What does one-shot mean in this context? Aiden (the main character)'s walk cycle is kind of a mess and its also the animation that a player is going to see all the time.
It appears to be eight frames, but after taking a closer look, I found that they don't seem to be consistent [1]. Using ControlNets and various other strategies, you can definitely build out a "nominally acceptable" walk cycle [2], but you still have to do some manual work.
One-shot means one-shot just like in any other context. The article clearly explains what the author/their nephew did. There is no ambiguity. One-shot never means 'so perfect there is literally nothing to be improved.' It means no back-and-forth iterations between the human in the loop and the AI.
There are some areas in which Fable is clearly better but subjectively the Opus 5.5 version feels more fun.
Both are one shots, Opus 5.5 was done a few weeks ago before they added "guardrails" around recreating games. Fable 5.2 changed some game mechanics despite my prompt asking for them to be the same as original game.
In my 2 minutes of testing I liked the gameplay elements from Fable 5.2 much better. I think Opus 5.5 sound effects may have been a bit better but that's it.
I want to ask this as politely as possible, because you set out to do something nice for your nephew and he had a good birthday.
The first thing I felt when I saw this post was concern on the impact of this type of thing on the mental development of children. For example developing specific skills like drawing, and general emotional skills like concentration and learning to be happy with their own skill level.
I respect it was a light post where your aim was probably to highlight something fun, but I couldn't see any note of what you thought about it.
What do you think about that? What do his parents think?
This is both cute but also a bit sad in terms of game stylization, I guess these generic AI designs could become so normal to the youth that in the next 10-20 years it just appears everywhere
Positive little kiddo gets more screentime!!!! Yaaaaaayyy!!!!!
Negatives: we either are annihilated by AI or enslaved by technocratic feodalism living in a worse conditions than 1800s mine workers. Uau
I quickly dove into the game and then got lost as I couldn't exit and had to spam keyboard to see the controls. The menu refers to "Punch" but it wasn't obvious what key that is (and it wasn't "p"!).
I see that ENTER pauses, but may I suggest also making ESC and/or P pause. And then the pause screen showing or linking the keyboard controls and an exit path.
(Caveat: I'm not much of a gamer so maybe the current controls are standard? Anyway, I feel like it could be more inviting to casuals with something like the above.)
> I must admit I never tested this with Opus 5.5, so I'm not sure whether this was possible before Fable 5.2 rolled around.
Since somewhere around Opus 4+ it's been really good enough to do these things, but 4.6 was the most pivotal version since a 1 million token context window can allow a model to fit so much "in its head" basically.
I appreciate the token breakdown, but how much would this cost in money? Chatgpt estimated $400 to $600, but I don't have enough knowledge of token pricing to know if that's accurate at all.
Yeah, it would have been expensive via the API; the tokens were free when I tested it, but it would have been something like $300 USD for the Claude tokens at Fable 5.2's API prices.
Based on what I've seen, there's a good chance this would work today (though Anthropic recently added some restrictions around this sort of prompt) -- try it!
"find all documents, descriptions, walk through of game XYZ, generate a consistent and declarative document that another agent would read to recreate the game without using existing IP or protected data, do not reuse art but describe general details with the ability to extend and add specifics later. focus on functionality first, then mechanics and then later art and gameplay. generate a 10 page document that will follow MVP to Production quality gameplay"
Is Pudding the dog (unlocked after beating the first boss) supposed to shrink anytime it jumps? I guess even Claude-turned-world-class-game-developer isn't immune to bugs. ;)
Honestly, setting all the oft-cited AI caveats aside, the end result is cute and perfectly serviceable as a game for the kids. I can't imagine how stoked they were about playing it.
I tried the game and in some seconds noticed I can kick the enemies forever if I put them close to the left corner. I'm feeling now that I'm the AI exploiting bugs.
I have been slopping out games for years now. The graphics don't matter unless the gameplay does. The gameplay doesn't matter if the game is too hard or too easy.
