Back Spot Balance

Computer Science and Business Administration Student

Artist Statement:

I created Back Spot Balance as a cozy arcade game with the intent of having it be

a relaxing, progressive-level game that stimulates the brain and calms users down. The concept for this game came from my personal experiences and interests, as I have been a cheerleader for the past four years. When many people envision cheer, they think of the flyer—the sport is designed to do so. However, unless prompted, many spectators do not acknowledge the work the cheerleaders under the stunt put in to keep the flyer in the air. I wanted this game to be a representation for backspots who feel hidden while stunting. The precision required of backspots is extremely technical, and I wanted to represent that in this game through the balancing elements and the overall goal. Not only does the player have to do their job as a backspot, but they also have to keep the flyer safe by not letting her fall.

The main design decision I had to defend was the difficulty curve. As I was

building out the mechanics for the game and testing the new features, I found that I only ever failed a level when I was actively trying to. It took many prompts asking Claude Code to increase the difficulty. Keeping the flyer centered for long enough was challenging enough, but I found it unrewarding if you passed a level without having to actively attempt to keep her centered. I had to ask Claude Code to implement a feature that made the player have to avoid the “danger zones,” through which the “Goldilocks spot” was found. Additionally, I also had to defend the game’s pacing. When I was testing the game, sure, I speed-ran it to get to the part I had to test; however, if I was able to do that, so would first-time players. For a game with a purpose of being relaxing, the first iterations had no emphasis on the game’s theme—it was more of a balancing act than it was about cheer. I wanted the player to breathe after each round and have them understand the skill introduced on the next level instead of immediately skipping to the

next screen. So, I had Claude Code elongate the duration of the intervals between each level so they could digest and visualize the new skill being added.

One aspect of creating the game that was truly collaborative was the aesthetics.

When I first gave Claude Code the prompt to create the HTML file, I had asked for an early 2000s, retro vibe with a purple tint. I wanted the visuals to emulate watching a VHS tape of video camera footage on a mini-TV. Initially, Claude Code actually did too good a job applying the aesthetics. The purple tint was too overbearing in combination with the scanlines, so the controls and visuals of the actual game were lost. After deliberating and being persistent, Claude Code pulled back the effects just enough to preserve the nostalgic “vibe” without having it interrupt the actual elements of the game. One aspect of creating the game that was not collaborative was the skill progression in each level. As a collegiate cheerleader, I have enough discretion to know where skills would fall if ranked. While brainstorming, I was dead set on a prep being the first skill, followed by an extension, and so on. This emulates my experience as a cheerleader; at practice, we start with progressions of skills to get warmed up to complete advanced stunts. The sequence in the game is the actual progression of skills we do at practice. There was no point in the game design process in which the skill progression changed, an element crafted solely by me that stood unaltered.

I truly believe I authored the entire concept of the game. Claude is not a sentient

being and could not provide help like a human partner would; however, without Claude Code, there would be no playable game. At the same time, without my ideas and vision, there would be no code to be written by Claude Code. The implementation of the code was completely handled by Claude Code, and I have no claim to any backend design that was written. I do feel responsible for designing the game. From start to finish, I was the one who thought of each screen and how/what would be displayed. The controls and physics of the game were crafted by me aswell. Most ideas were presented at the creation of the file, which were workshopped to meet my standards, and some ideas came while I was testing the game. In total, I would say the work was split 60:40 between Claude Code and me. I provided Claude Code with all my concepts, while Claude Code wrote the code

that manifested them. Some aspects were concisely explained, yet Claude Code still brought them to life better than I imagined (which is where Claude gets 10% more credit than I do). When telling others about Back Spot Balance, I never exclude the fact that Claude Code was the one who actually coded the game.

The aesthetic is an early-2000s handheld video-camera look, watched back

on a small purple-tinted mini-TV: a slightly rounded screen with a soft purple tint and glow, faint horizontal scanlines and VHS grain, a subtle chromatic-aberration wobble at the edges, a blinking "REC" indicator, and a camcorder-style

timestamp/battery in the corner. Cozy, lo-fi, a little nostalgic.

As of now, every time I've played it, I've never gotten a game over screen. Make the balance more central, so the closer it gets to the ends, the more

exponentially it gets pulled to it, and when it reaches one end, the round ends and the player has to restart the round.

AI Disclosure:

I instructed Claude Code to write, edit, and patch the HTML file aswell as opening

the file myself in Visual Studio Code to check the number of lines it was. There were roughly 17 rounds of iteration, consisting of difficulty, layout, skill animations, brightness and readability, the “danger zone,” the next level screen, the instant replay, controls, true-to-life date and timer, TV display, and coloring modifications and additions. The main aspects that I had to correct were the 5:4 screen ratio, the difficulty (repeatedly), the “new skill” label, and the color of the pom-poms. The main concept that I had to abandon was the replay preview, as Claude Code temporarily shrunk the real game’s levels to win quickly, which I interrupted and undid so the screen previewed without altering the game.