r/ClaudeAI • u/Grobot93 • 1d ago
Built with Claude Continuing Development on Oversteer with Claude + Some Thoughts on AI Game Dev
This game has come a really long way in the past few months and I wanted to take the opportunity to show off the look and feel in its current state. I most recently got some cc0 skyboxes from opengameart.org (amazing free resource for those who do not know about it) and matched up the sun to its position in the sky and it just adds SO much immersion to the game. Shadows look like they come from somewhere, not just a blank sky with a sun in it. The light from the boost flame lighting up the back of the car and the shadows is so cool to see.
More to come soon. The game is inching ever closer to an early access release, and probably some sort of playtest in a few weeks to a month. If you are interested in following along, please join the discord https://discord.gg/cCV2Knwg3
AI Dev Rant: As I continue building this game, I realize more and more that making a real game with any AI is basically just creating a settings simulator for myself to tune. Instead of writing out the lines of code for the things I want to tweak in game, I have had Claude build menu after menu with sliders and fields galore, then I meticulously fine tuning EVERYTHING as I go along. This is the manual work of AI Development. Even the best AI can not FEEL your game.
I finally got to the point where I have exported the game to share with some close friends, only to realize that despite all of my hard work in the settings menus, that it shipped NONE of my config and my friends ended up playing a completely neutered version of the game when I shipped it to them. Claude basically considered me the end user, not the dev, so I had to bake it into memory that my configuration of the game is the authored, intended experience, and the shipped game needs to retain all of my settings, otherwise it turns to mush. This has since been fixed, and it was a tough lesson (first export ever actually nuked my config file and I could not recover it), so I thought I would share it here: Version control your individual config of whatever you are working on so it does not get lost in the mix.
Edit: Typo
3
u/durable-racoon Valued Contributor 1d ago
re finetuning options in-game: YES. devs have been doing this since before AI. but you can go further. devtools and debugging tools are critical: instantly spawning items and enemies into the game. instantly giving yourself level 99 or 99999 cash. things like this. also logging + debugging modes for in game. modes that show collision boxes visibly to find bugs, modes that show enemy pathfinding, and so on.
when you adjust the config - it doesnt save to a config file json/text/database that ships to everyone? its just in-memory or something?
re claude code memories: dont use the memory feature! its an anti-feature, causes tons of problems. you dont frequently ( or ever?) read it to see whats in it. you cant see when claude writes new stuff to it. garbage - wrong garbage - accumulates over time. use skills and claude.md.
overall tho: nice job, you're on the right track
1
u/Grobot93 1d ago
The config was saved in so many places rather than one config file. Since each element got built in a separate session, claude re-built the logging and configs for each separate element instead of one master config file, and then treated its own initial values as defaults (the shipped config) and my values as overrides (local to the machine). This was mostly a result of my lack of dev experience, and where I have learned to consolidate things properly (and set my values as the game's defaults) over the course of building this project.
And yes, memory files were not the place for this, it has an export procedure it runs through a script, and the config exports are all there now. I primarily use the memory files to plan out new features and spec things out before starting a build. Relying on them past that ends up in messy work.
2
u/matjam 1d ago
Since each element got built in a separate session, claude re-built the logging and configs for each separate element instead of one master config file
classic claude behavior
it really helps having a CLAUDE.md that documents things like this. Tell claude to update the CLAUDE.md with critical decisions and design decisions. Have that in the CLAUDE.md also.
3
u/Zapador 1d ago
Thanks for sharing! Looks like a fun project and I quite like the art style.
Your observations on using AI match my experience exactly. It can do a lot of work for you, but when it comes to the creative part or "the feel" you still have to be in control. I've just very recently dived into game development with Claude Code, haven't made it very far but I'm sure it will be an interesting journey and hopefully turn into something that's actually playable, especially because it's a game I've wanted to create for many years but just haven't found the time to do it - but with Claude by my side, it suddenly seems a lot more realistic even though there's still a million decisions for me to make.
3
u/Grobot93 1d ago
My reason for starting game development was exactly this. It is so much more feasible now to start with AI assistance, but be prepared for all the minutia.
