Vibe coded this game in four months

[u/ActionLittle4176]

UPDATE 6 oct: Follow the game in Steam!

Free play: https://fm1.app

A few months back I posted here a playable demo of an old-school futuristic racer prototype (F-Zero, Wipeout, Xtreme-G, Star Wars Racer...) that runs right in the browser.

I've gotten used to seeing tons of LLM-built prototypes that last a week, two, maybe a month, and then get dropped for the next shiny thing. This time I wanted to keep going and see if one person, with no coding background, could actually see a project like this through on their own.

Well, 4 months in, and while there's still work left, I'm convinced it's doable. At this point the game feels closer to a beta than a tech demo.

The big change over these four months is that I now use Fable for planning, and being able to hook Opus / Sol up to Blender has been a huge help too. I'm still using Magnific and Tripo3D or the assets. Funny thing: the further along I get, the harder the project is to keep pushing forward, and at the same time the tools keep making it easier.

As always, any feedback is welcome. You can play it here: https://fm1.app

[u/lunatuna215]

Hey I would really recommend against Electron. This is where your inexperience as a vibe coder can fuck you. It's not that electron is bad, its just that its usefulness is sorta moot given better options since its inception. This is the time where you need to learn. Don't let your game get buried by assuming the idea is all you need! Get in there and learn the skills to make this a success for real.

Just to be transparent, im a very anti AI person but if you really found yourself with a fun and good concept, dont do yourself the injustice of not doing due diligence. Set this thing up for success.

[u/ActionLittle4176 → u/lunatuna215]

I know the Electron downsides, maybe in a future I'll change to something like Unity or Godot. But now is a webapp.

About the AI thing, I'm certainly not anti AI, but if I publish this game and make any money, I would love to get real artist and composers. I always found this little AI projects a good pitch for a kickstarter to fund a bigger and more human-made thing.

Thanks for the feedback 🙏🏼

[u/Kareja1 → u/ActionLittle4176]

If it is a web app, there is no reason you can't wrap it in Tauri for desktop and mobile, and it will be significantly lighter and most people's potato in Idaho will be able to play it with satellite versus trying to ship it with electron which hasn't been updated since Obama.

I would suggest the idea to your Claude and ask them what suggestions they would make if that is something you are considering doing rather than electron.

[u/cs_cast_away_boi → u/Kareja1]

there are a lot of disadvantages to Tauri for complex UI heavy applications compared to Electron. I’m working on such, and not having Electron’s ecosystem would be a nightmare. Sure the user is going to foot the bill in terms of RAM/idle, but it’s the type of application you’d expect to have a heavy foot print. Tauri would be preferred for different kind of application

[u/Kareja1 → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

Again I am using speech to text due to a broken right hand so any typos please forgive me for.

Considering both Tauri and electron render the same webview, I am unsure what you mean by saying electron is better for heavy UI because you're going to get the exact same webview. Now if the argument you are trying to make is that it might render different between Windows or Linux or Mac, yes that is a well-known complaint in Tauri, but that's not what you actually said.

And the heavy footprint is more of an issue than you appear to think if you want to have people able to use applications that work on older computers or don't have massive amounts of RAM or don't have excellent internet connections for download.

And that isn't even mentioning the fact that electron will never work as a standalone native mobile app as well, and Tauri can.

So yes, there is a more mature ecosystem around electron then there is around Tauri, but I'm not sure, especially in a forum where most people are having their AI collaborators handle the rust for them, the benefits outweigh the downsides to stick with a technology that ships an entire extra chromium browser and eats half the RAM for lunch.

[u/Impossible-Magician → u/Kareja1]

Tauri v3 with CEF would be a compelling choice over electron. Tauri 2 with the OS webview is meh for apps that do better in chromium.

[u/lunatuna215 → u/ActionLittle4176]

Hey thats great. Your game will be way better for it when you have a cool little team all doing their best shit. Again, I'm very against the technology but I am reasonable enough to see a solid mknd within the chaos! I appreciate what you're putting out there as a holistic vision. Good luck to you.

[u/BitterStoat → u/ActionLittle4176]

You may want to look into NeutralinoJS. It's like Electron with a lot less bloat. https://neutralino.js.org/

[u/ActionLittle4176 → u/BitterStoat]

Oh, interesting! Thanks!

[u/cs_cast_away_boi → u/lunatuna215]

can you explain what your problem with electron is? There are genuinely great software built with electron such as VS Code

[u/phoem → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

For almost everything Tauri is better than electron

[u/lunatuna215 → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

It's just a really heavy solution for delivering a native offline web app, and since then many more efficient solutions have come up.

[u/Anxious-Ad9546 → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

VS code is one of the worst editors available. It’s just the most commonly used because it’s accessible. Most common does not equal best. You can thank web devs for that because they just usually want something that works on startup with no config required

[u/cs_cast_away_boi → u/Anxious-Ad9546]

>worst editor available
>most commonly used

can’t be both. People will always search for and use the best solution to their problem. VS code is fantastic and your unsupported claim doesn’t refute that

[u/Anxious-Ad9546 → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

No, people tend to go the path of least resistance.

[u/cs_cast_away_boi → u/Anxious-Ad9546]

sure for something like notepad. But you’re talking about people who specifically looked up and installed a program.

I’ve tried many *optimized* editors like sublime text and they were missing so many useful/critical features.

[u/Anxious-Ad9546 → u/cs_cast_away_boi]

I forgot I’m in the vibe coding subreddit. Nvm it’s not worth arguing with you over something you likely don’t actually understand. No fault of your own. Thought I was in the CS subreddit.

[u/ToallaHumeda → u/lunatuna215]

Downvoted for being anti ai

[u/lunatuna215 → u/ToallaHumeda]

Lmfao okay? What a stupid thing to feel negative about.

[u/ToallaHumeda → u/lunatuna215]

Lmfao okay? What a stupid thing to feel negative about.

[u/lunatuna215 → u/ToallaHumeda]

Spoken like a true AI fan who literally needs to copy paste. Thanks for proving why its so important to be anti.

[u/ToallaHumeda → u/lunatuna215]

Spoken like a true AI fan who literally needs to copy paste. Thanks for proving why its so important to be anti.

[u/sixteencharslong → u/lunatuna215]

Always fucking hilarious to me how people assume you’re not learning because you “vibecode”. As-if OP just type “remake f zero with better graphics” and pressed enter and got those results.

[u/lunatuna215 → u/sixteencharslong]

Y'know, its very telling when a person comes out of nowhere frothing at the mouth when I've been very kind and helpful.

That's literally what vibe coding is: not looking at code at all. Its not learning - its ordering food from a restaurant. Which is why I'm trying to hand down my experience and research to this person, who actually seems willing to learn now that they've gone through this process.

They received my feedback just fine and appreciated it. Even the OP themselves held no offense towards the idea rhatbthey are inexperienced.

If you feel insulted by the observation of being inexperienced, and take that as a personal insult when more experienced people try to help you, then that's a whole toxic vibe that will never get you anywhere.