Not My Mess

Finance

Not My Mess

An Arcade Game Made with Claude Code

I wanted to make a game about my own life, centered on Gregor, the player's roommate,

who leaves his stuff all over the house. The character Gregor is closely inspired by my actual roommate, Gregor, and the game's main character is based on my other roommate, Manu. I made several design decisions on purpose. For example, the main character has round glasses and an injury boot, just like my actual roommate Manu, who, like in the game, walks around with a boot and is always cleaning up after our roommate Gregor. The player can also only carry two items at a time. It adds an obstacle and keeps it realistic, since you only have two hands. Gregor also drops his stuff while you clean, which makes the game feel alive and unpredictable, since you can't plan your route.

One thing Claude added was speech bubbles. Gregor reacts out loud when he drops

something. For example, Gregor sometimes leaves in a hurry for the gym, as shown in the speech bubbles. But I also had to overrule Claude. I wanted the characters to look like their real-life counterparts, but Claude's version of Manu's hair looked like a beanie, so I had it redrawn.

As for my contribution to the project, I came up with the idea and designed the overall

game, since I based it on my own life. I even made the living room and kitchen layout similar to mine. I also thought of most of the items Gregor leaves behind and where one keeps them stored. For example, the poker chips at the table, groceries in the fridge, dirty plates in the sink, etc. I

would say this game is my creation. Although Claude helped create the code, it still didn't make the artistic decisions I made. A good analogy is that Claude was the paint, but my decisions created the art. The core aspects of this game came from my own life. This has been one of the most entertaining class activities I've done, because I felt truly invested in improving the game, not just getting a good grade. Making this game also let me channel the frustration of having a dirty roommate into a fun, entertaining game.

I want to highlight three key prompts that shaped the arcade game. The first is, "The room is always dirty cause roomate comes in with stuff and just leaves it behind… There are guests coming; that's the time crunch. Only carry two things at a time… If you put stuff away in the wrong place, you lose a point, 3 points and ur done." This prompt set up the whole game: Gregor, the guest timer, the two-hands limit, and the three strikes. The second is, "Can you make the main have a boot (injury) to make him walk around a little slower," which made the main character slower and limp, just like the real-life Manu. Lastly, "when he is done before time is done he can go to couch and sit there, and then it shows a scene of him opening the door and letting the people in (party)," created the party ending that rewards finishing early. AI Disclosure: I used Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5) to write all of the game's code, over about 10 rounds of changes. I corrected Manu's hair, which looked like a beanie; changed sitting on the couch from a button press to automatic; and Claude fixed a bug it had introduced where groceries couldn't go in the fridge. I also used Claude to get feedback on this statement and trim the prompts paragraph.