Try my addictive new word game, Cross Fall! It’s retro goodness.
VIBE CODING RETRO GAMESDrop letters to complete words. Cascades score double!Already keen to play? Want to jump straight to the game? You can play it here:Cross Fall - a coffee break gameOne of the coolest things about AI for me is the way it brings back that anything-is-possible moment of…
VIBE CODING RETRO GAMESDrop letters to complete words. Cascades score double!Already keen to play? Want to jump straight to the game? You can play it here:Cross Fall - a coffee break gameOne of the coolest things about AI for me is the way it brings back that anything-is-possible moment of computing as a kid in the mid 1980s. Sometimes I wish I could travel back in time to experience it all over again.AI-self portrait made using my retro-gamer GPT. You can try that out too. The gameplay is actual footage.I grew up with the BBC Micro, a hardy machine built by Acorn Computers for the BBC’s Computer Literacy Project, a nationwide programme that put affordable computers in schools and living rooms across Britain. The BBC Micro had a distinctive black and red keyboard, a glowing CRT, and this sense that the computer was yours to command. You felt you could build anything with its blinking cursor, a few lines of BASIC, and the word RUN.BBC BASIC was powerful for its era. For a kid in the mid-1980s, it felt like the machine had been designed so you could make games before teatime.I’d spend Saturdays copying code from magazines, typing in pages from The Micro User or Acorn User. When the code worked, when the sound actually bleeped, it was magic. And when it didn’t, I’d debug line by line, learning. That was what the BBC was trying to teach kids: active computer literacy.Over the decades, that anything-is-possible moment vanished. Software development became a grind. The joy of making something because you could got buried under the weight of making something production-ready.I don’t code anymore, and BASIC is a dead language. I’m friends with some game designers, and they are the most disillusioned people I’ve ever met. Modern commercial game development, far from being the Willy Wonka factory we all imagined, is largely underpaid, over-worked, and thankless.Even though I’m wistful for those Saturday mornings copying code from magazines, typing in pages of hexadecimal to load games from The Micro User or Acorn User, I’m glad I stepped away from programming years ago.What I didn’t expect was that the old feeling would come back, circa 2022.For all my concerns about the safety and accuracy of LLMs, they truly are modern marvels. The blinking cursor contains infinite possibilities again.I was lucky to get involved with AI text generators early, even being a beta tester for some of the commercial image generators. Prompt engineering comes down to clearly describing what you want, within the model’s limits.It’s the closest I’d come in decades to that BBC Micro feeling of saying “Make this do that,” followed by the magic thrill when it actually does.Vibe coding helps me use what I already know and translate it into modern coding languages that I missed out on in the intervening years, without all the friction of needing to recall every syntax rule or fight with frameworks.I can have an idea in my head, a conversation at the keyboard, and suddenly there’s a game on my phone that didn’t exist that morning.That’s how Cross Fall came about. As someone who deals with aphasia, I had a need for a minimalist, non-distracting game to practice my word-building skills. No outlandish flashing lights, bleeps or bloops. No ads.Part of my language rehabilitation is to try to train my verbal skills while activating other parts of my brain, so things like playing a spoken word game with a friend while bouncing a ball. If you’ve had a brain injury or a language disorder, you may recognise the type of therapy I’m describing.The problem is it can be very hard to rely on a human partner all the time!The reflex is to ask “Isn’t there an app for that?” There are, but most apps I’ve found online have the aforementioned added distractions, designed to capture the attention of customers and not help someone focus. I wanted a game that was the opposite: calm, clean, and no predatory engagement.I had a simple idea. What if I was doing a crossword, or a word-find, but I also had to use my spatial reasoning, strategy and hand-eye coordination?Simple mechanics. Just letters and the satisfaction of clearing a board.Suddenly I had Cross Fall.The game works like this: letter tiles fall at consistent rate from the top of a grid. You move them left and right, rotate them, and drop them. When the piece lands, if it completes any words of 3 letters of more (reading across or down), those letters gently flash gold and disappear. Then gravity kicks in!Any overhanging blocks fall down, which can create chain reactions. Two consecutive clears and you’re in “Chain ×2” territory, with doubled points.The point of the game is that you have to keep switching between deciding on optimal places to place letters, and tactical decisions about how to keep the board from overflowing. The pressure builds as you run out of room.Letters do have a fair distribution. E, A, R, I, O, T, N, S — the most common English letters — appear more often than J, Q, X, or Z. But by the end of the game it naturally gets harder, because you’re stuck with the harder letters.The early feedback has been great: “It’s suprisingly complex, because you really have to think fast if you want to stay ahead, spotting potential combos”.The controls are simple on a phone. You swipe left or right to move the brick. Tap the brick to rotate and flick it down to speed the fall. You can also guide the block in for a landing by dragging it. On a keyboard, you want to use the arrows left and right, up to rotate, and down for a drop.Vibe coding turned my idea into a finished playable game in a fraction of the time. I could talk about cascade mechanics, letter drops, and scoring, the way I used to scribble game ideas to myself in the margins of The Micro User. Claude code turned that into clean, executable