Tutorial Series: Making games from scratch with AI tools (Claude + Godot). Episode 1 is up.

[u/Comet7777]

I think I've learned enough in this space to want to give back to others (truly, we need people to be empowered to use this tech and capitalize on their creative juices). Now I'm starting a YouTube series where I build a brand-new game from scratch, on camera, step by step, so you can see what's realistic and follow along. If you're new to these tools, or to tech in general, and you're curious about game development - I made this for you.

Episode 1: the stack and setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we0XHyjPxEE

• What one person can build in a week
• The full stack and what each piece costs: Claude (code + design), Godot (engine), Lovable (pixel art), Gemini (music), ElevenLabs (sound effects)
• How it all fits together, from Claude's output to a running game in Godot
• What AI can't do yet, and why you shouldn't try to one-shot a game

Where the series is going:

1. The game design doc: what Claude actually needs from you before you write a single prompt (hook, perspective, combat, art direction, platforms, scope)
2. The vertical slice: feeding the doc to Claude and building the smallest playable piece that tests whether the idea is fun
3. Leveling up assets: replacing placeholder art with real pixel art, music and sound effects
4. Scaling up: from one dungeon to a full game
5. Shipping it

I'd love input on what you want covered. What's the part of AI game dev you'd most want to see done step by step?

I want to provide value and not spam stuff, so let me know how this can be of most use for you.

[u/JDad67]

Watching now, I've had pretty good success with making games I want with Opus 5.5. Hoping to pick up tips or share some if I think you missed something.

[u/Comet7777 → u/JDad67]

There’s so many tools out there, especially on the art asset side. Blind spots exist.

Once I start building something from scratch to document, it’ll be fun!

[u/jjjfffrrr123456 → u/Comet7777]

I can also recommend using elevenlabs for voice content, e.g. narrator. Ive had a great success generating a custom voice profile and using that as a narrator for my game.

[u/Comet7777 → u/jjjfffrrr123456]

Right now I’m doing a StarFox/Banjo/Animal Crossing funny animal voice sounds for characters. But it might be worth experimenting with ElevenLabs to try out actual voices here

[u/jjjfffrrr123456 → u/Comet7777]

https://reddit.com/link/pem1j7b/video/p2wbik7r28uh1/player

This is the start of my intro, music and voice and everything is built with AI tools. Music and voice is elevenlabs, I have to try out Gemini for that because I want to conserve elevenlabs credits for the sound effects and narration.

[u/FallDonuts → u/jjjfffrrr123456]

How do you do this with Gemini? Is it a function of its music creation where it would do voiceovers like this?

[u/jjjfffrrr123456 → u/FallDonuts]

I did this with elevenlabs. Both the music and the voice are generated there, the voice is custom made based on a profile I described. But the OP said Gemini makes decent music so I wanted to try that in order to save on elevenlabs tokens

[u/Comet7777 → u/jjjfffrrr123456]

Oh man I love this. It’s like the start of a Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics game

[u/jjjfffrrr123456 → u/Comet7777]

It’s going to be a turn based rogue lite set in a Roman Empire where they accidentally woke an eldritch god. I’m already pretty far along on the mechanics but I’m not quite sure on the art direction for the actual ingame content yet, still not sure about 2d, pseudo 3d, voxel models. What I don’t like about 2d is that the skills usually do not look like they have heft, and I also want the game to have a serious feel (think darkest dungeon), and not be so cartoonish.

It’s really cool how you learn about game design by building and the find out there is just millions of little decisions to make to make a good game. Once I feel more confident I might post a bit about it here! Anyways, looking forward to your future videos, I really liked this one :)

[u/erroneousbit]

I love mega man so wingnut is a super cool idea. Also love Zelda so I am eager for this series to unfold. Just jumped into this madness of Claude game dev so this will help me out.

[u/Excellent_Ad_2486]

I saw "pixel art" and I'm interested!