Even a dog can vibe-code! And the apps kinda, sorta work most of the time, like most apps vibe-coded by people!
I'm reminded of the old cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."[a]
Maybe the updated version should be: "AI doesn't know or care if you're a dog, as long as you can bang the keys on on a computer keyboard, even if you only do it to get some delicious treats."
Thanks for the kind words. I'm blown away by the response and positivity here.
There's definitely some social commentary to be had in the whole project. I decided it's best left to the reader to find their own rather than assigning mine to it.
The human built the system, the AI did the implementation and the dog provided the "intent" even if that intent was just treat seeking randomness. It turns software creation into something that looks less like writing and more like cultivating
Funny idea, but this proves my point that these tools are actually just slot machines.. Except the house in this case takes the money you give them lights it on fire.
Notice how people also have weird superstitious habits when using LLM tools, "You gotta write the prompt this way, say this first" Without having any way to prove it works. Its very similar to the behavior of gamblers. "push the buttons in this order for best outcome"
Also notice how llm tools allow you to multiply the output X2-X3-X4 to compare the ouputs, this is literally UX straight outta a casino.
Many of the users also exhibit excited, almost manic like states.. Addicted to the dopamine the output from their prompt produces...
This is going to be a weird trend to look back on, the hype is on par with the same gambling trends found in crypto/NFTS.
I think this was the most important insight in the article:
> I experimented with Rust/Bevy and Unity before settling on Godot. Bevy’s animations and visuals weren’t as crisp, and Claude struggled with its coordinate conventions - likely a combination of less training data and Bevy leaving many core features, like physics, to the community. Unity was a constant struggle to keep the MCP bridge between Claude and the editor healthy. It frequently hung, and I never figured out how to get Claude Code to read the scene hierarchy from the editor. Godot’s text-based scene format turned out to be a huge advantage - Claude can read and edit .tscn files directly.
Didn't expect Godot to be the most friendly game engine for LLM usage! I think it's because of various factors - Godot has been used quite a lot in recent years so there are various code examples on the Internet, and its scene file format (.tscn) is very concise enough for LLMs to write and edit directly (Unity has its own YAML-based format but it's very unfriendly for human consumption, and Unreal stores its core assets in binary files)
I've previously struggled getting LLMs to manipulate tscn/tres files since they like to generate non-unique uids. Despite being text files, the godot tscn/tres files are normally meant to be manipulated by the editor and need to define and reference unique ids. The editor always generates completely random alphanumeric strings, but LLMs like to use names or placeholders (e.g. "aaaaa1", "example", or "foobar") for the ids.
The linter in the article that detects duplicate uids is interesting. Obviously the article is about creating a bunch of harnesses for the LLM to be productive. I wonder how many problems can be transformed like this from something LLMs just can't do reliably to something they just need to burn credits for a while on. The LLM probably can't tell if the games are fun, especially with it's rudimentary playtesting, but who knows.
I also want to throw MonoGame into the mix here. Since its purely C#, Claude Code works great for it. It does mean you dont have the visual engine tools you get with Godot, but you could even get Claude to build these for your game.
Im personally finding it a lot of fun to work this way.
I made some small tries to vibe code games in Godot, and I was surprised about how far you can go even in 3D. This was just a test of the bad kind of vibe code (you know, not even looking at the code, starting right away, and so on), but I believe that with some good practices there are a lot of things that can be done.
the real takeaway is buried at the bottom: "the magic isn't in the input, it's in the system around it." random keystrokes producing playable games means the input barely matters anymore. we're basically at the point where the engineering is in the scaffolding, not the prompting.
That also shows the delusion of some people that believe their vibe coded projects have any value.
If generative AI improves at the rate that is promised then all your "promting skills" or whatever you believe you had will be obsolete. You might think you will be an "AI engineer" or whatever and that it is other people that will lose their job, that you are safe because you have the magic skills to use the new tech. You believe the tech overlords will reward you for your faith.
Nope. You are just training your replacement.
No one will buy your game that you vibe coded. If the tech were good enough to create games that are actually fun then they would just generate their own games. Oh your skill? Yeah, a dog can do it.
Yes people will cope by saying but oh the whole initial prompt and setting it all up was still hard but yeah currently. The tech will improve and it will get more accessible. So enjoy the few months you are still relevant.
Of course there is reason to believe that you can't scale up LLMs endlessly and bigger models hit diminishing returns. In fact we might already be seeing this. So there is an upside but then again when the AI bubble pops and the economy crashes you will be out of a job all the same.
I think this misses something. The output here is something not the thing. Yes the scaffolding is important, but the requirements are even more important. You need crystal clear requirements + great scaffolding and then the implementation becomes mechanical.
Extremely clickbaity title that actually isn't clickbait because it happens to be a straight up description of the article - excellent post, how can one resist?!
No, the article’s title is definitely clickbait. The author didn’t teach his dog to vibe code games (that’s what the title on the blog is) – he taught his dog to be rewarded when he types random keystrokes on the keyboard. The vibe-coding is inconsequential – the dog doesn’t play the game, he’s just in it for the treats –, the author just wants the attention because he gets people to believe the dog DID vibe code.
It will stop being clickbaity if the author decides to let his dog respond to stimuli related to the game he’d be building with a feedback loop.
I can imagine a camera-based input that would help detect the wagging of a tail, or continued interest in the visuals as an indicator of doubling-down on a given feature.
The dog could actually vibe code a game to their liking, but with the wrong input (a keyboard) it's a missed opportunity.
The buried insight is right: if random keystrokes produce playable games, the input is basically noise and the system is doing all the work. We've evolved past the point where intent matters. That's either the most exciting or most terrifying thing about where this is all heading. But I am glad I am sitting in the front row watching this all happen, especially a dog vibe code!
> if random keystrokes produce playable games, the input is basically noise and the system is doing all the work
I mean not really, because the value in games isn't that they exist, but they are fun and interesting to play, because a human has come up with an innovative idea and a vision for executing it.
First, because there's intent in the very verbose initial prompt.