code for a p5.js sketch.I actually picked up some new JavaScript coding skills in the process of debugging the game (tip: Ask AI to tutor you while you are vibe coding).The game is one HTML file, one JavaScript file, one PNG, and four MP3s.Even though it’s intentionally minimalist, a lot of thought went into Cross Fall. There were many fun additional features to include, including a high score leaderboard (Firebase), sound effects and a retro lo-fi theme tune (including a mute button for those who wish to solve puzzles in silence).The technical stack looks something like this:Claude code — vibe coding my original notesp5.js — game framework, rendering, inputp5.sound — audio (theme + SFX)Suno — chip-tune theme musicFirebase Realtime Database — leaderboardNetlify — hosting (drag-and-drop deploys, sweet!)OpenProcessing — secondary hosting for the creative coding communityThe chiptune music was particularly fun because I matched the BPM to the tiles’ fall rate. It took me a lot of trial and error before I struck on that idea!The dictionary was perhaps the hardest design decision in the entire game.It’s embedded directly in the JavaScript file as a single massive constant, so no external file, no fetch, no CDN. At load time, the browser decodes the blob, gunzips it, splits on whitespace, and filters by MIN_WORD (3). The result is a Set of valid words. But deciding on those which words are “valid” was a philosophical battle: what counts as a real word? I went through multiple iterations, first using a public domain Scrabble list, a corpus of Google search words, and even movie subtitle frequency data.Ultimately, even though SOWPODS — the publicly available Scrabble list — contains words that you’ll have never heard (such as “Cwm”, a word for a Welsh valley, or “Euoi”, a bacchanalian cry), I figured that this was a time-ordered corpus, and one that puzzle players may already be familiar with.I also discovered including the obscure Scrabble words allowed for some much-needed wins at tricky points in the game, and for some satisfying cascades. If it introduces people to a wider vocabulary, that’s a feature.This does mean some rude words made it in. Although among my friends, it has become somewhat of an Easter egg to screenshot the amusing ones!Please send me a pic if you get any interesting combinations of words too. Here’s one that I got: SkyNet (SKY + NET), the nefarious AI in Terminator!Although it was fast to vibe code, I still went through days of iterations and feedback from early players, particularly friends with accessibility issues.This included things like removing on-screen buttons in favour of fully gesture-driven movements, and making sure the animations feel good.I really hope you’ll take my game for a spin. Don’t be daunted by some of the exceptionally high scores. I’ve found that player skill ramps up really fast, and this is a game where myself and the earliest players have been surprised at how good you can get at the game. It really is a brain trainer.Want to be a high roller? Here are some tips:Longer words are higher scoring, but short three-letter words can help you clear much needed space.It’s much better to have a cascade of smaller words than hold out for a longer word.Words read left to right or top to bottom. In the case of conflict, the horizontal word is scored first.You can create more than one word with a single block if you strategize.Remember to rotate blocks so that letters land in the order you want.Try keeping letters that tend to start of words to the left of the play field, and keep letters that might end words (like S) to the right of the field.Read the letters on the falling block quickly. Sometimes it contains a three- or four-letter word! You just have to turn it the right way around.If you’re clever, you might intentionally land a tile on an overhang, even if it could join with letters to complete a word below, so that it will score in a cascade instead. Remember: you get 2x points in cascades. If you line up multiple hanging words in this way, you can score big time.CrossFall is free to play and live at https://crossfall.jimtheaiwhisperer.com/Who is Jim the AI Whisperer?I’m on a mission to demystify AI and make it accessible. I’m keen to share my knowledge about the new cultural literacies and critical skills we need to work with AI and improve its performance. Follow me for more advice.If you found today’s article helpful and interesting:👍 Please clap. Try giving 50 claps — just press and hold for a few secs!💬 Leave a comment, share a thought! I love to get to know my readers.🔁 Please hit repost to republish this article to your Medium followers!💼 Or highlight a section and select the share icon to post it directly to your LinkedIn or X — it’s a quick, easy way to spread insights with your network!Check out my refreshed website:If you’re interested in personal coaching in prompt engineering or hiring my services, contact me. I’m also often available for podcasts and press.Let’s connect!Be sure to follow me on Medium. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.Want to Buy Me A Coffee? Thank you! Send me a message too, I’ll reply.Click the image to go to Jim’s Buy Me a Coffee pageI’m also often available for podcasts, press, and public speaking. Ask me.You might enjoy these vibe coding/retro gaming articles from Jim:See yourself as the star of your own vintage video game!Game Changer: Using GPT-4’s Coding Capabilities in Game DevelopmentChatGPT - Chat Your Own Adventure: Framed for Murder🕹️ You can make arcade games with GPT-4. Play the game coded by A.I. 🤖Hit Reverse to Find the AI Risks Your Team OverlookedThis story is published on Generative AI. Connect with us on LinkedIn and follow Zeniteq to stay in the loop with the latest AI stories.Subscribe to our newsletter and YouTube channel to stay updated with the latest news and updates on generative AI. Let’s shape the future of AI together!Try my addictive new word game, Cross Fall! It’s retro goodness. was originally published in Generative AI on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.Source: Generative AI Pub — Published — Category: Image AI