Pop To Survive

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Project Description

Press SPACE to shoot! Built for the "Crazy Fast Game" vibe coding challenge, it is a game for survival. How it works: every time the target goes over a balloon and you don't shoot it, you lose a point. The game simply counts how many seconds you "survive" before losing 10 points. My personal record? 17 seconds! Haha.

Initial Prompt

Create and run an HTML page that includes the p5.js script. Build a p5.js game that measures the player reaction time. The game shows several colorful balloons flying up in the sky from the bottom of the screen, really fast. A target bounces left and right near the center of the screen. The player, by pressing the space bar, can shoot and destroy a ballon if it's the center of the target. For every milliseconds that the target is over a balloon and the player does not shoot, a reaction point is counted. The game ends when the target crosses 10 balloons and the total reaction time is shown (low is best) (As you call tell, a lot changed from the initial prompt)

Project Development Snapshots

Development snapshot 1 for Pop To Survive

Claude could not select worse colors and graphic style from my initial prompt. I guess that's what you get when you ask for a game with balloons.

Development snapshot 2 for Pop To Survive

Dark mode! Much better style. But where is the target?

Development snapshot 3 for Pop To Survive

The explosion was added later and looks great. But this frame was captured to tell Gemini not to decrease my score when the target first encounters a balloon, but only after, if the balloon has not been popped.

Lessons Learned

  • What worked: Claude created these pretty colorful balloons with a sort of 3D feeling. The game mechanics worked for the start and AI could easily adapt when I asked to change the scoring system.
  • What needed help: AI failed at the initial style big time. Childish and just bad to look at. Also interesting, when I switch to "night mode", it didn't change the target from black to white, I had to prompt for that. Gemimi also got the scoring wrong by removing points even when the balloon popped by timing the scoring incorrectly.

Project Card

Dev environment: Claude / Ai Studio

Model: Claude, Gemini

Dev time: 3 hours

My Rating: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

Submitted: May 31, 2025

gamep5.js

Author

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