Black Ice

Black Ice Artist’s Statement

Yunzhen Li

Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University · Class of 2029 · Computer Science Game file: YunzhenLi_BlackIce.html · statement 583 words · prompts quoted in full below

Black Ice is about the eight minutes nobody photographs: the walk from your dorm door to an 8:00 class in a Boston winter. Over five mornings, Monday to Friday, the weather gets worse: flurries, freezing drizzle, a −4°F wind chill, a snow emergency with the Green Line still running, and a nor’easter you can barely see through. I pitched the idea because it’s true to my life: Centennial Common and Huntington Ave, both in the game, are on my real walk to class. Underneath, it’s about learning a place. The first time through a morning, the ground surprises you. The second time, it doesn’t.

Wednesday after my redesign: the ice is the shortcut,

with coffee halfway; the shoveled path loops the long way

round.

Friday’s nor’easter: the Green Line, cars and signals stay

readable through the whiteout, and the classroom door

glows.

Three decisions I’d defend

First, the ice stays where it was. I designed the map never to change between attempts: random ice would test luck, fixed ice tests memory, and the week ends by saying so. That only works if failure teaches. The first build wiped every tutorial hint on a retry, even unread ones, so I had Claude keep those and end each failure with one tip about what went wrong.

Second, a shortcut should be a real bet: safe but slow, or fast and risky. My first Wednesday broke that: I had run a salted bridge straight across the frozen plaza, so nobody needed the ice or the coffee on it. I flipped it: now the ice is the shortcut, with coffee halfway, and the shoveled path loops round. It only pays if you read the wind: in Claude’s play-tests, crossing in a lull saved three and a half seconds but ran late one time in nine; charging into gusts was slower than the loop. Thursday makes the same bet with traffic. Friday takes it away: in a whiteout, the unsignaled crossing is no shortcut, and knowing the place means waiting for WALK.

Third, the clock. 7:52 to 8:00 is the theme, but it is really thirty seconds or less, which nobody can read off a clock face, so I kept the clock and added a countdown bar, the real seconds at the end, and a warning when you’re too cold to steer well.

Where the collaboration was real, and where it wasn’t

It was real in the details. I never asked for footprints, but Claude added them: prints in the snow, streaks on the ice, breath that fogs. That real-time feedback went beyond anything I’d imagined. Where it wasn’t, I had to push. The first time I played, I told Claude the game was perfect. Then I tested it as a critic and wrote eight changes, three of them above. Another was a bug I proved with numbers: the same one-second walk covered 73.7 pixels at 30 FPS and 79.2 at 144, unfair in a game scored in seconds. I also overruled two details: Wednesday’s detour is shoveled, not salted, and the trolley does stop for the WALK signal.

What I authored

Claude wrote every line of code, and some of the feel is Claude’s too: the footprints and breath I never asked for are much of what makes the walk feel cold. What’s mine is the design: the core concept, the first version of the mechanics and all five mornings. The judgment is mine too: noticing where the game failed its own theme, my own salted bridge included, and saying no each time it did. Claude has never walked to class in February. If authorship means writing the code, the game is Claude’s. If it means deciding what it should be and saying no to what it shouldn’t, much of it is mine, though less of its texture than I’d like.

Prompts that guided the game

Points 1–3 of the eight-point revision list I wrote, quoted in full: my original Chinese, then an English translation by Claude.

1. 让周三的冒险路线更值得选择。

中间的撒盐通道既直接，又有暖气点。我用“向右移动并上下纠偏”的输入模拟，约 9 秒就能完成 27 秒的关卡，剩

余体温约 92–93。大面积冰面和冰上的咖啡因此容易变成玩家主动避开的区域。

建议保留安全路线，但让它稍微绕一些；冰面路线更短，咖啡放在可以顺路经过的位置。这样玩家是在选择“稳妥还

是冒险”

，地图各部分也都有作用。周四的安全过街与直接横穿，已经比较接近这种有效取舍。

1. Make Wednesday’s risky route more worth choosing.

The salted path through the middle is both direct and has a heating spot. Simulating the input “move right and correct up and down,” I can finish the 27-second level in about 9 seconds, with about 92–93 warmth left. As a result, the large ice field and the coffee on the ice easily become areas players deliberately avoid.

