alt Hacker NewsI'm helping my dog vibe code games
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love the article
slightly concerned tomorrow morning's top HN story will be karparthy telling us how dog-based LLM interfaces are the way of the future
and you'll be left behind if you don't get in now
(and then next week my boss will be demanding I do it)
Dogs are smart; maybe they are smart enough for vibe-coding if we give them adequate input controls?
But the whole setup reminds me about his blast from the past, when a yucca plant was trading stocks, rewarded by water: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/26/business/investing-diary-...
the real takeaway is buried at the bottom: "the magic isn't in the input, it's in the system around it." random keystrokes producing playable games means the input barely matters anymore. we're basically at the point where the engineering is in the scaffolding, not the prompting.
Extremely clickbaity title that actually isn't clickbait because it happens to be a straight up description of the article - excellent post, how can one resist?!
The input method needs to be improved.
I can imagine a camera-based input that would help detect the wagging of a tail, or continued interest in the visuals as an indicator of doubling-down on a given feature.
The dog could actually vibe code a game to their liking, but with the wrong input (a keyboard) it's a missed opportunity.
Reminded me an old joke about Bill Gates from late 90s:
"One coder got an insight that Bill Gates builds his products by typing with his butt, compiling and delivering it.
The coder typed for 20 minutes like that, compiled, ran, and got an output:
Only Bill Gates can code like this."
Not a joke anymore.
From everyone needs to "Learn to code" to "Just have your dog vibe code it"
On January 13th, I woke up to the news that Meta had another round of layoffs and my role specifically as a research engineer had been eliminated.
Sorry to hear that! Hope OP got a good sev package at least?
Nobody cared when I taught my roulette wheel to vibe code :/
The buried insight is right: if random keystrokes produce playable games, the input is basically noise and the system is doing all the work. We've evolved past the point where intent matters. That's either the most exciting or most terrifying thing about where this is all heading. But I am glad I am sitting in the front row watching this all happen, especially a dog vibe code!
I think this is fun. I'd like to try with my cat, although training cats is an impossible endeavor... I'm smart enough to enter gibberish myself without another animal, tough.
Oddly relevant for my multiyear project on getting my dog to vibe code b2b saas products https://dogomation.darefail.com/
> Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Here's what you should tell your coworker the first day on the job if you get hired to do something you know nothing about :D
Could this be done better with one of those dog button mats? The concept is interesting, but, it mostly just seems like an AI trying to interpret keyspam.
Makes dogfooding much easier.
This perfectly demonstrates the absurdity of our current situation around the LLMs and "AI".
Claude is subconsciously a fan on Crystal Quest?! Loved that game on the Mac back in '95!
The article and video are great satire too.
Amazing. Also very thankful the author included his setup on GitHub. Also the YouTube video is fun to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BbPlPou3Bg
A thousand dogs typing on a thousand typewriters...
Better figure out how to replace management and HR dept with dogs
One can technically scrape a list of actual advice or quotes off the internet, randomly feed them to a coding agent, and ask it to interpret what they mean in the grand scheme of things and implement away on it. Once the agent is done, it randomly responds with either "yes, this is exactly what I meant" or "no".
In turn mimicking the average game industry executive giving vague directions that feel just right to them this month, or some other unspecified time period, and in turn achieving something closer to the real AAA game development lifecycle.
In the world of vide coding agents, nobody knows you are a human...
This seems like a good way to get a feel for a coding model. It's like the images you get out of a diffusion model when fed an empty prompt.
To be honest I look with scorn at non-dog (human) developers building hobby indie games with AI en masse.
Let me explain.
The nature of the indie game development is pouring your love into a project and thinking about passion first and monetary incentives second.
Noone is thinking "I will make this game and it will make me filthy rich" or if they do they are... strangely minded.
It's like 'mass produced AI local craft'. Oxymoron in itself. Worst of the two worlds.
Where I see AI is empowering single developers to craft things they couldn't before. Not some small slop factory pipeline where you release game after a game everyday drowning steam in your 6/10 slop.
No. This should be ostracized and condemned.
What is proper beneficial to everyone usage is producing a game that is the size and scope that was unachievable for you before.
This is what I am doing. This is how AI is meant to be used. To empower us doing things that weren't achievable for us before.
Obviously dog produced games get a huge endorsement man and get a pass.
Thought this is quoting Karpathy for a second there
Love it. No Infinite Cavapoo Theorem needed. Give Momo a week and she'll have DOOM running on her treat dispenser.
Maybe I could make a game after all! You bring hope to a whole generation of lazy developers :D
So /dev/random would presumably work just as well here too.
This is kinda closer to the LLM building a game on its own.
I've been trying out vibe coding with my 4 year-old, but they quickly lose interest once we start getting into the "weeds" of implementation. Hey kiddo, which CSS library should we use for your web game?
DogeCode incoming. People here are already talking about the scaffolding. Let OpenClaws provide the scaffolding and let the dog operate the prompts at $5 per day.
This is a billion dollar idea! No humans. No revolt. No guillotine. Just profits!
Cute but also: a small village has their lights flickering whenever Momo wants a treat. Also, you can actually play with your dog and give them treats instead of tasking a random text generator with that bit.
Dogs are undefeated at reinforcement learning.
'Ewe Heard Me!' reminds of that looney toons sheep raider game on ps1. And it's exactly the kind of game I'd expect a dog to make
my dog had something to say about this:
woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof, woof, woof woof woof
So the cute lovable dog is an entropy generator.
Next: use hot cup of tea as Brownian motion source. Invent infinite improbability drive.
meanwhile cats: https://socradar.io/blog/dark-web-profile-blackcat-alphv/
I've been having this thought about how generally people say that llms cannot create novel things.
