Total newbie, first game: a co-op shepherd game about David, built with Claude
Hi all! I’m brand new to game dev and wanted to share where I’m at. The name “David’s Flock” is just a placeholder for now.
I’ve been building small apps and games with Claude for over a year, and with 5.5 I finally decided to try a real game. I had almost no experience, and Claude has walked me through everything: code, prompts for art and music, tools and fixes. It’s been a blast.
The video shows:
- the main menu
- a quick benchmark for determining how many NPCs the game can handle on screen
- Shepherd’s Watch, the wave-based mini game (the most finished part)
- the first look at the 3D village for story mode
About the game:
It’s a kid-friendly game about David’s life, with mini games along the way. In Shepherd’s Watch, up to 4 players on controllers protect the sheep from endless, ever-harder waves of wolves. You lose when all the sheep are gone or every player is down. My kids have enjoyed it so far
How it’s made:
- Started as an HTML game, then moved to Godot
- Nearly all the code is Claude
- Art is from ChatGPT image generation, using prompts Claude wrote
- Music from Suno, sound effects from free online libraries
- Animation with Autosprite and Tripo (3D models)
I’d love tips from anyone further along: what I should be doing now to save time and headaches later, and any feedback on what you see. Thanks for watching!