Make your first video game with "just enough" AI

Have you always wanted to design a game but you don't know how to get started? Maybe you did get started and were quickly overwhelmed? Or you're already a full-time developer, so you don't want to spend your free time writing code? Good news! You can use AI to lay the technical foundation, so you can skip ahead to the fun part!

I used Claude Code to build a shoot-em-up prototype in 24 hours. It was functional, but not very fun. Since then I've been hand-tuning the gameplay, level design, art assets and music. Let AI do the heavy lifting that it's good at (frameworks, physics, online scoring systems, etc.) so you can focus on making something that's unique and enjoyable for humans to play... and empower yourself so you're not reliant on an LLM.

This session will be about 1/2 presentation and 1/2 Q&A and discussion. I'll share specific examples from my conversations & codebase, and offer advice on: * Pros and cons of starting with AI code -- is this approach right for you? * What to consider before even writing your first prompt * Surprising "gotchas" to watch out for * When to use AI, and when to get your hands dirty * How to use AI as a coach to reduce your dependency on it

• Beginner
• Development
• AI/ML
• Design
• Soft Skills