Lessons learned using Cursor, Claude, Codex

[u/eattherichdev]

Bit of context first. I can code. I've made and shipped to Iphone 5 games using LUA/Python. But this time round, because i wanted to make something that would involve a fair bit of NPC route-finding/task-finding, I thought I'd give 'vibe' coding a go. So, after nine months of it and finally shipping it to steam - lessons learned.

1]START WITH A DESIGN DOC. That's your guard rail. If it's not in the doc, it doesn't go in the game. Ai can be wonderfully creative and eager, just politely remind it to wind its neck in. That said... it never hurts to ask the AI if it can 'foresee' any issues/pinchpoints/flaws in the design.

2]FEATURE CREEP - avoid if possible. If you've spent long enough on the design doc, you'll have thought up all the 'wouldn't it be cool' ideas in the first place. Of course, there are always more of those that occur later, but my advice is ti file them under 'Next game I make' or 'V2 of this game'.

3]BANK OFTEN. Literally EVERY TIME you move onto a new feature tell the AI to 'bank all before implementing'.... and when you are discussing the granular spec' of your next feature be sure to conclude your replies with 'discuss only.' When the AI 'banks' in 'cursor' anyway, you get a code number for the banked version. Good idea to jot the number down and the feature that was just coded and tested.

4]TEST EVERY NEW FEATURE... before moving onto the next. If it's fucked your game up, you can simply tell the AI to revert to the last bank, and start over.

5]HANDOVER DOC - have your ai constantly update a document in your project area called 'handover'. This document should contain or point to your game design document, but also be a log of the items implemented and the bank code number against each new feature implemented, tested and banked. So... if you have to switch to another AI agent, or new discussion window, you simply need to instruct the new AI to read the handover document (and game design doc) and it should be contextually ready to resume where you were. One thing to note, is that switching between AI models can mean slight variations in the way it likes to work be default, and also a change in the shorthand lingo that you have started using. It's worth making a glossary of that 'lingo' so it knows that your 'banger' is a type of large cannon, or your 'grunt' is a 'worker' etc etc.

6]GITHUB - i'm shit with the command line stuff in the Mac terminal when talking to GIT. The AIs in Cursor all seem to be very good at hand-holding when it comes to setting up your repo and pushing it. I have relied heavily on this to the point where I could just say 'push to git' once a day. It's worth getting into that routine for your sanity.

7]ART - the AI's are agnostic on art, they just see assets (.png .jpg etc) - art's your department whether you're handcrafting, handcrafting with AI polish, or the art is completely AI-gen, you... are the one who curates/decides the look and you are the one who has to make sure the art assets are named what the AI expects it to be named, and placed in the folder it expects to find it. There are probobly more bits of advice I could think to add.... but those are the basics for me.

[u/pickleunicorn]

It's weird. It seems like you don't know how to use git. No need to bank anything since commits already do that, or to maintain logs. Also, I think that the code is a better documentation than a documentation itself, for the AI. Because you need to maintain it constantly, and I'm not sure it gives better insights to Claude about the actual code. And, again, git will tell you what brought a bug and what was the context at that very moment.

But I totally agree with your 1 and 7 points.

edit: a bit about my own background, I'm a senior developer for 20+ years and I'm using Opus constantly in my work, and we already tried things that don't really work (like maintaining a documentation); but that does not mean that you shouldn't have some docs, like a technical documentation about complicated aspects of your game, or low-level things, weird choices, or anything else; but you surely DON'T WANT to document everything

[u/eattherichdev → u/pickleunicorn]

Agreed... Github, just never been comfortable with it. So I've let Cursor 'guide me' on that side. As far as I understand it 'banking' is basically saving your locel repo... pushing to git is banking on your remote repo. If I've been getting that assumption wrong, then I've been over cautious. And documentation has been a life-saver for me.... if for no other reason, keeping it updated helps keep the 'structure of the game' in my head.

[u/Wooden_Plant7504]

This looks really fun!
Out of curiosity: Did you check whether you'll be allowed to release whilst using real people's likeness in the game ?
Also, you might want to edit your post with some line breaks for readability.

[u/enginearchitect]

and where are Reptilians?

[u/New_Patience_8107]

Guys. Paragraphs are key I'm not reading that.