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Comments (77)

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  xnx
  Just got #2 in the world (for now) on "Steampunk Match". Very impressive what's possible in the browser. No way I would've thought this was AI generated. It was much higher quality than the vibe coded games out of Claude. The best outcome would be for this to enable some new weird games that wouldn't have gotten made otherwise, and also to bankrupt games that basically operate as casinos.
• msabalau
  You can build standard games now, and there is a waitlist for Unity Spark. But there are demos of Unity Spark games now, if you want to see what will be possible.I was able to spin up a couple of games really quickly--a 2D cosy space exploration game, and a snarky sci fi trivia game. I'd say the the writting for the humorous trivia questions and the cosy interactions was reasonable--this isn't a tool that can only do reskins of old school arcade games. In addition to music and graphics it can do text to speech.It's still an experiment, simultaneous impressive, and frustrating, with rather unexpectedly low prompt compliance. But, beta.It really doesn't seem to like shifting from multiplayer to solo play. It seems like you ought to have a strong opinion upfront. (again, early days)It's natural to think of this quick and easy tool for playing game, but I suspect part of the eventual value will be learning tools and "self gamification" I could imagine doing a variant of my trivial game for memorization or language learning.
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  hmokiguess
  I'm okay with Google offering models, but I'm not okay with Google offering more PaaS offerings.Let developers use your models and tools and build stuff with it. Why own everything.Google has too much already and in my opinion they have no business owning a gaming platform.
• jameshart
  Does Google not have lawyers any more? Playground Games is the name of the Microsoft-owned games studio behind Forza Horizon; X-Box studio is as part of their current restructuring merging them with Turn 10 (the mainline Forza studio) and, weirdly, handing the resulting studio Fable to work on, but Microsoft definitely still has an interest in the trademark of ‘playground’ in the context of video games.
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  aqme28
  How long until someone makes a tiktok-style game platform?Play a little game, then when you're done it generates a new one based on what you've enjoyed. Repeat ad infinitum.
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  danvoell
  Best case scenario for this is...replace Roblox with games that don't have reward systems solely based on you playing as long as possible. We are losing a generation of children to these games.
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  regenschutz
  I've always found Google Slides to be a great way to create cute, personal games. It requires no coding, and anyone can play them easily in their browser. Seeing what people are able to do with a simple presentation (PowerPoint, if you will) has been repeatedly eye-opening every time I've seen one.I'm a bit worried that Google Slides-games will fall out of fashion now ;(
• vmg12
  If you want to try this but with free multiplayer servers check out https://snack.game (my site)I also didn't bother with in-app game dev for now since I figured your local agents will be better. So for now you just develop locally with a CLI and your favorite subsidized model.
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  ragazzina
  Since this thread will contain the intersection of people interested in coding games and people interested in AI, can I ask whether the latest AI coding tools can help someone vibe code a simple low-poly 3D game? I only ever used Twine before.
• kingstnap
  Error 403 unfortunately.> To keep the experience safe and welcoming, every published game undergoes safety screenings aligned with our Community Guidelines, along with user reporting.Kind of cringe. I mean I suppose its one thing to stop people making CSAM but safety screens make it sound like you can't have any sort of mature game? Gore, violence, drugs, suggestive themes or nudity etc all disallowed or something? Everyone has to make a T for Teen game?
• ahmedfromtunis
  I’ve been thinking of building a personalized game full of inside jokes as a birthday gift for a friend who moved to the other side of the planet.This looks like it might be very useful indeed!
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  educar
  I got a 403 from Germany
• 2001zhaozhao
  I think the point of this product is not the quality of the games, it's the accessibility and distribution and the fact that it's free to use.Big tech already controls the distribution of traditional platforms so they are building AI platforms to make sure they keep control of the distribution of new forms of content, including that for AI games now that they're easier to make than a YouTube video.But inevitably these products (and the competitors they will inevitably spawn) put us closer to a future of arguably dystopian, AI-driven hyper-entertainment world, even if no one inside the companies meant to do that. I can only hope in that future many people still appreciate human-made games, and even on these AI platforms genuine human ideas (assisted by AI) can still bubble to the top.As for game quality, these look close to Opus 5.5 one-shots to me, maybe even a little worse.
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  torben-friis
  Am I the only one that feels repulsed by this kind of offerings?Im not sure how to justify the feeling. Maybe it's that I expect more than entertainment out of creative works (which I consider games to be), but this... Corporate slop firehose seems fundamentally empty in a way that raises goosebumps, like a black mirror episode.
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  komali2
  For some reason they're 403'ing us in Taiwan. I can access from a USA vpn...
• pjmlp
  Great, 1983 crash will look like a joke compared with the crapware and copycats that will come out of this.
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  kraig911
  Roblox copy/equivalent incoming I'm sure and that'll get kid's heads turning.
• mv4
  Can't test. 403 in the US.
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  fancyfredbot
  I'm usually very pro AI and the idea that people could vibe code their own games which combine exactly the things they enjoy appeals to me so was quite excited for this.I played a few editors picks. "Westbound Frontier" is a kind of RTS. On mobile all the windows open on top of eachother and the text is very hard to read. The amount of resource required to build the first building after town hall was way too high by and you had to wait ages to do anything. There was an infuriating AI sound track singing "ooo-wee-ooo". 0/10 from me, broken and not fun.Next I tried volcano run, a 3D infinite runner. Not my kind of game but a nice aesthetic and it actually worked. After about 30 seconds though the graphics changed to a really low contrast mode (night?) and I couldn't see the rocks I was supposed to dodge. 2/10.Honestly genuinely a bit shocked Google launched this. It's obviously not ready, the "Editor" who picked these games should have known that. I am not sure if this is some kind of set of skills for Gemini or a fine tune or just a prompt but it certainly feels very low effort and embarrassing.
• sgarrity
  That promo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxvrvfyicp0) made me feel even older than I actually am.I was out after the slurping sound in the first 1-second.
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  bearjaws
  I do kind of believe this is the "end game" at this point."Friend-slop" has already proven wildly successful, and significantly lower effort than AAA games.Combine this with the fact your game will be stolen and put into Roblox, it really feels like we're approaching a era of just rapidly produced games that live for weeks rather than years.
• 4729738210
  Over-under that it'll be shut down in a year?
• FinnLobsien
  Google seems to have some desire to enter the gaming world, with Stadia before this.Perhaps it's their culture of letting engineers experiment with stuff during work hours that also led to Gmail, Maps, etc. and the mobile game ad market is certainly big.I guess this mainly competes with mobile games, most of which are mediocre at best and aim to get a few "whale users" to spend inordinate amounts of money on coins, gems, or whatever in-game currency.Maybe the theory is that those games are so easy to vibe-code that completely democratizing it will lead to enough of a flood of games?And a few will stand out and become Candy Crush-sized successes?Or perhaps it's the idea that if you can have millions of extremely niche games, each may have a few hardcore fans because it caters to their specific interests (the same way Kindle Direct Publishing enabled hyper-niche literary genres)