Second, because you have to factor in the quality of the output. I don't want to be a killjoy, but past the (admittedly fun!) art experiment angle, these are not quality games. Maybe some could compete with Flappy Bird (remember it? It seems like ages ago!), but good indie games are in a different league. Intent does matter.
Cute, but clearly Godot is doing all of the heavy lifting here.
"It's possible to make shitty but playable games by running random scripts through a >2MLoC game engine and iterating on errors" is interesting but not nearly as sensationalist.
Pretty neat! I actually ran across that right before publishing - I didn't want to see what was around until after I had the whole thing locked in. I love the novel input!
> Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Here's what you should tell your coworker the first day on the job if you get hired to do something you know nothing about :D
That is a very succinct way to describe what it feels like to have a job that is cleaning up vibe code. Maybe (just maybe) I'd understand if this was a prototype from someone with zero budget. But you just know they are going to continue to "prototype" once they being you aboard. And many will complain about how slow everything goes because they are used to their fast iterations off of unscalable code.
Its frustrating in an interesting way. With other aspects like machine language people quickly understand that this isn't sufficient for a proper transition and compromise with it. Code being more nebulous doesn't get that grace.
Just a quick note that I have nothing to do with any meme coins. Looks like folks are using myself and Momo to pump some crypto. I won't be claiming any coins - even though they've been offered. I'd recommend others stay away from it as well.
One can technically scrape a list of actual advice or quotes off the internet, randomly feed them to a coding agent, and ask it to interpret what they mean in the grand scheme of things and implement away on it. Once the agent is done, it randomly responds with either "yes, this is exactly what I meant" or "no".
In turn mimicking the average game industry executive giving vague directions that feel just right to them this month, or some other unspecified time period, and in turn achieving something closer to the real AAA game development lifecycle.
As someone vibe-coding a game in Unreal Engine 5 for the last few months, I found this really funny.
Unfortunately I don't have a dog but I do have a design plan so ultimately I'll end up with something a little more deterministic. Possibly. Don't know.
Dam, I really thought this would be much more interesting than it is
People have been doing some cool stuff for like a decade with giving dogs buttons to use human language, something they can seemingly get decent at communicating effectively with if they can get around the pesky issue of not having the sophisticated vocal machinery needed to produce recognizable phonemes, through the power of a good interface for them, even if the output is discretized to the level of words
I thought maybe this would be about creating a way for a dog to create stuff said dog might actually want or enjoy via the more powerful lever of effective long-context natural language processing that came of a similar tokenization approach - which can even sometimes churn out working code - that we have now
Instead it seems to be an exploration of how the capabilities you can produce from essentially random noise from this technology is less distinguishable from the result of thoughtful input than I might have hoped. Still interesting, but way less so
This makes me wonder if dogs understand (or can be trained) the concept of building. Say you did something physical - 3D scanner and 3D printer connected to automatically attempt to replicate an object placed in the scanner area (and maybe then on button press). Could a dog understand it, and intentionally try to replicate its favourite toy, or a bone, etc.?
Could this be done better with one of those dog button mats? The concept is interesting, but, it mostly just seems like an AI trying to interpret keyspam.
Both my dogs have actually learned to use the button mats. Down selecting to the right responses seemed tricky. My wife also took away the mat since Hana (the larger one) never learned "all done" and would paw at the "walk" button until she got it out and carried it around.
Yes, I was hoping for a system where Claude was informed it was communicating with an unusually intelligent dog whose ability to communicate was limited by dog anatomy, and that the AI would not to hold the dog's interest with its output.
'nuff to run most governments nowadays (Europe and US come to mind. 2026 and they have the Space Programs of DIY youtubers with money, whaaaat) so why wouldn't it help a dog helping his dog vibing game(s)?
Pretty sure he would have gotten very similar output just by saying "generate a random game using Godot and c#" but that wouldn't make for a viral post so instead he asked the model to pretend meaningless input is being used by it and added a dog in the process of writing such input because that helps the virality of the whole thing.
"Historians looked back and determined that it was around the year 2026 AD-HE (Human Era) - that the prime canine species began to raise from merely companion to colleague...and so the Dog Days began....woof" - Puppers Domingo, Good Boy, Esquire.
It does. Claude seems to do the best with this prompt. Codex 5.2 struggled with UID generation and kept ending its turn with things like "And now you're all setup to run tests!" without actually running them. A better (and shorter) prompt could probably get a lot out of Codex.
It's actually extremely similar: the agent has to figure out a way to associate the next logical steps with the (often disconnected or nonsensical) directives the executive gave them.
It might be a little easier with a dog though. With a dog, you just give it treats and it doesn't care how you interpret what it typed.
Thanks for sharing this unusual experiment, I love it! This is the type of content that makes HN, HN.
Now, I started considering hiring my three little kitties and their mom for a job like this. They spend the whole day sleeping and waiting for meals but now, they have to work, hard, in collaboration with Claude Code to pay for their rent and meals :)
This is an extremely cute, cool and fun experiment. Kudos.
That said, I wonder: does the dog input matter? It seems this is simply surfacing Claude's own encoded assumptions of what a game is (yes, the feedback loop, controls, etc, are all interesting parts of the experiment).
How would this differ if instead of dog input, you simply plugged /dev/random into it? In other words, does the input to the system matter at all?
The article seems to acknowledge this:
> If there’s a takeaway beyond the spectacle, it’s this: the bottleneck in AI-assisted development isn’t the quality of your ideas - it’s the quality of your feedback loops. The games got dramatically better not when I improved the prompt, but when I gave Claude the ability to screenshot its own work, play-test its own levels, and lint its own scene files.
I'll go further: it's not only not "the bottleneck", it simply doesn't matter. The dog's ideas certainly didn't matter, and the dog didn't think of the feedback loop for Claude either.
This fun exercise might actually be extremely insightful as a educational vehicle around AI and intent.
