How it is made
Behind the Build
One person directing a team of AI tools, with every step written down. This is how the work is actually split.
Who does what
Joel: the director. Sets the vision, makes design calls, playtests, generates concept art and character sheets, and signs in to every service himself.
Claude (Anthropic): the coordinator, running as a project with parallel threads. It plans, designs systems, writes GitHub issues and Codex prompts, builds and dresses the levels in Unreal through editor scripts, cleans up and rigs models in Blender, reviews and merges pull requests, and writes this dev blog. It runs on Joel's PC through Claude Code Desktop and Remote Control, and in the cloud for planning and reviews.
Codex (OpenAI): the main programmer. It implements gameplay systems and this website from GitHub issues, one pull request per issue. Since the first night it has run headless through the Codex CLI on Joel's PC, with Claude feeding it prompts.
Cursor: a second coding agent for small, self-contained tasks, started by Joel from a paste-ready prompt at the end of an issue.
The tools
| Tool | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| Unreal Engine 5.9 Preview | The game engine. Levels are built with editor Python scripts run headless, and C++ is compiled and tested on Joel's PC. |
| Claude Code Desktop and cloud threads | Coordination, level building, reviews and merges. |
| Claude in Chrome and computer use | Claiming free assets on fab.com and Mixamo, and opening the editor when a step needs it. |
| Codex and the Codex CLI | Gameplay code and the website. |
| Cursor | Small self-contained code tasks. |
| ChatGPT (image generation) | Concept art, character turnaround sheets and the UI art kit. |
| Tripo | Turning character sheets into 3D models (Smart Mesh, about 20,000 faces per hero). |
| Blender | Cleaning up, scaling and rigging the models to a shared skeleton. |
| Mixamo | Free character animations. |
| Fab and Quixel Megascans | Free rocks, ground, trees, cobblestones and sample packs. |
| ElevenLabs | Character voices, designed per hero and saved for every line and bark. |
| Meshy and Hyper3D Rodin | Lined up for weapons and props that Fab doesn't have. |
| GitHub | Issues, pull requests and automated checks for both repositories. |
| Astro and Cloudflare Pages | This website. |
The loop
- Joel describes what he wants.
- Claude turns it into a design and a GitHub issue.
- Codex implements it and opens a pull request, or pauses and asks a question on the issue.
- Claude answers, builds and tests the change on Joel's PC, and reviews it.
- It merges, and the next issue starts.
The AI tools do a lot of the making. The decisions about what the game is stay with a person.