Notes from building a studio where the brief is a sentence and the output is a playable build: what to put in a prompt, what the agent needs around it, how a build gets tested before you see it, and where the line sits on other people's worlds.
For twenty years the interesting problem was finding something to play. The interesting problem now is that making one has become faster than searching.
EthicsA machine good enough to build the game you're nostalgic for is good enough to build it too faithfully. That is a product decision long before it is a legal one.
ProductYour games land at your own address, laid out like a console dashboard. There is no algorithm in between, and that is a design decision, not a missing feature.
PlatformA game you have to install is a game nobody plays. The web build is the only target where "here, try this" is a link and not a favour.
QualityA generated game that doesn't boot is worse than no game at all, because it costs you the ninety seconds it took to find out. So the build gets played automatically.
ArchitectureEvery model can write a game loop. Almost none of them can hand you something that runs. The gap between those two facts is the entire product.
CraftThe difference between a generated game worth playing and a generated shell is almost entirely in the first two sentences. Here is what belongs in them.
OriginThe console I actually wanted didn't exist: one where the library is written on demand, in the fifteen minutes between having an idea and wanting to play it.
Everything here is how the studio works. The shorter version is: say what you want to play, and a few minutes later play it.