u/BestStorage6608

I vibecoded The Last Admiral space game over 8 months. My idea was top down space fleet command turn based. Where you loot equipment and fabricate Ships and mix match factions to build your fleet out.

I used claude code to write every line of code. I used gemini for the art and eleven labs for the sound. Vfx I had claude make me sliders so I could create my own vfx. I knew nothing starting this project and my demo for the last admiral is out on steam for free.

Would live to hear any feedback. I gave it everything I could do avoid being called ai slop.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4713660/The\_Last\_Admiral/

Eight months ago I had never written a line of code. I opened Claude, told it "I have no idea what I'm doing, talk to me like I'm a child," and started building a top down tactical space battle game in Godot. The demo is on Steam now.

The first few months were rough in a way I don't see people talk about much. I was on the $100 chat sub and maxing it out every single week. Claude would hand me a .gd file, I'd copy it into Godot by hand, run it, watch it break, paste the error back in. Over and over. I nearly ran out of project file space before I was even halfway through the demo.

Here's the thing I kept running into, and it's why I describe Claude as a baby genius: it has all the information in the world and no idea how to use it properly. It writes genuinely great code. But I have had to problem solve FOR Claude more times than I can believe, on stuff a kid would get instantly. It would get stuck in a loop, and I'd sit there and fight through the issue myself, and doing that over and over is actually how I learned how code and architecture work. I didn't set out to learn. I learned because I had to bail it out.

Then I found Claude Code and my life got dramatically easier. It works directly in the project instead of you being the clipboard. It organizes files. It can photoshop assets, but you have to look at every single one because it makes plenty of mistakes. It can normalize audio and time it to VFX. It built me an entire shader and particle pipeline that I can dial to make whatever VFX I want.

But that pipeline is the perfect example of the split. Ask Claude for smoke and it gives you a grey blob. It is terrible at dialing knobs, it has no eye. What it IS good at is BUILDING you the knobs. So you tell it "give me more dials," and then more, and then more, and then you sit there and hand tune it yourself, and you end up with something that actually looks good. Same with audio levels. Same with anything subjective. Claude builds the instrument, you play it.

On models, and I know this sub argues about this constantly: every single Opus release got better for me, while I watched everyone complain. Fable 5 burned through an insane amount of tokens but needed the least hand holding of anything I've used. It is not perfect though. When Fable misunderstands you it misunderstands you expensively, and you burn a pile of tokens and an hour to end up reverting. My actual workflow now is that when Opus 5 gets stuck on a bug I load up Fable and it blows straight through it, and the reverse is just as true. Switching models is a debugging step.

What I'd tell anyone starting: Claude cannot make a game by itself, in any way. Even when you aren't writing the code you are still reading hundreds of thousands of lines of it, and you still have to own the logic. If you let Claude own the logic you will have a mess on your hands. Trying to skip that part is why people bounce off.

I almost gave up multiple times. But this genuinely would have been impossible for me without Claude, and I'm grateful the tech exists. It lets a bunch of nobodies like me leave a small mark on the world.

Self promo, since that's half of why I'm posting: the game is The Last Admiral, the demo is free on Steam right now and the full game launches October 29. Would love if you gave it a shot.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4713660/The_Last_Admiral/

Happy to answer anything about the workflow, the Godot side, or the parts where Claude drove me insane.

My most current built, 7 more days till demo, wont be getting much sleep 😆

The Last Admiral been working on everyday Last 6 months. Start with a small fleet advance through the galaxy map warping between nodes. Each node warp is something different, 15 different battle variations currently. Each warp terrain can contain hazards. Expand your territory build buildings, unlock blueprints to build a bigger stronger fleet. This an Alpha video, would appreciate any feedback from the video positive or negative(constructive). When your fleet is defeated the run is over but your resources and fleet is recovered, permanent progress, roguelite.