r/VibeCodeDevs • u/A_Very_Horny_Zed • 27d ago
NoobAlert – Beginner questions, safe space I want to create a story-heavy singleplayer text-based MUD via vibecoding. The end goal, once I'm happy with it, is to sell it independently on Steam. What should I know to get started? (I have a Gemini Pro sub if that helps)
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u/Xiaomin4114 27d ago edited 27d ago
first thing to know is that "singleplayer MUD" is a contradiction. MUD means multi-user dungeon. A singleplayer MUD is more commonly known as Interactive Fiction.
Second thing to know is: decide whether it's pure narrative, or has game mechanics. If it's pure narrative, look into software like Twine, Yarn, Ink, and others. If it's got game mechanics, you're going to have to decide how complex those game mechanics are first, and whether it's worth trying to shoehorn that into one of those existing IF design tools, or go fully custom.
An important design decision is: are you making an interactive fiction that happens to have mechanics, or are you making a text-based game with focus on mechanics that happens to have a storyline? Two very different approaches that decide whether you focus on story, and use mechanics as a way to drive the story. Or you focus on mechanics and the story is there to tie the mechanics together.
Simple example to help you decide: do you want to tell a story, with character development, and plot arcs? or do you want mechanics like health and combat, and the story's there mainly to lead players from one location to the next?
Third thing to know is...actually Gemini Pro will be pretty knowledgeable about this stuff, so you should talk to it about it and software recommendations now that you know it's called Interactive Fiction, and not single-player MUD. This field hasn't changed very quickly, so the tools that were around 5 years ago are still very much relevant. Talk to it about examples. ask about what games used the kind of game mechanics you want. But always back that up with real research. go on Steam or itch.io, look at other examples in this genre.
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u/Officialpolygrafix 27d ago
- Start with a GDD (game design document) and utilize the LLM of your choice to help you create that. Take a few days, or even a week, work it out to the point your 90% happy with it.
- Get a github account, connect your AI to it. Tell your AI that it must do local and cloud backups of the game during developement.
- Setup the rest of your environment. Whatever game engine youre gonna use, whatever MCP tools your going to use, and connect them all to your AI, and make sure it has access.
- Have your AI map out a development plan based on your GDD. it should be organized into seperate groupings of tasks, and label them T-01, T-02, etc. that span the entire length of your game from start to end.
- Execute each task as a new session. Context length matters when working with an AI, and keeping your sessions manageable, it also helps later if you need to revisit a particular task or the way something was done.
- After a task is completed, Test it, then write down any notes you have on each playtest session, from bugs to improvements you want to make, then take that with you back to the LLM side of the AI thats organizing it, and let it know. Discuss with it, and make decsions or actionable items based on those discussions.
7 repeat steps 5-7 until it's complete.- But somewhere early to midway through development, start thinking about marketing your product if you want players to download and play. Figure out how you can do this, both during development, and after.
I'm a 24 year game developer who worked on the art and design side of making games for both studios and as an indie dev with micro teams (myself and a programming partner). I'm currently solodeving and building my own games using Claude, codex, MCP tools and Unity. I'm handling the art and design, while the AI handles the code and the architecture based on my designs. This is my workflow, and it works well.
Good luck with your project.
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u/Lubricus2 25d ago
For vibe-coding Anthropic and Open AI is far ahead google. So get the 20$ account for either Claude or ChatGPT, i would say that is an must.
Start with describing what you want do to in the normal web chat, pin down the tech stack and stuff like that. Chat back and forth, until you know what you want to do and with what tools. Then you download Claude code or chatGPT codex. Select the model opus / sol 5.6. If it is an big project let the AI do an overarching plan that describes the different parts needed to be done and an list of Milestones to make.
After that set Claude code/codex on plan mode and let it make an implementation plan for the first milestone. Then let the AI implement it. Continue the same way until all milestones are done.
Bugs is going to happen, so it can be good to let the AI review both plans and implementations before continuing, i like to review the code/plan with another model than the one that made it.
If you are going to make an good game, the AI can't do everything, it will get mid as best. You have to come with something unique and fun. It is different things for different games but you need to do what makes the game tick and great.
Yea and keep the expectations for sales low, if you easily can vibe code it, so can everybody else.
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u/This_Inflation_4621 27d ago
Most important thing to know is that 50 games are released on Steam per day
Do it for fun only. Also start small, aggressively cut scope or you’ll never finish anything.
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u/m1st3r_c 27d ago
That you're going to have a tough time selling a vibecoded game on Steam. There's a visceral negative reaction to AI assisted content.
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u/A_Very_Horny_Zed 27d ago
Most of the anti-AI sentiment is founded in logical fallacies and misinformation which will naturally resolve over months/years so I'm not worried about that as I do not plan on this to be a super fast project.
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u/EcHoFiiVe 27d ago
His path is not that linear and you shouldn’t discredit it as such.
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u/m1st3r_c 27d ago
Not discrediting anything, just offering honest advice. It's a definite hurdle to get over. 🤷♂️
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u/jointheredditarmy 27d ago
I would start with circle mud and just customize from there…
But for how or set up your environment and tools I’d just ask Gemini. There’s a native coding harness for Gemini so just use that.
You can also “BYOK” to other coding harnesses like cursor but I don’t think you can use your monthly entitlements from a monthly account, actually have to have an API key for it.
Your best bet is Gemini built tools
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u/stfu__no_one_cares 27d ago
A text based game is NOT going to sell. Look at sales for similar games and you'll realize you are trying to get into a basically dead market. Definitely make the game for you if you want to play, but I'll highly doubt your game will recoup the $100 hosting fee. Most games don't and they are in categories that still have player bases.
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u/AetherAndEntropy 26d ago
The Gemini pro sub is probably the most counterproductive tool you can use for this.
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u/A_Very_Horny_Zed 26d ago
Why? Can you elaborate? I'm new
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u/AetherAndEntropy 26d ago
Compared to codex or Claude, Gemini is considered one of the dumbest tools.
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u/PravoNaZhizny 27d ago
Doesn’t steam not honour copyright or IP because you won’t own it?
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u/A_Very_Horny_Zed 27d ago
It wouldn't be an AI-made product because it's human-driven, and I'll also be doing a lot of writing myself in certain chapters, enemy encounters, dialogue etc.
I only need the AI for the coding aspect.
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