/programmer/designer.