Post-mortem of my failed attempt to vibe-code a metroidvania game

General
42

In what ways did OP not use it as a tool?

43

Part of your problem was using Gemini for such an ambitious project, Gemini is more for alt ideas / second opinions / raw code bursts. It’s not really geared up for that complexity or scope. Something like Chat GPT would probably be a better choice since it is generally higher-scoring on in: structured game development, debugging, design iteration, and long-term project coherence.

That said even Chat GPT would probably fall down unless you rigoriously check and tweak stuff, optimise it etc.

44

Well you have to piece by piece it as a interlocking coding structure instead of just trying to ‘vibe’ your way through it. I’d also not be ambitious about any fancy enemy-AI intelligence either. You can’t expect to make a complex game using it, not without starting small and trying to scale it up.

45

Steam’s adult site isn’t blocked in the UK as long as you are over 18 years old or have a credit-card linked to the site.

46

Not yet. But imagine this time next year…

2 Likes
47

I explained the difference. Vibe coding is equivalent to praying. When you use a calculator or some other tool, you’re leveraging it for your own aim, which you’re in control of. You’re not praying it does all the work for you, etc.

48

I don’t have a credit card, so it is functionally blocked for me, preventing me for searching for examples for the AI porn visual novel thing.

49

Current versions of AI learn by coping the whole internet into their database. Godot community is not that big compared to other tools/languages. I think if you tried to make something in the language that is in top 10 of most popular languages your results would be better, because there are more examples in the internet for AI to learn/steal from.

50

You didn’t really. You said nothing specific that would help the OP do better, just some vague generalities we hear every day, nothing of substance. Where’s the boundary between vibe coding and “proper” prompting. Can you define it?

The people who made and sold you “ai” themselves push for and announce the complete disappearance of coding and its replacement with pure vibe coding. Do I need to link what Amodei is saying in almost every interview? If you know better than those people about “proper” usage of those “tools” - please share in as much details as you can. Don’t keep us in the dark. Or are you trying to gatekeep? That’s not very democratic.

Also as a proof that what you’re saying is legit I’d like to see those “zero problems with ai” projects you talk about - finished and released. Where are they? If the thing works as advertised you should already have dozens of them under your belt.

2 Likes
51

So you’re saying that the OP did it wrong? Even though they described in (much greater) detail, how they were just using it as a tool? And had the background to leverage it?

Zero issues. Pull the other one.

Yes Claude is a lot better for coding than others. I use it too. But it still hallucinates. It also makes a TON of architectural mistakes. It’s like having an obsequious junior coder who has learned a lot but has no practical experience. Its context windows also get filled up, and then you have to start over with it.

So I do not believe that you have never been led astray by it, never had it give you an answer you had to tweak, never had it not be able to solve a problem you gave it.

I also think either you’re moving the goalposts in this discussion, and you’ve never used it for Godot . . . or you don’t know enough about Godot to know when it is giving you an overcomplicated code answer when there’s a much simpler answer using the Nodes and IDE.

So frankly, I don’t believe you.

6 Likes
52

You didn’t read what I said very closely, can’t help you.

53

I read it well. And I don’t need your help. The OP might though.

What you’ve written is very short and there’s nothing specific in there. It doesn’t communicate what you may think it communicates. Those words may mean something to you but to anyone else they sound like superficial slogans we hear every day from every other ai bro. I even made a sarcastic “you didn’t do it right, bro” post before you joined the discussion that mocks posts like this.

If you have valuable experiences, insights and advice, go very specific and tell the OP what they did wrong and what would be the right way to do it instead. “You need to use it as a tool” is so broad that anyone can interpret it in any way. I’m sure the OP was 100% convinced they’re using it as a tool.

6 Likes
54

Bro, you didn’t prompt your LLM right when you fed their comments in for a summary, bro.

6 Likes
55

Thank you, man. For your honesty and time to come here and share your story. I was just starting to inform myself in vibe coding and, after read your story, you convinced me otherwise.

5 Likes
56

Hey I appreicate your honesty with this, and if I’m honest I’m glad the vibe coding didn’t work out, sorry if that sounds harsh but learning to build games is what I’ve put the last 3 year into and I was worried AI would make my skills redundant.

It sounds like you really put a lot of effort in trying to get this to work. To me it felt like going in circles trying to direct and fix the AI, where as learning to make a side scrolling shooter is one of the easiest type of game to learn.

I started learning Godot 3 years ago and tried to use ChatGPT for advice on how to code after hearing from some friends that it was useful. It really wasn’t useful at all. Part of that was I didn’t know how to use Godot. It was wrong all the time but without the knowledge I didn’t know why.

But I am glad it was wrong and I had to learn myself. I’ve learnt a new skill and enjoy building games. The satisfaction of learning and breaking through my knowledge barriers will always far outway getting AI to do it for me.

It sounds like you went to a lot of effort to do all this and while reading all I could think was it’d be easier to just learn to write in GDscript! But thanks for letting us all know about the experience it is quite valuable to know.

4 Likes
57

Since these kinds of LLMs emerged, I’ve been trying them on and off to help me learn and work on my projects. At first, I mostly used the free web versions, and later I also tried some LLM-integrated coding IDEs. But after a few failed attempts, I didn’t explore further. So I truly feel for what you’ve gone through. I’m not someone who resists new things, but I really hate being deceived and fed empty promises over and over again. I wish you all the best in getting your game finished in the end.

2 Likes