I am in the process of using Claude Opus 5 to build an N64 game, and it really works. I've written no code and it is able to build a fully functional game.
I got it to write a skill for driving the Ares emulator via GDB Remote Serial Protocol and it uses that for its feedback loop.
What do you get out of that? The utility of having the end product (a generated game for an obsolete console) seems pretty small, and personally I would think the fun is in learning about the inner workings of the time capsule that is 90s hardware. Would you mind explaining?
Not the OP, but when I was kid I used to draw game level for 8-bit systems back when I wasn’t allowed on a computer (screen time).
My point is, people get enjoyment out of game design too. It’s not just about nerding out on technical specs.
> My point is, people get enjoyment out of game design too.
The plot-twist here is: The game design is made by Claude too :)
I guess the curiosity here is in why game design for a modern target platform wouldn't garner the same enjoyment.
It's just not the same. I made games for the PSP and Vita and it's "different" than making games for Windows or Playstation/Xbox. There's something about seeing your creation on a tiny handheld. I guess maybe nowadays we got desensitized to it because our phones are actual supercomputers which can run Fortnite without breaking a sweat, but making a device with 2MB of ram play your game as you imagined it is just hyper cool and (for me personally) is incredibly satisfying.
I'm not trying to be dismissive here - I am the type to be into the nitty gritty nerdy stuff that using Claude skips, BUT I have exactly zero experience developing anything for a legacy hardware platform in any capacity (with or without Claude) so genuinely curious to learn varying perspectives here.
Is it about the idea of the platform having limited capabilities (e.g. akin to Game Bub or MiSTer) or about tactile aesthetics (e.g. possibly vaguely comparable - though not really - to r36t or play.date) or something different entirely.
Honestly I think part of it is just that it's cool to see software running on this platform. I remember coding some trash apps on the 3DS back in the day simply because I could. It was great seeing code running somewhere it isn't strictly "supposed to"
If you enjoy this sort of thing I’d highly recommend pico-8 and tic-80. Both have pretty full featured dev environments and have a set of restrictions that make developing for them fun.
But they aren't real hardware platforms.
Yep, I made several games for the Pico-8, it's really really fun.
Just as there are people who like programming for its own sake, there are also people who like making AI do things, for its own sake.
While I agree with you, I think it's interesting that LLMs have progressed enough to be able to write working code even for niche and heavily-constrained platforms like the N64. I'm sure it helps that modern toolchains make that easier (I don't expect very many LLMs to be able to put up with the old Windows 9x or IRIX toolchains, to say the least!).
If your game fits in the bounds of N64 hardware it makes perfect sense IMO. You basically get virtually all modern platforms for free. Much easier than wrestling with all the modern API that are "platform independent" but not really.
I mean, there is plenty of people out there who enjoy the process of making a game(they have a really clear idea of gameplay mechanics they think would be fun when put together) but they really don't enjoy programming at all. I guess it's kinda the same - I Want to see my game happen, I don't want to code it. Which isn't that different from where all the other tools are leading us anyway. Nowadays you can make a video game by just downloading an engine and building everything using the included scripting language most of the time - no need to understand rendering, IO, input or anything else.
There's a time and place for everything.
> Nowadays you can make a video game by just downloading an engine and building everything using the included scripting language most of the time - no need to understand rendering, IO, input or anything else.
I don't disagree, but I don't see it as a positive, looking at the current game releases and their performance being shockingly unoptimised, there is a lot of lost real world value in knowing the lower level details, it's like anything really, sometimes you have to do the hard/unappealing work to create your best work.
Hmmm look, I can offer you my perspective on this.
I've been a low level engine programmer in video games all my working life. I worked on a few AAA games that sold 20M+ copies, I'm not saying this to boast, I'm saying this to say I know how the sausage is made. My literal day to day job is fixing issues like "The RHI thread on the Switch takes 0.5ms longer than it should" and optimizing things as much as possible.
I think if you asked me few years ago, I would have also taken the same stance you did - that these tools make it "too easy" and we get unoptimized crap out there.
But you know what, nowadays I feel like I mellowed out a lot. A lot of these so called "friendslop" games are horrible in terms of technical work. And you know what? They still bring joy to people. They still make people laugh and have a great time with the people they like. One of my favourite memories from a game I worked on was reading comments from people who said they were looking forward to just playing the game after work in the evening with their friends. Was optimizing the IO performance on PS4 essential to make the game happen? Sure. But what mattered more was that the game was actually fun to play.