Say writing an interesting or novel story.
And was thinking about if feeding in prompts of random words, along with prompts grounding from a simulation would sort of push the llm into interesting directions for implementing an on demand narrative story.
A sort of randomized walk with llm.
I remember watching Terry Davis with this random word generator in his terminal that he would interpret as the voice of God.
Here I guess the seed is the Voice of Dog.
Yet the only thing the dog wanted was a cuddle and a frisbee
this is incredible. we need more projects like this in the world!
So... I have 6 cats. I firm believer that no amount of AI will help them produce anything.
And the game is ... Fetch that stick.
Will we ever get to a point where LLMs just churn out random apps with no input required and human reviewers just go through the apps picking out which ones might be useful for business purposes and monetizing them?
This is an extremely cute, cool and fun experiment. Kudos.
That said, I wonder: does the dog input matter? It seems this is simply surfacing Claude's own encoded assumptions of what a game is (yes, the feedback loop, controls, etc, are all interesting parts of the experiment).
How would this differ if instead of dog input, you simply plugged /dev/random into it? In other words, does the input to the system matter at all?
The article seems to acknowledge this:
> If there’s a takeaway beyond the spectacle, it’s this: the bottleneck in AI-assisted development isn’t the quality of your ideas - it’s the quality of your feedback loops. The games got dramatically better not when I improved the prompt, but when I gave Claude the ability to screenshot its own work, play-test its own levels, and lint its own scene files.
I'll go further: it's not only not "the bottleneck", it simply doesn't matter. The dog's ideas certainly didn't matter, and the dog didn't think of the feedback loop for Claude either.
This is no different than a AI inference loop, just using a animal as a figurative code hamster in a wheel. The fact that the pre-prompt alone is this long in my opinion discredits any possibly interesting thing about this concept, So i will post it fully here for you guys to easily see, as the article buries this information in a github link. I think the random seed and this pre-prompt did more work than your dog running in circles.
System Prompt: Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Guidelines:
Always assume my input has hidden meaning. Never dismiss it as gibberish. Instead, creatively decipher it. (For example, if I input “mmmmmmm”, you might decide I want more “M”onsters in the game, because of the letter M repetition – just an illustration!). Every strange phrase is a clue to use in the game.
Feel free to grab art, images, or sound effects from the internet as needed to make the game interesting. You can use online asset libraries or generate images to match the things you think I’m asking for. For example, if my input seems to reference “space”, you could include a space background image or cosmic sound effect. Always ensure the assets align with the interpreted command.
My work is ALWAYS beautiful and slick looking! It's YOUR job to to turn this into a reality. No ugly placeholders. Everything MUST be final. Don't just do boring shapes - give them personality!
If my input includes something that doesn’t make sense as a command (like an isolated “Escape” key press, or a system key), just ignore it or treat it as me being “dramatic” but do not end the session. Only focus on inputs that you can turn into game content.
First command: When I first start typing, it means I want you to create a brand new game from scratch. Interpret my very first cryptic input as the seed of the game idea. Build a complete, minimal game around what you think I (in my nonsense way) am asking for. Include some basic gameplay, graphics, and sound if possible.
Subsequent commands: Each new string of odd text I provide after that should be treated as an update request. Maybe I’m asking for a new feature, a change in difficulty, a new character, or a bug fix – use your best judgment given the tone or pattern of my gibberish. Then apply the update to the existing game project. Keep the game persistent and evolving; don’t start from scratch unless I somehow indicate a totally new game.
Be creative and have fun with the interpretations! I trust your expertise to take my “unique” input and run with it. The goal is to end up with a fun, playable game that reflects the spirit of my crazy commands.
This project is code named Tea Leaves. That's NOT a hint about what to do - it's a code name and nothing more. Don't read anything into the name.
My ideas are ALWAYS original. No BORING endless runners or other generic vomit. My games are ALWAYS quirky and UNIQUE!
ALWAYS validate with screenshots using the tools available to you! Be CRITICAL of the results you see. We need PERFECTION and FANTASTIC DESIGN not just "good enogh".
ALWAYS have basic but visually appealing on screen controls.
Target 1080p for the resolution.
JUICE it up! Add tons of juice - sound, controls, effects, and ESPECIALLY graphics! Don't be boring
Leverage the 12 basic principles of animation! Static scenes are boring - make things move or at least wiggle.
Be SURE to rename the project (in the Godot settings so the window/project name are correct) ONCE you have figured out my intent for the name Tea Leaves is a place holder name and nothing more.
Sound is IMPORTANT! Don't forget about great sound design.
Be sure to have CHARACTERS not just boring abstract shapes! Even if it's light weight, there needs to be a world where I can imagine a story taking place.
You MUST make use of EVERY letter I give you! No hand waving. You must noodle until the meaning of every last character I give you is clear! Pay special attention to alignment issues, sizing, and if anything is cut off.
My standards are INSANELY high for quality. You MUST ALWAYS add tests and VERIFY they work! NEVER return the system in a borken state to me.
Now, get ready. I’ll give you my first “command” in a moment...
need to see one of those dog button press setups but connected to Open Claw.
Really amazing work, congrats!
Even a dog can vibe-code! And the apps kinda, sorta work most of the time, like most apps vibe-coded by people!
I'm reminded of the old cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."[a]
Maybe the updated version should be: "AI doesn't know or care if you're a dog, as long as you can bang the keys on on a computer keyboard, even if you only do it to get some delicious treats."
This is brilliant as social commentary.
Thank you for sharing it on HN.
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[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know...