The games that do well, like literature, survive because they touch the soul.
They are already growing up on slop. Look at brainrot and Roblox games, and YouTube shorts. This will fit right in with what they're used to. They won't even notice.
heck i remember before covid thinking that the generations growing up with social media were doomed. social media pales in comparison to what gen alpha is experiencing.
test scores are dropping while the curriculum becomes easier as well.
What does one-shot mean in this context? Aiden (the main character)'s walk cycle is kind of a mess and its also the animation that a player is going to see all the time.
It appears to be eight frames, but after taking a closer look, I found that they don't seem to be consistent [1]. Using ControlNets and various other strategies, you can definitely build out a "nominally acceptable" walk cycle [2], but you still have to do some manual work.
[1] - https://aidens-revenge.pages.dev/assets/characters/aiden/ani...
[2] - https://mordenstar.com/other/hobbes-animation
One-shot means one-shot just like in any other context. The article clearly explains what the author/their nephew did. There is no ambiguity. One-shot never means 'so perfect there is literally nothing to be improved.' It means no back-and-forth iterations between the human in the loop and the AI.
My dad asked recently if AI is good enough to create something like DX Ball - a breakout style game we used to play a lot.
Opus 5.5: https://claude.ai/artifact/UuT7P936dU1XoPByYZ7xyD Fable 5.2: https://claude.ai/artifact/UszKFvuonWAT5psjMttAEg
There are some areas in which Fable is clearly better but subjectively the Opus 5.5 version feels more fun.
Both are one shots, Opus 5.5 was done a few weeks ago before they added "guardrails" around recreating games. Fable 5.2 changed some game mechanics despite my prompt asking for them to be the same as original game.
In my 2 minutes of testing I liked the gameplay elements from Fable 5.2 much better. I think Opus 5.5 sound effects may have been a bit better but that's it.
yeah same, the Fable 5.2 version was so fun I was actually playing thru the lives!
I want to ask this as politely as possible, because you set out to do something nice for your nephew and he had a good birthday.
The first thing I felt when I saw this post was concern on the impact of this type of thing on the mental development of children. For example developing specific skills like drawing, and general emotional skills like concentration and learning to be happy with their own skill level.
I respect it was a light post where your aim was probably to highlight something fun, but I couldn't see any note of what you thought about it.
What do you think about that? What do his parents think?
This is both cute but also a bit sad in terms of game stylization, I guess these generic AI designs could become so normal to the youth that in the next 10-20 years it just appears everywhere
Or the small Battle Wagon around the height of a child quintupling in size the next frame. Kiddos having fun is the main mission though :)
I noticed this recently with Opus 5.5: you can tell it to "make this more fun" for a game project and it... makes it more fun.
It's neat (if unsurprising) that Fable 5.2 has this ability as well.
My loose testing shows other models aren't quite as good at this yet. Here's the prompt "Build a mobile-friendly three.js game where a mouse has to hide from a cat" by Opus 5.5 Extra - https://claude.ai/artifact/RRyEndXLSPQbcig3BgzgCZ - and by GPT-6 Extra High: https://squeak-and-seek-mouse-1027.simonw.chatgpt.site/ - the Claude one is a better game, even though they look very similar at first glance.
I wrote about Opus 5.5's sense of fun in more detail here: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/28/vibe-game-development/
Ignoring all the positives & negatives surrounding this technology for a minute, this is an amazing outcome for the kids.
Agreed. Could you imagine? Those kids must have been so stoked!
Though, now they will never stop asking for more and more. OOP may have opened Pandora's box. :)
Positive little kiddo gets more screentime!!!! Yaaaaaayyy!!!!! Negatives: we either are annihilated by AI or enslaved by technocratic feodalism living in a worse conditions than 1800s mine workers. Uau
I'm thinking of the scene from Zoolander where Mugatu dresses up as Little Cletus to advocate for child labor.
I quickly dove into the game and then got lost as I couldn't exit and had to spam keyboard to see the controls. The menu refers to "Punch" but it wasn't obvious what key that is (and it wasn't "p"!).
