Haters will suggest AI built this, but I can personally tell there’s at least a kilomolyneux (approx. 55 centikojimas) of PhD-level game dev expertise involved.
It feels like each new SOTA model brings the average quality a bit closer to the asymptote of well-made non-vibecoded software but it can't quite cross it.
Nintendo wasn’t even trying, it was all their old sprite characters from Japan market that didn’t do well smashed together in a rushed title for an NA launch. It surprised them.
Huh? This is very much not my understanding of SMB1’s development. Are you maybe thinking of Donkey Kong (made to replace a failed arcade game) and/or the US version of SMB2 (a re-skinned non-Mario Japanese game)?
Oh he absolutely cared about the programming and process of game development, don't get me wrong. It's that Nintendo (corporate) needed something for the NA market and he was eager to fill that gap with already used characters (such as Mario). Anything else is corporate propaganda they have been telling as a creation myth to make it sound more fairytale-like than it was. They were going broke. They needed money. North America was ripe for the picking. The risk paid off.
Yep. Additionally having experimented pretty heavily in this space, I'll state that even with state-of-the-art models (like NB Pro or GPT-Image-2), good luck getting them to generate sprite sheets with consistent frames for animation particularly if you're shooting for a pixel art aesthetic.
I've made a few sprite-based animations with AI assistance but it still required a fair amount of manual photoshop (or in my case Aseprite) post-processing.
If you're not going for pixel art, use the video to video models (the character swap ones that take in a video reference of the animation and a still of the character (the tiktok deepfake models)).
You can e.g. download a run cycle from Mixamo, use Blender to render a video from whatever angle you wish, and feed that into the model along with your sprite on a green background, it's pretty much perfect.
One-shotting is a bit of a red herring, imo. Let's say I wanted to build a "Super Dario" meme platformer. I would do some research, find a platformer on Codepen or Github that "feels" good, tweak it to my liking, change the sprites, and voila.
I constantly have to tell agents to just "look it up online" and "don't hallucinate your own components" because people have already done this a million times. Ironically, being more lazy could make these models more useful.
So you're saying that it's not fair to rate a coding model on its ability to code, and instead the best way to use it is to tell it to find existing human-written code online rather than generate actual code on its own?
Desktop Safari 18.6 / Mac: Nice, but none of the text on the signs are readable. Just appears as unreadable dots. Also the music doesn't work on Safari.
The game is really cool, but I'm a bit dissapoint by the music. I want the original them song. Also the fact that the game is never ending bothers my OCD
I was expecting this to drown in the flood of /newest, so seeing so many folks get a chuckle out of this is a very pleasant surprise. The obvious spark for this was yesterday's second last-minute extension of the Fable promotional window (a phrase comprised of two heavily strained words at this point), and an hour or so of back-and-forth with GLM-5.2 and Opus later, here we are.
The game is, of course, unwinnable on purpose. There is no ending. The flag always escapes, the date always extends, and new GPT releases will continue to wipe your valuation no matter how many coins or funding round power-ups you collect. The win condition is closing the tab because you're tired of it, which I'd argue makes it the most realistic AI-industry simulation currently available on the internet.
The code is, of course, vibe-slopped, most of the imagery is original human-slop (or sourced from icon libraries). Happy to answer any and all questions and take any and all flak. The bugs are a part of the joke, I swear!
There are plenty of critiques of the AI labs but it's a bit ironic leveling criticism in a game which was obviously one-shotted by their models and which would never have been made without AI
This game was so good, it's as if the developer was given a team of PhD-level experts to work on it.
Haters will suggest AI built this, but I can personally tell there’s at least a kilomolyneux (approx. 55 centikojimas) of PhD-level game dev expertise involved.
Funny idea but wow the gameplay is terrible and full of bugs. Bad hitboxes, shells that bounce in front of holes, bad physics.
AI still cannot oneshot 2D platformers, the most documented videogame genre with so much source code available.
Not to mention it feels like 30hz on my 120hz monitor. It's actually impressive how it managed to mess that up.
But yeah guys, AI sure will be writing all the code just give it another 6 months...
It feels like each new SOTA model brings the average quality a bit closer to the asymptote of well-made non-vibecoded software but it can't quite cross it.
Just amazing how right a few people at Nintendo got this in 1985, and its still so easy to get it absolutely wrong.
Nintendo wasn’t even trying, it was all their old sprite characters from Japan market that didn’t do well smashed together in a rushed title for an NA launch. It surprised them.
Huh? This is very much not my understanding of SMB1’s development. Are you maybe thinking of Donkey Kong (made to replace a failed arcade game) and/or the US version of SMB2 (a re-skinned non-Mario Japanese game)?
[delayed]
Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken many times about the process of perfecting the controls for SMB, which is quite the opposite of "wasn't even trying".
Oh he absolutely cared about the programming and process of game development, don't get me wrong. It's that Nintendo (corporate) needed something for the NA market and he was eager to fill that gap with already used characters (such as Mario). Anything else is corporate propaganda they have been telling as a creation myth to make it sound more fairytale-like than it was. They were going broke. They needed money. North America was ripe for the picking. The risk paid off.
On the "bright side", it's impossible to die!
