If you're curious, this is the single prompt used to build the game with Claude Sonnet 5.0 on Medium:
> Create game 197 "Jungle" based on the Chinese board game "dou shou qi". Since it's a board game it can use a regular controller (doesn't need websockets), but please include scoring (backend authoritative/anticheat) and sound effects (ui/lib/sfx.ts)
I did later have a second prompt but it was just to renumber the game to make it ready for publishing, after playtesting and finding no issues. And of course a lot of the infrastructure (including the sound effects library) was built in previous sessions.
For complex 3d graphics, if you want to make a good game with lots of features, you need to use a real game engine like Unity or at the very least if you want to do it in a browser use a library like three.js (the games I make are far simpler so I don't use many libraries)
Once you have the project setup, with version control setup, then you can start agentic development. Claude is the best in the business right now (imo), that could change rapidly though
I did share the prompt, it's right below the game :) I do the same for most of the games I build (one each day). Some of the games take a lot of prompts to fix/adjust things, but most require only a single prompt -- this one (Tower Defense) required just 1 sentence, a few words, that's it
As for the language, the whole application is set up with c#/.net on the backend and React/vite/js on the frontend so each game is built with that in mind. No gaming engines or physics libraries or anything, Claude handwrites all of it.
First state in the nation to do it (a few others are trying), a few days ago the Hawaii legislature passed, and today the Governor signed, a bill saying that CORPORATIONS DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO BUY POLITICAL ADS
This takes PAC and SuperPAC money out of politics (at least in Hawaii) and gets around the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United vs FEC.
Yes, in some of the games I post the prompt(s) used, especially the early games. I'm going to go back and see if I can add that info to all the games where it's missing. The only game where I felt I needed to explain the game itself was Backgammon, if you don't know how to play that game it's kind of confusing, but all the others have space for the "patch notes"
React/vite frontend, .NET API backend. A few of the games are canvas-based, but most of them are just API calls (the turn-based games). This one is live-action so it's using websockets (SignalR)
If you flip through the games, sometimes I share the prompts used (text at the bottom of each page is like a blog entry), especially when I'm able to make a solid game with a single prompt. A few of the games have taken multiple prompts though.
I used to run a flash games website (SWF files) years ago. I've made a few games of my own. I'm also an avid gamer and love to play games of all kinds.
I'm also a software engineer, and a few days ago I decided I wanted to run a games website again. So I bought the domain gamevibe.us and with the help of Claude I've been vibe-coding one video game every day since.
Happy to answer questions, take feedback, etc -- don't hold back, I know it's pretty elementary so far
Most days I create the game itself in a single prompt, or sometimes a second one to add pop/slide animations for the computer moves which the AI doesn't include by default but really adds to the experience imo
So for making the game, 5 to 15 minutes tops
But I spend between 1-4 hours on other supporting features, like the high scores, user authentication flow, fixing minor bugs I notice, marketing tasks, etc
An answer I haven't seen yet in this thread: give people actual sick days instead of PTO.
At most companies I've worked at, including my current employer, sick days and vacation days are combined into PTO - Paid Time Off. Who wants to burn a vacation day if you're sick but capable of working?
hn@prx_d0t_us