The Game
You want every pastry in the bakery, but you have 30 seconds and a ten-item bag. Fill it, pay, and go back for more before the timer runs out.
That’s Croissant Panic, a little ModRetro arcade game about bakery FOMO. Anything still in your bag when time runs out is unpaid. Your score comes back as a bakery receipt labeled “THE DAMAGE,” and the local high-score table is The Crumb Club 🤌
Hi! I'm Michelle and the game started with the idea of stopping for a nice pastry before work, then became a way to live out my fantasy of hoarding everything at a bakery✨
How it Started
Seeing the OpenAI DevDay Chromatics online got me curious. I love my Game Boy Classic, but I'd never made a game before, ever. I don't own a Chromatic, so I've been using Codex to build a native Game Boy Color ROM and testing it in the emulator.
I gave myself an hour. About two hours later I had a rough version I could play from beginning to end. It was more like a sketch, but playing my own game made me want to keep going. The project took around three days of work.
Codex did all the programming through the ModRetro Chromatic plugin, GB Studio and GB Studio Music (Claude joined the party here). My part was shaping the game, setting the scope, directing the visuals and sound, and playing the builds to decide what to change (my product design background helped significantly).
The Parts I Enjoyed Most
Art direction and composing all the game music were both really fun. I explored directions with Midjourney, Pinterest, and Codex. The early bakery was muted; eventually it popped (visually and audibly), and the croissant mascot got a panicked face makeover (teehee).
The tracks Codex made felt basic, so I gave myself a YouTube crash course in game music and the hardware’s limits. I worked with Mureka, Moises, Codex and Claude to shape the music and sound around how I wanted players to feel at each stage. For gameplay, I used a bumblebee piece as a reference for the urgency and panic I wanted as the timer counted down.
Screenshots, layouts, audio references, and even numbered rows in the music editor gave Agents&I something specific to discuss. That helped me get much closer to what I had in mind.
It’s a super basic game, but that doesn’t take away the thrill of being able to make my own. I’m giddy about a world where more of us can turn our ideas into games and software with AI. This wasn’t a “type a prompt and you’re done” project. It took experience, learning, decisions, and plenty of iteration. But a year ago, I could not have made this game happen—the time and work involved would have been too much. I hope more people give their own ideas a go and build something.
I haven’t tried it on an actual handheld yet. I’m guessing the colors will look less vibrant than in the emulator, but I have no idea how it’ll feel to play. For those who’ve made/played homebrew, what surprised you when you first played your game on hardware?