Nowadays I see the improvement in tooling as nothing but a positive. There will always be hardcore engine programmers who know how to do this stuff, I have zero doubt about it. But allowing people to just download an engine and make the thing is absolutely fantastic. To say that it's bad - to me personally - that's gatekeeping. Saying you can't make a game unless you know how to write a renderer or a physics system is so offputting to people who want to make a game but just don't know how - we should be encouraging them, not chastising them for it. Little Big Planet did it well as one of the first games of that kind, if you recall that - just saying, here's a sandbox, make a thing that brings joy to other people. Isn't that what gaming is about?
And on a more serious, business side - it's kinda crazy that Epic lets you use UE for FREE until you start making serious money on the game that you made. You can start a company, hire people, and just start making the game you want to make without paying anything for the tooling. Very few other companies in the world let you do this.
You know thats completely fair. I'm not in the game industry but I see some friends and what they do and I do have to admit, I wouldn't be able for it so it's not really fair for me to critisise.
> it's kinda crazy that Epic lets you use UE for FREE until you start making serious money on the game that you made.
Thinking about how powerfull UE is, it is kind of insane.
Urgh. Cool story...
[flagged]
I saw a comment on HN a few weeks ago, can't remember the context but it was something along the lines of "listening to somebody talk about their vibecoded project is like listening to somebody describe a dream they had last night - you end up just tuning them out, because nobody gives a shit"
On the subject of learning something... Compare your comment to the sibling from Flashtoo. One is genuinely inquisitive and displaying willingness to learn, the other is just dunking all over someone.
One thing that grates with that style of comment though is the implication (whether intended or not) that the link/post author wasted time and could have just had an LLM do it instead. And I think it’s important that we make clear that that style of comment is not welcome here.
If there’s elaboration on why an LLM is being used… do it in the original comment? Otherwise it’s just annoying and serves no purpose
I don't think anyone's implying that people writing software by hand, especially as a hobby, are wasting their time. Like not even if you attribute unreasonably bad faith can you extract that out.
We're living in an amazing time where an algorithm running on a GPU can create novel things by itself and it's just exciting to share what it can do.
I love reading about what people have managed to get running with Claude, because honestly it's amazing that these models can do any of the things they're now doing.
I also enjoy seeing what crazy, cool creative things people are doing.
> that the link/post author wasted time and could have just had an LLM do it instead. And I think it’s important that we make clear that that style of comment is not welcome here.
So if someone talks about how "X" was hard and the first comment mentions there's a library to do "X", is that rude? Or is there a carve-out for the scary AI?
If someone came in with a story about how they were able to easily create an N64 game with No-code/AI/Libraries and the first comment was "ha! I did the same thing in a cave with a box of scraps" that would also be rude.
God forbid people share anecdotes about projects they were working on. On HN...
I agree with dwroberts here. Flashtoo's comment is indeed a better faith engagement on paper, but you should consider the question whether the root comment was deserving of such good faith engagement in the first place.
Going into a post where someone talks about their cool programming hobby project that they do for fun to say "I just made this with AI instead, it was so easy and I didn't even have to do anything myself" is effectively also dunking on the author and disrespecting/devaluing the effort they put into whatever they submitted, just in a slightly more indirect way. Personally, if I read such a comment under something I created, I'd feel way more insulted than if they just called me a slur or something.
These sorts of comments are everywhere on HN now, every single post not directly related to AI has someone in the comments mentioning [latest AI product] and how they used it in relation to the topic of the post somehow, to the point that I'm starting to believe it's straight up astroturfing. I'd argue that such comments deserve to be dunked on, downvoted, or even flagged, unless you want all non-AI discussion on HN to die off.
> "I just made this with AI instead, it was so easy and I didn't even have to do anything myself" is effectively also dunking on the author and disrespecting/devaluing the effort they put into whatever they submitted
Yeah! How dare someone share an anecdote about a similar experience they had! On HN of all places. Somebody sharing an experience isn't disrespectful, neither is talking about how they had an easier time doing so.
> Personally, if I read such a comment under something I created, I'd feel way more insulted than if they just called me a slur or something.
Yes, you anti's are certainly irrationally offended by AI.
> ... every single post not directly related to AI has someone in the comments mentioning ... how they used it in relation to the topic of the post somehow
Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, many people use AI?
> I'm starting to believe it's straight up astroturfing.
"Anyone who disagrees must be a shill" is certainly a take.
> I'd argue that such comments deserve to be dunked on, downvoted, or even flagged
So everyone that disagrees with your post should flag it right? Since flagging is just a value judgment on something you don't like?
> unless you want all non-AI discussion on HN to die off.
Least hyperbolic Anti-AI comment.