I suggest keeping a safe route but making it detour a bit; the ice route should be shorter, with the coffee placed somewhere you can pass on the way. That way players are choosing between “safe or risky,” and every part of the map has a purpose. Thursday’s safe crossing versus crossing straight across is already fairly close to this kind of meaningful trade-off.

2. 失败后应该保留尚未学会的提示。

目前第一次失败后，重试会直接移除全部教学提示，包括玩家还没见过的提示。这恰好让最需要帮助的新手失去帮

助。

建议只隐藏已经触发、读过的提示，并在失败画面增加一条针对原因的建议。例如被撞后提示等行人信号，冻僵后提

示暖气点，滑出道路后提示提前对准方向、反向减速。现在的失败文案有气氛，但帮助玩家改进的作用偏弱。

2. After a failure, the hints the player hasn’t learned yet should stay.

Right now, after the first failure, a retry immediately removes all the tutorial hints, including ones the player hasn’t seen yet. That takes help away from exactly the beginners who need it most.

I suggest hiding only the hints that have already been triggered and read, and adding one suggestion to the failure screen aimed at the cause. For example: after being hit, a reminder to wait for the pedestrian signal; after freezing, a pointer to the heating spots; after sliding off the road, advice to line up early and push the opposite way to slow down. The current failure text has atmosphere, but it does little to help players improve.

3. 把时间压力和低温惩罚说得更清楚。

游戏里的 7:52 到 8:00，实际只有 26–30 秒。主时钟只显示小时和分钟，新玩家很难立即判断剩余操作时间。

建议保留这只很有主题感的时钟，同时增加倒计时进度条，最后五秒显示实际剩余秒数。体温低于 25 时控制能力还

会下降，这条隐藏规则也应通过“手脚冻僵，转向变弱”等提示明确告诉玩家。

3. Make the time pressure and the cold penalty clearer.

In the game, 7:52 to 8:00 is really only 26–30 seconds. The main clock shows only hours and minutes, so new players find it hard to tell right away how much time they have left.

I suggest keeping this very on-theme clock while adding a countdown progress bar, and showing the actual seconds remaining in the last five seconds. Below 25 warmth, control also gets weaker; this hidden rule should also be made clear to players, through a prompt such as “hands and feet numb, steering weaker.”

AI disclosure

Tools: Claude Code (desktop app) with the Claude Opus 5.5 model; Claude Code also used a built-in AI reviewer to check its plan and its finished work.

Who did what: In my original prompt, which also shared the assignment files, I pitched the core concept and designed the first version of the mechanics and all five mornings. Claude Code read the assignment and the three example games, wrote the game’s first 1,904 lines of code, and tested it with its own scripted playthroughs. Iteration: after my original prompt, four more rounds from me in Claude Code: answers to Claude’s setup questions (concept, name, college/year/major, whether I would play-test); a first play-test reply asking for no changes; the eight-point revision list I wrote after testing it; and a follow-up with two accuracy corrections. Claude Code also made several rounds of revisions on its own (art, lighting, difficulty, wording). Corrected or abandoned: Claude implemented all eight of my changes: Wednesday’s routes, hints and failure tips, countdown and cold warnings, blizzard visibility and gust warnings, frame-rate-independent physics, retry controls, strict deadline rules and “high score” naming, and a small-screen notice with a reducemotion option; then my two corrections (Wednesday’s detour is shoveled, not salted; the trolley does stop for the WALK signal). Abandoned: my original Wednesday layout, with its salted bridge. The final round changed three things in the game: sound is on by default (M mutes, and the choice is remembered); the coffee pop-up names both effects (+40 WARMTH, +25 PTS); and each morning’s last-resort failure tip is written for that morning, so Friday’s no longer points to a shortcut that isn’t one. The game is now 1,909 lines. This statement: I wrote the draft from my conversation with Claude Code; at my request, Claude Code chose which three points of my revision list to quote, and translated them.