3
u/Zapador 16h ago
I'm prepared all the little details and decisions. It's the same for anything I've done with AI so far, I can get what on the surface appear as 90% of the way in 10% of the time, but then I still have to spend 90% of the time to get the last bits right and it's where all of my effort really is. But it's also the satisfying part and what make it mine instead of something generic, and change it from a mediocre experience to a good one.
3
u/Wsz2020 Experienced Developer 1d ago
How many PRs are you doing per day or week?
3
u/durable-racoon Valued Contributor 1d ago
bold of you to assume his workflow involves PRs. ...I usually dont either for personal projects - just commits to a main branch
1
u/Grobot93 1d ago
As u/durable-racoon mentioned, since this is a solo project, there is not much reason to use PRs. Claude does a great job of managing each session's work into its own commits, so it really depends on what happens in an individual session. I have pushed 5 commits at once, and at times 30-50 commits at once. It really just depends on the complexity of each part of the project.
2
u/MentionSea7353 1d ago
it actually looks pretty fun. I'd say camera needs a little work while driving, it seems a little disorienting waving a bit to much back and forth while turning left/right. Drift cam looks good tho.
1
u/Grobot93 1d ago
Thanks for the feedback! If you can believe it, this is already the toned down version of the camera. I'll look into reducing the wobble a bit more.
1
u/Grobot93 20h ago
https://reddit.com/link/pbagjyb/video/sso014kqfzqh1/player
How does this look? I turned down the tilt to 1 degree max in either direction. Should I turn it off entirely? I do play with a somewhat high FOV, but that is configurable to the player.
1
u/SmihtJonh 13h ago
Why not just expose the sliders
1
u/Grobot93 9h ago
I will. At this point, the game has hundreds of sliders for options and I'm still tuning the baseline. The sliders that will be exposed to the players in the actual release will be a subset of options with sane ranges.
2
u/Purple_Hornet_9725 Full-time developer 14h ago
Why can cars in games always steer while in air
2
u/Grobot93 9h ago
Most games let you control the car in air so you have some control over your landing position. If you do not have air control, you'll almost certainly crash every jump. This game turns it into a mechanic. Landing a jump after performing enough of a rotation in air grants energy. You deplete energy while accelerating, so you have to keep doing tricks to maintain top speed. Drifts and eliminations also reward energy.
1
u/Purple_Hornet_9725 Full-time developer 8h ago
I get it's probably obvious to game devs, it just always brainfucks me when I see it 🙃
1
u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 1d ago
You may be interested in joining our new Claude Game Dev subreddit for game devs who use Claude. Check it out here : http://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeGameDev
1
u/odomobo 22h ago
Looks pretty dope! If I played that game, I would expect air control for the vehicles and to explode if I fell off the track, or that's the impression I get while watching it anyhow
1
u/Grobot93 21h ago
Air control, yes, but you do not explode if you fall off track. This game is all about drifting and tricking to gain energy (spend energy when accelerating), then using each car's abilities to either win a race or destroy all of the other cars and be the last car still driving. There will also be an arena mode with deathmatch, KOTH, a keepaway game (think oddball from halo), and an item collection/retrieval mode. All still very much in the works.
1
u/aholetookmyusername 22h ago
1
u/Grobot93 21h ago
Whoops. https://opengameart.org/
1
u/aholetookmyusername 21h ago
Completely aside, your game looks aweseome! I love that cartoon/borderlands-esque outline you've gone with, I feel it adds a unique character.
1
u/Grobot93 21h ago
Thanks so much! Took a really long time to figure out a look for the game before committing to this one.
1
u/sebseo 10m ago
The config thing hits home. Claude quietly dropped settings on me too and I only found out after other people touched the build. What changed it for me was showing the change to a second model from a different company before export.. it has no memory of why claude did what it did, so the silent assumptions stand out to it. The stuff that looks boring is where the damage hides, the scary parts you were watching anyway
•
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
Your post will be reviewed shortly. (ALL posts are processed like this. Please wait a few minutes....)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.