That's the power of venture capital!
This was my favorite bit of meta-commentary: it doesn't matter how poorly you play, you never lose!
More like keeps "extending by 1 more week"
You’re absolutely right! /s
Yep. Additionally having experimented pretty heavily in this space, I'll state that even with state-of-the-art models (like NB Pro or GPT-Image-2), good luck getting them to generate sprite sheets with consistent frames for animation particularly if you're shooting for a pixel art aesthetic.
I've made a few sprite-based animations with AI assistance but it still required a fair amount of manual photoshop (or in my case Aseprite) post-processing.
If you're not going for pixel art, use the video to video models (the character swap ones that take in a video reference of the animation and a still of the character (the tiktok deepfake models)).
You can e.g. download a run cycle from Mixamo, use Blender to render a video from whatever angle you wish, and feed that into the model along with your sprite on a green background, it's pretty much perfect.
One-shotting is a bit of a red herring, imo. Let's say I wanted to build a "Super Dario" meme platformer. I would do some research, find a platformer on Codepen or Github that "feels" good, tweak it to my liking, change the sprites, and voila.
I constantly have to tell agents to just "look it up online" and "don't hallucinate your own components" because people have already done this a million times. Ironically, being more lazy could make these models more useful.
So you're saying that it's not fair to rate a coding model on its ability to code, and instead the best way to use it is to tell it to find existing human-written code online rather than generate actual code on its own?
I think that supports the premise more than it defies it
Strong agree. Very much part of the joke.
Desktop Safari 18.6 / Mac: Nice, but none of the text on the signs are readable. Just appears as unreadable dots. Also the music doesn't work on Safari.
Firefox works great!
Agh, sorry about that. I had no Mac around to test this on, though I might be able to get one by proxy. I'll try to get it fixed.
Absolute fire. Love how Deepseek tortoise shell can only be slowed, not killed.
Thank you, I missed that.
If you like tech-themed games, I made Good Til Canceled for GTC - check it out - https://goodtilcanceled.com/
The game is really cool, but I'm a bit dissapoint by the music. I want the original them song. Also the fact that the game is never ending bothers my OCD
Okay, so, maker here!
I was expecting this to drown in the flood of /newest, so seeing so many folks get a chuckle out of this is a very pleasant surprise. The obvious spark for this was yesterday's second last-minute extension of the Fable promotional window (a phrase comprised of two heavily strained words at this point), and an hour or so of back-and-forth with GLM-5.2 and Opus later, here we are.
The game is, of course, unwinnable on purpose. There is no ending. The flag always escapes, the date always extends, and new GPT releases will continue to wipe your valuation no matter how many coins or funding round power-ups you collect. The win condition is closing the tab because you're tired of it, which I'd argue makes it the most realistic AI-industry simulation currently available on the internet.
The code is, of course, vibe-slopped, most of the imagery is original human-slop (or sourced from icon libraries). Happy to answer any and all questions and take any and all flak. The bugs are a part of the joke, I swear!
This is great lol
Can you release a version playable on mobile?
Yeah, on it right now! Should be up within the hour.
edit: It's up!
Level 10 government subsidy invincible mode
gotta save some ideas for the sequel
well done, got a good laugh out of this one.
I think you should try submitting it to anthropic community :)
https://claude.com/community#:~:text=What,Claude%3F
I'll... uh, do it next week!
The music reminds me of Mappy Land (one of my favorite childhood games).
No credit to me for that! Got it off of here: https://opengameart.org/content/bonus-round-8bit
+1 for the claude icon fire bars
I wonder which model built it :-)
Why do the coins spin faster when I move?
Absolutely hilarious
Someone didn't know how to use the remaining credits.
The heavy lifting was done by Opus. I wouldn't burn precious soon-to-be-departing Fable usage on this!
I wouldnt be so sure Fable wouldnt just refuse to do this
I mean, technically, "I selected Fable for this task" and "Opus did the heavy lifting" aren't mutually exclusive statements...?
The game must be banned for 6 months
With the Gemini power-up falling off the screen got a chuckle out of me
This was my favorite as well.
Can’t believe this doesn’t already exist.
Shouldn't the valuation be in Bs instead of Ms?
Numbers look bigger when multiplied by one thousand
Grab that coin and you'll get there!
a perfect representation of the situation
No mobile support.
Thanks for your contribution.
On-screen controls are live!
this guy fits better, I guess: https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/videos/04iSw6696vB87oa...
incredible
hahaahhahahahahahahahahahah
This reminded me of how much I suck at side-scroller arcade games. I keep missing those coins and falling off ledges... :-(
Good thing I have a day job. Where I don't use AI.
Nice and clever!
I mean, Sam should be more of a ghoul with those creepy sunken eyes. And Dario that guy with hair on the sides.
Like political satire, only in IT.
There are plenty of critiques of the AI labs but it's a bit ironic leveling criticism in a game which was obviously one-shotted by their models and which would never have been made without AI
A model harness can launch a bagillion sub agents and we still call it one shotting.
That's part of the joke.
who needs this AI-genrated game for real though? Would not I rather play the real Mario instead? this is clearly part of the joke!
Fighting them with their own weapons isn’t ironic it’s poetic justice