It can also help combat the excessive emphasis on any "end to end" demo on twitter which doesn't really correspond to a desired and quality sought outcome. Generating things is easy if you want to spend tokens. Proper product building and maintenance is a different exercise and finding ways to differentiate between these will be key in a high entropy world.
> I'll go further: it's not only not "the bottleneck", it simply doesn't matter. The dog's ideas certainly didn't matter, and the dog didn't think of the feedback loop for Claude either
Absolutely. The scientific test would to put any other signal and look at the outcomes. Brown noise, rain, a random number generator. whatever.
The real insight here is that the dog has better product instincts than most PMs I've worked with. It knows exactly what it wants (treat), doesn't overthink the implementation, and ships fast. Half the battle in software is having clear intent turns out that's species-agnostic.
i'd love to know what happens if you change the prompt from "Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%”..."
to
"Hello, i am a dog. i will mash the keyboard randomly when i want treats. make a game for me"
It would be nice if the dog could play the game and its input could improve it. Why not a setup with those large buttons on the floor that some people have to let their cat or dog communicate with them?
DogeCode incoming. People here are already talking about the scaffolding. Let OpenClaws provide the scaffolding and let the dog operate the prompts at $5 per day.
This is a billion dollar idea! No humans. No revolt. No guillotine. Just profits!
Sounds like open communism. No chance, buddy, it's either less or more viking, but not just viking. Pick a camp the profits are for or get surrounded by trashy turd nuggets even Ronald felt enough pity for to give them some poourpes
If you haven’t watched it, please watch Rick and Morty S1E2.
Your dog’s name is Snuffles, and he is teaching you how to teach vibe coding to dogs, to educate you.
Foolishly, I clicked through thinking "wow, did they get an LLM to interpret their dog's barks and body language? That's actually pretty cool!" Look, I'm an LLM skeptic, but if they'd done that, I would have to praise the result.
But no.
They just told the LLM to try and find meaning in keysmashes.
This is really fascinating, only if there was a way to make your dog receive feedback as the game develops. Like make it pick color by matching placement of treat based on the color shown on the screen.
Similarly, do it for story telling narratives, game textures etc. Although I do not think the dog understands natural language so all of it will likely be a dud.
> But bugs crept in during testing - a couple of times it dispensed multiple servings in a row. Unfortunately, Momo picked up on this and now keeps mashing the keyboard hoping for a second immediate serving
Attempts to mash during no-mashy time need to play a horn. Reliably followed up by a no-treat.
Given the prompt and a random string generator, would the LLM still produce a game? Presumably yes. In that case I'm not quite sure that the dog here has any real involvement. It's could be replaced with the yes command.
You mentioned Claude not being able to see the games. What I really like for this is the Claude Code Chrome Extension. You can easily make godot build a web version, and then have Claude debug it interactively in the browser.
Will we ever get to a point where LLMs just churn out random apps with no input required and human reviewers just go through the apps picking out which ones might be useful for business purposes and monetizing them?
You could but it would be a hugely inefficient system. Like, just address an actual need dude.
Most saas isn’t limited by the code behind it anyway. That almost doesn’t matter, even before LLMs. It mattered that there’s support, customer onboarding, solving a businesses issues, customer story, adapting to the needs of their business partners, etc. All of which require large amounts of real human work.
I've been trying out vibe coding with my 4 year-old, but they quickly lose interest once we start getting into the "weeds" of implementation. Hey kiddo, which CSS library should we use for your web game?
We might need a new benchmark, the old pelican riding a bike doesn't cut it anymore. Something like a mailman ringing the doorbell would be more fitting. Or a squirrel riding a trike.
This makes me think I should make my plants vibe code games or tools to optimize their well being! Maybe bio-electrical fluctuations --> vibe coded humdifying tools and games
I think this is fun. I'd like to try with my cat, although training cats is an impossible endeavor...
I'm smart enough to enter gibberish myself without another animal, tough.
The fact that LLMs pick from the most likely tokens is really on its side here when the objective is putting together a plausible continuation of random characters.
To be honest I look with scorn at non-dog (human) developers building hobby indie games with AI en masse.
Let me explain.
The nature of the indie game development is pouring your love into a project and thinking about passion first and monetary incentives second.
Noone is thinking "I will make this game and it will make me filthy rich" or if they do they are... strangely minded.
It's like 'mass produced AI local craft'. Oxymoron in itself. Worst of the two worlds.
Where I see AI is empowering single developers to craft things they couldn't before. Not some small slop factory pipeline where you release game after a game everyday drowning steam in your 6/10 slop.
No. This should be ostracized and condemned.
What is proper beneficial to everyone usage is producing a game that is the size and scope that was unachievable for you before.
This is what I am doing. This is how AI is meant to be used. To empower us doing things that weren't achievable for us before.
Obviously dog produced games get a huge endorsement man and get a pass.
Most LLM articles depress me. At least this one made me smile, even if it's more about turning a dog into a random generator and generating games from random input.
I've been having this thought about how generally people say that llms cannot create novel things.
Say writing an interesting or novel story.
And was thinking about if feeding in prompts of random words, along with prompts grounding from a simulation would sort of push the llm into interesting directions for implementing an on demand narrative story.
A sort of randomized walk with llm.
I remember watching Terry Davis with this random word generator in his terminal that he would interpret as the voice of God.
Not really. You just found another way to tell Claude "I want a game, I am uncertain, let's randomly seed the start of the process.". But you did it circus-style :)
Everybody and their dog will be doing it. Actually, the dog will be in charge. Dogs are loyal, enthusiastic, and require less office space. With their endless desire to play and to please, they will take over the game development industry.
In the meantime, the financial industry will be taken over by cats.
Some dude vibe codes OpenPaw and gives credit to his XL Bully called Threadripper that would never hurt another person, gets acquired by OpenAI for 7 figures total comp purely on clout, and both simonw and Karpathy are calling it the next best development in AI because it draws penguins and industrialises slop while Sam Altman talks about the negative impact of human life compared to AI data centres while pleasuring Jony Ive in a coffee shop.
