I've Been Making Video Games

Table of Contents

Learning to code in a new way
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When I was young I used to use CTRL+BREAK to halt running code on programs I enjoyed on my family’s Apple IIe. If successful I would immediately type list to show the code of the running program. I was able to look at the code and understand how it worked. Using this technique I was able to write my own software to mimic what was being done by someone else’s software. I learned the early-programming days commands such as GOTO and IF, FOR and WHILE. I used these tools to make basic programmed Choose Your Own Adventure books, or very basic Zork type text games.

As time went on, I have continued to learn best in this same way.

Experience something I enjoy on a computer.
Look at the code that runs it.
Make my own version of the code, tweaking and experimenting.
Master the techniques by completely starting from scratch.

After a while your knowledge compounds to a point where you can be considered an expert. This is no different than how most people learn sports, or how to ride a bike. Observe, rationalize, experiment, practice, master. I’ve been doing this now for 40+ years with computers. So what’s got me so excited now?

AI is a whole new way to accelerate learning
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The techniques I have always used to learn about how computers and software work are tried and true. They work extremely well for me. The only thing holding me back has been I had to have some way of being able to read source code. This could mean breaking into software or reverse engineering. This could be working with a colleague who can share the code or open source software. But I was always limited to something that already existed. I could never think of something brand new that hadn’t been done, and look at source code for it.

Enter AI.

Now that we have LLMs trained on code, I can ask questions and get code snippets and walk throughs on anything I can dream up. It is almost as if I had just been given sight, where I was previously only able to read brail. I think it helps to have all the fundamentals of programming already under my belt, but if I were starting all over, using AI would replace all other learning methods I have used in the past.

How I got started with Games
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I had lunch with an old friend who oversees software development and who started his career around the same time I did. We were kicking around war stories, and discussing the use of AI in development. He showed me a pinball game he had started to code with AI. He had started by telling the AI he wanted to skip using frameworks and code something from scratch in traditional C#. He had asked it to plan the work before getting started. And what he had coded already looked pretty cool.

I decided to give it a shot myself. When I arrived home that evening I went into my IDE and told it I wanted to make a web based platformer game and I was going to want it to help. It suggested a framework and wrote a very basic proof of concept. I was able to take this framework and then just iterate on it a little bit at a time until I had a fully functioning game.

What is so wonderful about AI, is that again I haven’t been limited by something that has already been written. I have been able to ask the AI to do things like “could we add a light blue tint to the screen and then periodically remove it for a split second to simulate lightning?” and the AI will write code that does a fantastic job translating my words into code that includes physics and timing.

Also, with all the other advancements in AI tech over the last couple of years, I’ve been able to accelerate development by using AI music, AI graphics, AI sound effects and more. You can produce quality stuff so much faster today than even just a couple years ago. AI is here from here on out!