I see that ENTER pauses, but may I suggest also making ESC and/or P pause. And then the pause screen showing or linking the keyboard controls and an exit path.
(Caveat: I'm not much of a gamer so maybe the current controls are standard? Anyway, I feel like it could be more inviting to casuals with something like the above.)
> I must admit I never tested this with Opus 5.5, so I'm not sure whether this was possible before Fable 5.2 rolled around.
Since somewhere around Opus 4+ it's been really good enough to do these things, but 4.6 was the most pivotal version since a 1 million token context window can allow a model to fit so much "in its head" basically.
I appreciate the token breakdown, but how much would this cost in money? Chatgpt estimated $400 to $600, but I don't have enough knowledge of token pricing to know if that's accurate at all.
Fable is $8/$40, with cache reads at $0.2 and cache writes at $10, so you simply calculate based on the info from the blog:
> about 320M tokens read from cache, 19M written to cache, 1M output
320 * $0.2 + 19 * $10 + 1 * $40 = $294
Yeah, it would have been expensive via the API; the tokens were free when I tested it, but it would have been something like $300 USD for the Claude tokens at Fable 5.2's API prices.
I’m waiting until I can give AI a link to a Macintosh garden game and ask it to be reimplemented in the web browser.
Based on what I've seen, there's a good chance this would work today (though Anthropic recently added some restrictions around this sort of prompt) -- try it!
"find all documents, descriptions, walk through of game XYZ, generate a consistent and declarative document that another agent would read to recreate the game without using existing IP or protected data, do not reuse art but describe general details with the ability to extend and add specifics later. focus on functionality first, then mechanics and then later art and gameplay. generate a 10 page document that will follow MVP to Production quality gameplay"
give it a link if you want
Reminds me a bit of Little Fighter 2.
My dream game is Tetris. I would be concerned if an LLM couldn’t ahem “one-shot” that.
Is Pudding the dog (unlocked after beating the first boss) supposed to shrink anytime it jumps? I guess even Claude-turned-world-class-game-developer isn't immune to bugs. ;)
Honestly, setting all the oft-cited AI caveats aside, the end result is cute and perfectly serviceable as a game for the kids. I can't imagine how stoked they were about playing it.
AI pixel art still looks awful I see
It's not as good as Street Hassle on the Commodore 64. AGI.
I Googled it as I had never heard of that game, and it turned out that I knew it as Bop'n Rumble. Great game.
I tried the game and in some seconds noticed I can kick the enemies forever if I put them close to the left corner. I'm feeling now that I'm the AI exploiting bugs.
People are really out there naming their dog Doggo, huh?
My dream game is a high fidelity universe as detailed as GTA 6 or Red Dead Redemption 2 and as expansive as No Mans Sky.
2029 has you covered.
> Make it one of the best games you can possibly make. You are a truly world-class game developer.
Top Jobs in 2027:
1. LLM glazer.
does anyone else worry about future generations growing up on ai slop? because i wasn't until reading this post. now i'm terrified.
No.
I have been slopping out games for years now. The graphics don't matter unless the gameplay does. The gameplay doesn't matter if the game is too hard or too easy.
The games that do well, like literature, survive because they touch the soul.
Every generation believes the next generation is growing up on slop.
They are already growing up on slop. Look at brainrot and Roblox games, and YouTube shorts. This will fit right in with what they're used to. They won't even notice.
yeah thats true. i should have been terrified earlier.
You registered an account called “slopinthebag” 9 months ago, but you weren’t worried about this until you read this post?
Remember 2025 when we thought future generations growing up on tiktok was going to be bad? Can't wait to see how 2027 will ruin society even more.
heck i remember before covid thinking that the generations growing up with social media were doomed. social media pales in comparison to what gen alpha is experiencing.
test scores are dropping while the curriculum becomes easier as well.
Profoundly disturbing to be subjecting children to this.