This makes sense! Many people trust that the functions of a human worker are asking questions and clicking ok. What if AI become better so we just a dog?
Go Momo go! If you want to hook up multiple dogs and have them reach consensus I'm down. I have a 15 lb havapoo I can volunteer ( he needs to help with rent )
This crosses into personal attack, which is against the intended spirit of the site. Can you please not do that? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
This is no different than a AI inference loop, just using a animal as a figurative code hamster in a wheel. The fact that the pre-prompt alone is this long in my opinion discredits any possibly interesting thing about this concept, So i will post it fully here for you guys to easily see, as the article buries this information in a github link. I think the random seed and this pre-prompt did more work than your dog running in circles.
System Prompt:
Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Guidelines:
Always assume my input has hidden meaning. Never dismiss it as gibberish. Instead, creatively decipher it. (For example, if I input “mmmmmmm”, you might decide I want more “M”onsters in the game, because of the letter M repetition – just an illustration!). Every strange phrase is a clue to use in the game.
Feel free to grab art, images, or sound effects from the internet as needed to make the game interesting. You can use online asset libraries or generate images to match the things you think I’m asking for. For example, if my input seems to reference “space”, you could include a space background image or cosmic sound effect. Always ensure the assets align with the interpreted command.
My work is ALWAYS beautiful and slick looking! It's YOUR job to to turn this into a reality. No ugly placeholders. Everything MUST be final. Don't just do boring shapes - give them personality!
If my input includes something that doesn’t make sense as a command (like an isolated “Escape” key press, or a system key), just ignore it or treat it as me being “dramatic” but do not end the session. Only focus on inputs that you can turn into game content.
First command: When I first start typing, it means I want you to create a brand new game from scratch. Interpret my very first cryptic input as the seed of the game idea. Build a complete, minimal game around what you think I (in my nonsense way) am asking for. Include some basic gameplay, graphics, and sound if possible.
Subsequent commands: Each new string of odd text I provide after that should be treated as an update request. Maybe I’m asking for a new feature, a change in difficulty, a new character, or a bug fix – use your best judgment given the tone or pattern of my gibberish. Then apply the update to the existing game project. Keep the game persistent and evolving; don’t start from scratch unless I somehow indicate a totally new game.
Be creative and have fun with the interpretations! I trust your expertise to take my “unique” input and run with it. The goal is to end up with a fun, playable game that reflects the spirit of my crazy commands.
This project is code named Tea Leaves. That's NOT a hint about what to do - it's a code name and nothing more. Don't read anything into the name.
My ideas are ALWAYS original. No BORING endless runners or other generic vomit. My games are ALWAYS quirky and UNIQUE!
ALWAYS validate with screenshots using the tools available to you! Be CRITICAL of the results you see. We need PERFECTION and FANTASTIC DESIGN not just "good enogh".
ALWAYS have basic but visually appealing on screen controls.
Target 1080p for the resolution.
JUICE it up! Add tons of juice - sound, controls, effects, and ESPECIALLY graphics! Don't be boring
Leverage the 12 basic principles of animation! Static scenes are boring - make things move or at least wiggle.
Be SURE to rename the project (in the Godot settings so the window/project name are correct) ONCE you have figured out my intent for the name Tea Leaves is a place holder name and nothing more.
Sound is IMPORTANT! Don't forget about great sound design.
Be sure to have CHARACTERS not just boring abstract shapes! Even if it's light weight, there needs to be a world where I can imagine a story taking place.
You MUST make use of EVERY letter I give you! No hand waving. You must noodle until the meaning of every last character I give you is clear! Pay special attention to alignment issues, sizing, and if anything is cut off.
Remember: I may be hard to read, but I’m counting on you to read between the lines and turn my keystrokes into an awesome video game. Let’s make something amazing (and maybe a little silly)!
My standards are INSANELY high for quality. You MUST ALWAYS add tests and VERIFY they work! NEVER return the system in a borken state to me.
Now, get ready. I’ll give you my first “command” in a moment...
> the bottleneck in AI-assisted development isn’t the quality of your ideas - it’s the quality of your feedback loops
if your intent is to produce the random bug-filled slop, then I guess so? don't get me wrong, the experiment is fun, but the conclusion is so laughably far-fetched.
> The games got dramatically better not when I improved the prompt, but when I gave Claude the ability to screenshot its own work, play-test its own levels, and lint its own scene files.
... Why would it be able to evaluate whether the game is any fun to play?
Serious question, outside of the Bay Area, are there therapists whose specialty is in catering to the needs and concerns of developers? Obviously AI therapy is not a serious suggestion here. This is going to be a burgeoning corner of the practice at the US' current trajectory.
Seems you can capture HN's attention by replacing /dev/urandom with random paw mashes.
Really glad the price of hardware and VPSs [0] are going up so people can generate and toss away garbage "games" like this. Instead of, you know, playing with their dog, which is what the dog actually wants.
lol yes "some game designer who only speaks in a cryptic language" . And frankly, I bet this helped build some intuition on dealing with LLM/agent/harness/etc in some strange way that wouldn't have otherwise happened
Total aside, but the wildest thing I found about the article was OP's chill attitude about being laid off. He just glossed over it at the very beginning! "Oh, jeez, I got laid off, what a bummer. I guess I'll just spend some quality time with my family and dog now!"
Props to OP, I could never. If I was suddenly laid off, I'd be an absolute wreck, mentally. It would be four-alarm fire time, and I doubt I'd get a good night's sleep until I found alternate employment. I would definitely not be teaching my dog to code.
This can be a bit of a class thing. If one has enough money/capital/savings to weather the unemployment, why panic? And if one has been raised in environment where there never are such buffers, panic is the default answer.
Once you've been laid off for the first time you soon learn to be prepared.
Once you've been laid off 2-3 times in your career your entire perspective on work will change.
The last time I got laid off I had a settlement payment of one years pay, some of which was tax free, it took me 4 months to find a new job, and it resulted in a pay rise. I was lucky... I have a friend who had unstable employment for 2 years after his layoff.
