My entire timeline is Opus 5.5-created video games that would have cost millions to make 2-3 years ago.
We've crossed the threshold. Some predictions and implications:
- The era of the auteur game designer: Stardew Valley & Balatro-style, single creator games will become common if not the majority. Distinct and coherent vision will rule all
- Discovery is the bottleneck: YouTube/tiktok for games, explosion on platforms like Roblox seems inevitable. Where will they aggregate?
- Remix & extended universe explosion: games like Pokemon have had ROM hacks and fan-created games for years, but we will see the seem iterative mimetic engine from fanfiction and social video platforms
- Games will have the "lightness" of other media: do you ever choose to watch a specific intagram reel? Perhaps that is too extreme, but YouTube videos <> movies might be the right comp for new games <> old games
- What games & worlds will be heavy?: related to much of the above; where will attention, creation and consumption time aggregate beyond discovery platforms? What types of forms & IP will people build on top of and remix most? Will those who are "generous" in this will see returns, or will it look more like the viciously competitive Battle Royale genre? Will the ease of creation concentrate on existing IP or bloom into many niches?
- What will be hard about making games? Beyond getting attention of course. Design in the broad sense, weirdness, surprise, tapping into word of mouth...
- Many games will be about making games: Not a new trend (Minecraft, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Sims, Mario Maker, Roblox, Fortnite, New interactions like Portal, Baba is You...), but I have to imagine this is where so much of innovation will come. If it is this fun to make games, you might as well give that experience to your player!
bro to bro:
don't tie your identity to your skills
AI might change how you code, design, write or make art
but you are not a programmer
you are not a designer
you are not a photographer
those are things you learned to do
if you're a creator at heart, you'll create
if you're an artist at heart, you'll make art
the tools will change
the skills will change
the work will change
you'll still be you
don't confuse mastery of a tool with who you are
take whatever comes next and make something with it
Não entendo como o movimento maker n faz mais o barulho que fazia antigamente. Hoje em dia é possível comprar componentes da China, recebê-los em 7 dias, jogar td no Claude, escrever seu firmware, modelar um case 3d, subir um servidor e personalizar td para as suas necessidades
I honestly don’t care at all that I spend 30 years of my life learning syntax and now that knowledge is essentially useless.
Frankly, I’m relieved that I don’t need to care about it anymore. That stuff never really mattered anyways. Code was always just a means to an end.
All I care about is building products that users love. Now I can do that faster. That means I can have bigger impact.
If anything, software engineers should all be celebrating. I don’t understand why you’d “mourn” not needing to write code. The code was never the point.
@danielkleach It's depressing if you have a victimhood mentality, and if your entire identity depends on you needing to struggle all the time (and for people to see it). On the other hand, it's inspiring if you have vision and even an ounce of curiosity.
People are going to realize that working in an office was never their dharma.
They will reconnect to their bodies, the natural world, and each other.
And they will realize that this is infinitely more fulfilling than any grind.
Yesterday, my boys and I vibe coded a game together. They tell me what they want in their game and I prompt it into Opus 5.5 to build it.
And of course they picked "Zelda Breath of the Wild" inspired game, where they can explore an open world, do dungeon puzzles, fight mini bosses and a final boss. The twist is that the hero holds a giant paintbrush as a weapon, each color had a different attack and effect (red = fire, blue = ice, yellow = bounce, green = vines). And oh they also wanted to fly on the paintbrush.
We spent our whole saturday playing and iterating on the game. It was great fun.
I told them, the future is all about Imagination, whatever they can imagine, it will be manifested in a digital experience.
At the end of the day, the game had:
- 2 biomes (1 island and a bunch of floating islands)
- Paintbrush-based combat (4 colors representing different effects and mechanics)
- 3 dungeons with puzzles
- An undeground cave
- Unlockable flying paintbrush when you activate 4 crystals around the island
- 30+ enemies and elites
- 1 giant boss
As you can see in the gameplaye video below, its not the most polished video game but it's so satisfying to see my boys getting bewildered when whatever they asked for, the game is built before their eyes.
Of all the games I have vibe coded so far, this was the most satisfying because my boys were actively co-creating it and playing it.
This is definitely not the last game we're making together, they have already started brainstorming their next game, hint: "Peak with grappling hooks and TNTs."
You can play the game here, works only on desktop:
https://t.co/iHpBY4zvmJ