I had some fun making my first game.
For the basic idea I went properly retro and back to Asteroids, one of the games I loved playing in the arcades in the late ’70s.
The first version was pretty close to Asteroids. Once that worked, I started playing around with new ideas, adding power-ups, UFOs, black holes and eventually three bosses.
Made with Gemini
The whole thing was made in Google AI Studio, using a mix of Gemini Flash 3.6 and the current Gemini 3.1 Pro model.
The other reason for making it was simply curiosity. My Pixel came with a free Gemini AI Pro subscription, and I wanted to see what Google AI Studio could actually do on a project that went beyond a quick demo. I knew it wasn’t necessarily the strongest AI coding setup available, but that made the experiment more interesting. Gemini handled the code, while I concentrated on the ideas, gameplay, testing and all the iterations needed to turn it into something I actually wanted to play.
I also used ChatGPT throughout the process to help me work through ideas, mechanics, balance and bugs, and especially to refine the prompts I then gave to Gemini. But all the actual coding was handled by Gemini in AI Studio.
Most of the development ended up being a loop between me, ChatGPT and Gemini. I would play the game, come back with an idea, a problem or something that needed improving, and use ChatGPT to turn that feedback into a clear prompt. I would then feed that prompt into Gemini AI Studio, let it make the changes, test the result and start the process again.
What I liked most was the speed of iteration. I could try an idea, test it almost immediately, change direction and keep refining things. Google AI Studio made that particularly convenient because I could run the result directly and check how it behaved on desktop, mobile and tablet as I went.
ASTRO VOID
The basic idea is still very simple: fly around, avoid getting smashed into pieces and shoot things.
But I kept adding stuff.
- Classic, Survival and Zen Void modes
- Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty levels
- Asteroids, UFOs and various space hazards
- Black holes and other things generally best avoided
- Triple Shot, EMP, shields, Time Warp and Hyper Laser
- High scores, combos, achievements and challenges
- Three major boss fights
- Keyboard, mouse and touchscreen controls
Then things get a little less like Asteroids
The further you get, the more chaotic it becomes. The asteroid fields get busier, UFOs start joining in, power-ups completely change what your ship can do and various hazards start appearing at exactly the sort of moment you’d rather they didn’t.
And every five waves there’s a boss.
Dreadnought
The first one arrives at Wave 5. It’s a huge shielded mothership with rotating defenses that you have to work your way around while it tries to turn you into space debris.
Core Severance
Wave 10 gets considerably more stupid, in a good way. Core Severance has orbiting shield nodes, attacks coming from different directions and enormous sweeping lasers that you have to dodge while still trying to shoot the thing.
The Grid Architect
Wave 15 is a three-phase fight with reflective armor, bullet-hell attacks, gravity effects and some very large beams.
By this point my little homage to Asteroids has wandered rather far from 1979.
Power-ups
I also wanted those moments arcade games do so well where you suddenly become ridiculously powerful for a few seconds.
So there are shields, drones, Triple Shot, EMP, Time Warp, Gravity Magnet, Nuke and a Hyper Laser Cannon that fires a huge beam through pretty much everything in front of you.
Hyper Crystal activated. Restraint was never really the objective.
From messing around to version 1.0
I didn’t start this with some grand plan to become a game developer. I mainly wanted to see how far I could get making something with the current generation of AI coding tools.
It turned into a lot more work than I expected, but also a lot more fun.
I kept playing it, changing things, adding ideas and getting Gemini to rework parts until eventually there wasn’t much point calling it an experiment anymore.
It had three game modes, difficulty settings, bosses, scoring, achievements, challenges, touch controls, sound, power-ups, a proper start screen and far too many different ways of dying.
So I decided to call it version 1.0 and actually release the thing.
Play ASTRO VOID
It’s free and runs directly in the browser. Nothing to install.
The source and documentation are also on GitHub.
It’s my first game. It started with Asteroids and somehow ended with me dodging giant AI death lasers in space. I’m quite happy with that.