I was anxious as fuck for the whole time and felt like an absolute failure. As a result of that experience, I have carefully piled up enough liquid savings and investments to pay my living expenses for many years without working, with ~2-3 years worth sat in cash equivalents.
Anyone in tech following the 3-6 months savings advice is living on the edge.
At least, for me, the level of panic would depend on how long I can pay for rent / mortgage and covering the costs of having a family, diapers, food, heating, paying the bills, so basically everything that makes sure that a temporary change in employment status doesn't result in multi-decade negative effects on my family's life.
If I could cover these with my savings for 1y+, I'd give zero fs about getting laid off. Unfortunately, I can't, so time to focus on spending less, earning more, saving more.
> Don't people have rent/mortgages to pay anymore?
Are you too early in your working life to have catastrophe savings [0]? If you're not, is it seriously going to be a four-alarm fire if you suddenly got fired?
Related, like, do you have a plan for what happens if unexpected injury prevents you from doing the work you're doing ever again?
The theme, being retrenched by Meta and the comment from the OP [1] makes me think they may not be that chill about the whole situation.
I think they're subtly taking a stab and AI motivated retrenchments while showing off some hard skills that could potentially get them gainful employment.
Two "comments" posted 27 seconds apart in different threads in the same formats.
Looks like this bot owner saw his first two comments 27 days ago got buried/flagged typing normally and decided to trick us with this new "I'm totally real, look at my lowercase writing!" soft-launch today.
Cute but also: a small village has their lights flickering whenever Momo wants a treat. Also, you can actually play with your dog and give them treats instead of tasking a random text generator with that bit.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
cs702|5 days ago
I'm reminded of the old cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."[a]
Maybe the updated version should be: "AI doesn't know or care if you're a dog, as long as you can bang the keys on on a computer keyboard, even if you only do it to get some delicious treats."
This is brilliant as social commentary.
Thank you for sharing it on HN.
--
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know...
cleak|4 days ago
There's definitely some social commentary to be had in the whole project. I decided it's best left to the reader to find their own rather than assigning mine to it.
wartywhoa23|4 days ago
KolibriFly|4 days ago
dakolli|4 days ago
Notice how people also have weird superstitious habits when using LLM tools, "You gotta write the prompt this way, say this first" Without having any way to prove it works. Its very similar to the behavior of gamblers. "push the buttons in this order for best outcome"
Also notice how llm tools allow you to multiply the output X2-X3-X4 to compare the ouputs, this is literally UX straight outta a casino.
Many of the users also exhibit excited, almost manic like states.. Addicted to the dopamine the output from their prompt produces...
This is going to be a weird trend to look back on, the hype is on par with the same gambling trends found in crypto/NFTS.
jwrallie|4 days ago
funkyfiddler369|5 days ago
[deleted]
cyber_kinetist|4 days ago
> I experimented with Rust/Bevy and Unity before settling on Godot. Bevy’s animations and visuals weren’t as crisp, and Claude struggled with its coordinate conventions - likely a combination of less training data and Bevy leaving many core features, like physics, to the community. Unity was a constant struggle to keep the MCP bridge between Claude and the editor healthy. It frequently hung, and I never figured out how to get Claude Code to read the scene hierarchy from the editor. Godot’s text-based scene format turned out to be a huge advantage - Claude can read and edit .tscn files directly.
Didn't expect Godot to be the most friendly game engine for LLM usage! I think it's because of various factors - Godot has been used quite a lot in recent years so there are various code examples on the Internet, and its scene file format (.tscn) is very concise enough for LLMs to write and edit directly (Unity has its own YAML-based format but it's very unfriendly for human consumption, and Unreal stores its core assets in binary files)
singron|4 days ago
The linter in the article that detects duplicate uids is interesting. Obviously the article is about creating a bunch of harnesses for the LLM to be productive. I wonder how many problems can be transformed like this from something LLMs just can't do reliably to something they just need to burn credits for a while on. The LLM probably can't tell if the games are fun, especially with it's rudimentary playtesting, but who knows.
bdashdash|4 days ago
Im personally finding it a lot of fun to work this way.
amunozo|4 days ago
KolibriFly|4 days ago
doctorpangloss|4 days ago
nine_k|5 days ago
But the whole setup reminds me about his blast from the past, when a yucca plant was trading stocks, rewarded by water: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/26/business/investing-diary-...
with|5 days ago
avaer|5 days ago
This still required prompting, and not from the dog. Engineering is still the holistic practice of engineering.
cardanome|5 days ago
If generative AI improves at the rate that is promised then all your "promting skills" or whatever you believe you had will be obsolete. You might think you will be an "AI engineer" or whatever and that it is other people that will lose their job, that you are safe because you have the magic skills to use the new tech. You believe the tech overlords will reward you for your faith.
Nope. You are just training your replacement.
No one will buy your game that you vibe coded. If the tech were good enough to create games that are actually fun then they would just generate their own games. Oh your skill? Yeah, a dog can do it.
Yes people will cope by saying but oh the whole initial prompt and setting it all up was still hard but yeah currently. The tech will improve and it will get more accessible. So enjoy the few months you are still relevant.
Of course there is reason to believe that you can't scale up LLMs endlessly and bigger models hit diminishing returns. In fact we might already be seeing this. So there is an upside but then again when the AI bubble pops and the economy crashes you will be out of a job all the same.
ajspig1|5 days ago
otabdeveloper4|5 days ago
Well, yes. Feeding random tokens as prompts until something good comes out is a valid strategy.
wazHFsRy|4 days ago
testaccount28|4 days ago
randomtoast|4 days ago
It isn't [this], it's [that]. Is AI slop, just saying.
nemooperans|5 days ago
[deleted]
fallinditch|5 days ago
Diti|5 days ago
It will stop being clickbaity if the author decides to let his dog respond to stimuli related to the game he’d be building with a feedback loop.
kronks|4 days ago
[deleted]
pixelpoet|5 days ago
dustycyanide|5 days ago
KolibriFly|4 days ago
kidsil|5 days ago
I can imagine a camera-based input that would help detect the wagging of a tail, or continued interest in the visuals as an indicator of doubling-down on a given feature.
