Making a game

Five steps. Say the word; Claude does the rest.

/idea

Tell Claude about the game. It will ask you questions — about how a turn works, how you win, what is fun about it. Answer as a game designer; it will work out the technical side itself.

It writes a short brief at the end so nothing gets lost.

Do this even when the idea feels obvious. The questions are quick and they catch the thing you had not decided yet.

/new-game

Claude builds it. Rules first, with tests, then the interface. It plays a round itself before telling you it is done.

The game starts as a draft — playable at its own link, not on the front page.

/playtest

Claude plays a full round and tells you two things: what is broken, and how it feels. It checks it at a phone-sized screen too.

Then you play it. That is the part nobody can do for you.

Go round this loop as many times as you like. Change a rule, playtest, change it again. That is the job.

/juice

Once it plays properly, this makes it feel good — screen shake, a freeze on impact, sounds, things that pop when you touch them.

Deliberately last. Juice on a game that is not fun yet just hides the problem.

/ship

Runs the tests, makes it public, puts it online, and hands you the link to send your friends.

If the tests fail it refuses and tells you why. That is on purpose — the live site is the real one.

A worked example

You:    /idea — a game where two people race to claim squares on a grid,
        but claiming a square unclaims your opponent's neighbours

Claude: [asks about grid size, turn order, how it ends, what is fun]
        [writes docs/ideas/claim-jump.md]

You:    /new-game

Claude: [writes the rules and tests, they pass, builds the board,
        plays a round as two players, reports back]

You:    /playtest

Claude: [plays it, reports: works, but the middle drags because
        the board is too big for two players]

You:    make it 5x5 instead of 8x8

Claude: [changes it, tests still pass, plays it again]

You:    /juice

Claude: [adds a shake on a steal, a pop on a claim, sounds]

You:    /ship

Claude: [tests pass, goes live, hands you daligames.xyz/play/claim-jump]

When something breaks

On your computer: say /stuck. Claude reproduces it first, finds the actual cause, and writes a test so it cannot come back. It will tell you what was wrong in two sentences.

On the website: say /fix-the-website. Different problem, different causes — usually a setting rather than a bug in your game. It also knows how to put the old version back in a few seconds if you would rather fix it without an audience.

Two things worth knowing

Say when something is not fun. Claude will believe you and change it. "This drags in the middle" is a completely usable instruction.

Ask what things mean. Anything Claude says that you do not follow, ask. It has been told to explain rather than to sound clever.