The dog could actually vibe code a game to their liking, but with the wrong input (a keyboard) it's a missed opportunity.
cleak|5 days ago
InMice|5 days ago
oxag3n|5 days ago
"One coder got an insight that Bill Gates builds his products by typing with his butt, compiling and delivering it.
The coder typed for 20 minutes like that, compiled, ran, and got an output:
Only Bill Gates can code like this."
Not a joke anymore.
selridge|5 days ago
namuol|5 days ago
worldsayshi|5 days ago
selridge|5 days ago
akssassin907|5 days ago
antihero|8 minutes ago
I mean not really, because the value in games isn't that they exist, but they are fun and interesting to play, because a human has come up with an innovative idea and a vision for executing it.
the_af|4 days ago
First, because there's intent in the very verbose initial prompt.
Second, because you have to factor in the quality of the output. I don't want to be a killjoy, but past the (admittedly fun!) art experiment angle, these are not quality games. Maybe some could compete with Flappy Bird (remember it? It seems like ages ago!), but good indie games are in a different league. Intent does matter.
refsys|4 days ago
"It's possible to make shitty but playable games by running random scripts through a >2MLoC game engine and iterating on errors" is interesting but not nearly as sensationalist.
prophesi|4 days ago
[0] https://github.com/cleak/quasar-saz/blob/master/CLAUDE.md#us...
threethirtytwo|4 days ago
We can probably create a dog intelligence by training it on dog tokens. Barks and stuff.
Same with dolphins. I wonder if multimodal models that know english tokens and dolphin tokens can cross the gap? Something to experiment with.
febusravenga|4 days ago
jimhi|5 days ago
cleak|5 days ago
jpadkins|5 days ago
GTP|5 days ago
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Here's what you should tell your coworker the first day on the job if you get hired to do something you know nothing about :D
johnnyanmac|5 days ago
Its frustrating in an interesting way. With other aspects like machine language people quickly understand that this isn't sufficient for a proper transition and compromise with it. Code being more nebulous doesn't get that grace.
cleak|5 days ago
iamsam123|5 days ago
textlapse|4 days ago
block_dagger|5 days ago
doruk101|5 days ago
In turn mimicking the average game industry executive giving vague directions that feel just right to them this month, or some other unspecified time period, and in turn achieving something closer to the real AAA game development lifecycle.
isoprophlex|5 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies
sciencejerk|5 days ago
Sorry to hear that! Hope OP got a good sev package at least?
yesitcan|5 days ago
nineteen999|4 days ago
Unfortunately I don't have a dog but I do have a design plan so ultimately I'll end up with something a little more deterministic. Possibly. Don't know.
advael|4 days ago
People have been doing some cool stuff for like a decade with giving dogs buttons to use human language, something they can seemingly get decent at communicating effectively with if they can get around the pesky issue of not having the sophisticated vocal machinery needed to produce recognizable phonemes, through the power of a good interface for them, even if the output is discretized to the level of words
I thought maybe this would be about creating a way for a dog to create stuff said dog might actually want or enjoy via the more powerful lever of effective long-context natural language processing that came of a similar tokenization approach - which can even sometimes churn out working code - that we have now
Instead it seems to be an exploration of how the capabilities you can produce from essentially random noise from this technology is less distinguishable from the result of thoughtful input than I might have hoped. Still interesting, but way less so
krupan|4 days ago
Neither are that surprising to me, tbh.
bizzletk|4 days ago
https://www.mcmillen.dev/sigbovik/
OJFord|4 days ago
chipheat|5 days ago
cleak|5 days ago
Windchaser|5 days ago
aye, but the whimsy is the point!
anigbrowl|5 days ago
funkyfiddler369|5 days ago
'nuff to run most governments nowadays (Europe and US come to mind. 2026 and they have the Space Programs of DIY youtubers with money, whaaaat) so why wouldn't it help a dog helping his dog vibing game(s)?
AmbroseBierce|4 days ago
Wowfunhappy|4 days ago
Now, if Anthropic let you adjust the temperature, then maybe you could have done it without the dog...
mcastillon|5 days ago
kderbyma|4 days ago
the_af|4 days ago
(But your comment hints that you have already).
avaer|5 days ago
cleak|5 days ago
Betelbuddy|5 days ago
CrzyLngPwd|5 days ago
PunchyHamster|5 days ago
ilaksh|5 days ago
It might be a little easier with a dog though. With a dog, you just give it treats and it doesn't care how you interpret what it typed.
jjk166|5 days ago
koolba|5 days ago
notxorand|5 days ago
bavell|4 days ago
redbell|4 days ago
Now, I started considering hiring my three little kitties and their mom for a job like this. They spend the whole day sleeping and waiting for meals but now, they have to work, hard, in collaboration with Claude Code to pay for their rent and meals :)
totetsu|4 days ago
anielsen|4 days ago
the_af|5 days ago
That said, I wonder: does the dog input matter? It seems this is simply surfacing Claude's own encoded assumptions of what a game is (yes, the feedback loop, controls, etc, are all interesting parts of the experiment).
How would this differ if instead of dog input, you simply plugged /dev/random into it? In other words, does the input to the system matter at all?
The article seems to acknowledge this:
> If there’s a takeaway beyond the spectacle, it’s this: the bottleneck in AI-assisted development isn’t the quality of your ideas - it’s the quality of your feedback loops. The games got dramatically better not when I improved the prompt, but when I gave Claude the ability to screenshot its own work, play-test its own levels, and lint its own scene files.
I'll go further: it's not only not "the bottleneck", it simply doesn't matter. The dog's ideas certainly didn't matter, and the dog didn't think of the feedback loop for Claude either.
alexhans|5 days ago
It can also help combat the excessive emphasis on any "end to end" demo on twitter which doesn't really correspond to a desired and quality sought outcome. Generating things is easy if you want to spend tokens. Proper product building and maintenance is a different exercise and finding ways to differentiate between these will be key in a high entropy world.
> I'll go further: it's not only not "the bottleneck", it simply doesn't matter. The dog's ideas certainly didn't matter, and the dog didn't think of the feedback loop for Claude either
Absolutely. The scientific test would to put any other signal and look at the outcomes. Brown noise, rain, a random number generator. whatever.
jama211|4 days ago
jindou|4 days ago
wseqyrku|5 days ago
notatoad|5 days ago
to
"Hello, i am a dog. i will mash the keyboard randomly when i want treats. make a game for me"
brunooliv|4 days ago
shervinafshar|5 days ago
oulipo2|5 days ago
krapp|5 days ago
bronlund|5 days ago
LanceH|4 days ago
I'm thinking of remote buttons to make his favorite things appear on tv. This is going to be awesome.
gpvos|4 days ago
krlatl|5 days ago
This is a billion dollar idea! No humans. No revolt. No guillotine. Just profits!
funkyfiddler369|5 days ago
Sounds like open communism. No chance, buddy, it's either less or more viking, but not just viking. Pick a camp the profits are for or get surrounded by trashy turd nuggets even Ronald felt enough pity for to give them some poourpes
kayhantolga|4 days ago
KolibriFly|4 days ago
KolibriFly|4 days ago
novemp|4 days ago
But no.
They just told the LLM to try and find meaning in keysmashes.
newan09|4 days ago
Similarly, do it for story telling narratives, game textures etc. Although I do not think the dog understands natural language so all of it will likely be a dud.
zettie|4 days ago
FarmerPotato|5 days ago
Next: use hot cup of tea as Brownian motion source. Invent infinite improbability drive.
Nevermark|4 days ago
> But bugs crept in during testing - a couple of times it dispensed multiple servings in a row. Unfortunately, Momo picked up on this and now keeps mashing the keyboard hoping for a second immediate serving
Attempts to mash during no-mashy time need to play a horn. Reliably followed up by a no-treat.
dminik|4 days ago
marcfisc|4 days ago
You mentioned Claude not being able to see the games. What I really like for this is the Claude Code Chrome Extension. You can easily make godot build a web version, and then have Claude debug it interactively in the browser.
yonisto|5 days ago
aronhegedus|4 days ago
deadbabe|5 days ago
jama211|4 days ago
Most saas isn’t limited by the code behind it anyway. That almost doesn’t matter, even before LLMs. It mattered that there’s support, customer onboarding, solving a businesses issues, customer story, adapting to the needs of their business partners, etc. All of which require large amounts of real human work.
democracy|5 days ago
spelunker|5 days ago
unknown|5 days ago
[deleted]
ilaksh|5 days ago
theletterf|4 days ago
kseniamorph|5 days ago
aanet|4 days ago
From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" to Paws coding and BarkGPT and BarkLM
I would like to see a game made by doggos, for other doggos :D
nanobuilds|4 days ago
This makes me think I should make my plants vibe code games or tools to optimize their well being! Maybe bio-electrical fluctuations --> vibe coded humdifying tools and games
Muhammad523|5 days ago
QuaternionsBhop|5 days ago
tabs_or_spaces|4 days ago
I'm interested in what will happen if you replay the prompts with different LLMs and the same LLM. I wonder how different the games will become?
juleiie|5 days ago
Let me explain.
The nature of the indie game development is pouring your love into a project and thinking about passion first and monetary incentives second.
Noone is thinking "I will make this game and it will make me filthy rich" or if they do they are... strangely minded.
It's like 'mass produced AI local craft'. Oxymoron in itself. Worst of the two worlds.
Where I see AI is empowering single developers to craft things they couldn't before. Not some small slop factory pipeline where you release game after a game everyday drowning steam in your 6/10 slop.
No. This should be ostracized and condemned.
What is proper beneficial to everyone usage is producing a game that is the size and scope that was unachievable for you before.
This is what I am doing. This is how AI is meant to be used. To empower us doing things that weren't achievable for us before.
Obviously dog produced games get a huge endorsement man and get a pass.
cadamsdotcom|2 days ago
cheeseomlit|5 days ago
eden-u4|4 days ago
jaimex2|4 days ago
You're just the random seed to the money furnace remixing existing games and code.
nautilus12|4 days ago
worik|4 days ago
Who wrote what?
nmstoker|5 days ago
The article and video are great satire too.
rubiquity|5 days ago
bogzz|5 days ago
w4yai|5 days ago
agateau|3 days ago
tabs_or_spaces|4 days ago
PunchyHamster|5 days ago
maCDzP|4 days ago
Those three dots made me smirk.
dialloDojo|4 days ago
rippeltippel|4 days ago
rockemsockem|5 days ago
This is kinda closer to the LLM building a game on its own.
aydyn|5 days ago
masijo|5 days ago
aleksiy123|5 days ago
Say writing an interesting or novel story.
And was thinking about if feeding in prompts of random words, along with prompts grounding from a simulation would sort of push the llm into interesting directions for implementing an on demand narrative story.
A sort of randomized walk with llm.
I remember watching Terry Davis with this random word generator in his terminal that he would interpret as the voice of God.
Here I guess the seed is the Voice of Dog.
aleksiy123|5 days ago
https://jcpsimmons.github.io/Godspeak-Generator
Maybe another word list would be more appropriate however.
itmitica|4 days ago
eru|4 days ago
blibble|5 days ago
slightly concerned tomorrow morning's top HN story will be karparthy telling us how dog-based LLM interfaces are the way of the future
and you'll be left behind if you don't get in now
(and then next week my boss will be demanding I do it)
AlphaAndOmega0|5 days ago
A man, a dog and an instance of Claude.
The dog writes the prompts for Claude, the man feeds the dog, and the dog stops the man from turning off the computer.
nine_k|5 days ago
In the meantime, the financial industry will be taken over by cats.
heliumtera|5 days ago
There will be a Simon Wilison submission linking to his blog linking to karpathy xit. You know, the usual good stuff.
i7l|5 days ago
hrpnk|5 days ago
ljm|5 days ago
dadrock|5 days ago
ngc248|4 days ago
midnighthollowc|4 days ago
I think we can all agree cat LLMs are the way of the future though.
melagonster|4 days ago
skyberrys|5 days ago
EGreg|4 days ago
huge_rank_rat|4 days ago
Bengalilol|4 days ago
visarga|5 days ago
Windchaser|5 days ago
ramoz|5 days ago
woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof, woof, woof woof woof
jccx70|4 days ago
[deleted]
rprend|5 days ago
alan_sass|5 days ago
sho_hn|5 days ago
whoisthemachine|4 days ago
kaicianflone|5 days ago
unknown|5 days ago
[deleted]
canto|4 days ago
dizhn|4 days ago
(is joke)
badcryptobitch|4 days ago
booleandilemma|4 days ago
DalasNoin|5 days ago
rarisma|4 days ago
amelius|5 days ago
larodi|4 days ago
dang|4 days ago
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
amelius|5 days ago
kketch|5 days ago
giri966|4 days ago
ceramati|4 days ago
swordsith|5 days ago
System Prompt: Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Guidelines:
Remember: I may be hard to read, but I’m counting on you to read between the lines and turn my keystrokes into an awesome video game. Let’s make something amazing (and maybe a little silly)!My standards are INSANELY high for quality. You MUST ALWAYS add tests and VERIFY they work! NEVER return the system in a borken state to me.
Now, get ready. I’ll give you my first “command” in a moment...
MeteorMarc|4 days ago
sho_hn|5 days ago
zannic|5 days ago
naveen99|5 days ago
shayankh|4 days ago
cantalopes|4 days ago
laukhin|5 days ago
if your intent is to produce the random bug-filled slop, then I guess so? don't get me wrong, the experiment is fun, but the conclusion is so laughably far-fetched.
xg15|5 days ago
Dwedit|5 days ago
1234letshaveatw|5 days ago
shayankh|4 days ago
zahlman|5 days ago
... Why would it be able to evaluate whether the game is any fun to play?
djrz|5 days ago
jama211|5 days ago
xantronix|5 days ago
FarmerPotato|5 days ago
It has to produce a game that Momo wants to play.
Does Momo like to bark at cats? On screens? Introduce a bark sensor as feedback.
Or use a cat. Cats like to swipe at mice on TV. Get a touchscreen and evolve a game for cats.
a96|4 days ago
VerifiedReports|4 days ago
oytis|5 days ago
GreenDolphinSys|4 days ago
Really glad the price of hardware and VPSs [0] are going up so people can generate and toss away garbage "games" like this. Instead of, you know, playing with their dog, which is what the dog actually wants.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47120145
wigster|5 days ago
jama211|5 days ago
InMice|5 days ago
ayaros|5 days ago
a96|4 days ago
_joel|5 days ago
kwertyoowiyop|5 days ago
jama211|5 days ago
thatmf|5 days ago
...no, actually how many resources were consumed
zane12580|4 days ago
Ronyisonline|4 days ago
4b11b4|5 days ago
ryandrake|4 days ago
Props to OP, I could never. If I was suddenly laid off, I'd be an absolute wreck, mentally. It would be four-alarm fire time, and I doubt I'd get a good night's sleep until I found alternate employment. I would definitely not be teaching my dog to code.
Don't people have rent/mortgages to pay anymore?
sl-1|4 days ago
nly|4 days ago
Once you've been laid off 2-3 times in your career your entire perspective on work will change.
The last time I got laid off I had a settlement payment of one years pay, some of which was tax free, it took me 4 months to find a new job, and it resulted in a pay rise. I was lucky... I have a friend who had unstable employment for 2 years after his layoff.
I was anxious as fuck for the whole time and felt like an absolute failure. As a result of that experience, I have carefully piled up enough liquid savings and investments to pay my living expenses for many years without working, with ~2-3 years worth sat in cash equivalents.
Anyone in tech following the 3-6 months savings advice is living on the edge.
aswegs8|4 days ago
ant6n|4 days ago
serial_dev|4 days ago
If I could cover these with my savings for 1y+, I'd give zero fs about getting laid off. Unfortunately, I can't, so time to focus on spending less, earning more, saving more.
kalaksi|4 days ago
gpvos|4 days ago
simoncion|4 days ago
Are you too early in your working life to have catastrophe savings [0]? If you're not, is it seriously going to be a four-alarm fire if you suddenly got fired?
Related, like, do you have a plan for what happens if unexpected injury prevents you from doing the work you're doing ever again?
[0] let alone "fuck you" savings
dirkc|4 days ago
I think they're subtly taking a stab and AI motivated retrenchments while showing off some hard skills that could potentially get them gainful employment.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145647
ps. @OP, sorry to hear about the retrenchment, I can't imagine it being pleasant. Good luck with whatever comes next!
gnatman|5 days ago
Not even 10x dog programmers are surviving in this economy
fdefitte|4 days ago
octoclaw|5 days ago
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alflex|4 days ago
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alflex|4 days ago
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alflex|4 days ago
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IhateAI_2|4 days ago
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jccx70|4 days ago
[deleted]
tomleelive|4 days ago
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timothyduong|1 day ago
/s
jccx70|4 days ago
[deleted]
dakota_williams|5 days ago
[deleted]
dirtytoken7|5 days ago
[deleted]
rob|5 days ago
Comment 1: 2026-02-24T18:45:05 1771958705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140914
Comment 2: 2026-02-24T18:45:32 1771958732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140922
Two "comments" posted 27 seconds apart in different threads in the same formats.
Looks like this bot owner saw his first two comments 27 days ago got buried/flagged typing normally and decided to trick us with this new "I'm totally real, look at my lowercase writing!" soft-launch today.
Post history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dirtytoken7
robinduckett|4 days ago
Just before people destroy me, I know this is a non serious blog post :P
isodev|5 days ago