Recess

Recess: Childhood Nostalgia

When I was in elementary school I played a game called Flappy Bird everywhere. Then one day it was removed from the App Store. I always assumed Apple removed it, but while making this game I learned that its creator, Dong Nguyen, took it down himself because he thought people were getting too addicted. The idea of Flappy Bird came right away when I read the assignment, and it brought back everything about being young: my elementary school, my friends, lunch, recess, aftercare. So instead of just rebuilding Flappy Bird, I decided to build my memories into it. The game became a school day: You start on the bus at 7:40 AM. Every 10 points a school bell rings and you move on to class, then lunch, recess, aftercare and finally dinner out. A walk through everyone's childhood nostalgia, put into a game.

I kept the controls as simple as the original: one button, constant speed, no power-ups. That simplicity is what I loved, and anything I added would have made it less like the game I remembered. What I remembered most was that it got intense when you were about to pass your best score, so I designed for that feeling. When you get within three points of your best, a heartbeat starts, and three kids appear at the bottom of the screen. Those kids are my friends from lunch and aftercare.

The collaboration was real in places I didn't expect. Claude added details I didn’t specifically ask for that I ended up liking a lot: the bird wears a little red backpack, when you crash you get a report card that tells you how far into the day you made it. However, where it wasn't: the first lunch scene used milk cartons as obstacles, which didn't feel like lunch to me, so I asked for real food. That was almost the only thing I changed design-wise. When I played the first version, I thought it was close to perfect. The point of the game isn’t the complexity, rather the meaning it has behind it.

I didn't write a single line of code, and Claude made many of the visual choices. Claude could have built a Flappy Bird clone without me, however, it could not have made it describe my memories without me explaining them to him. The nostalgia, the places, and the feeling the game is built around are mine. Less of it is mine than it might look, but the part that makes it Recess instead of just another clone came from me. Prompts that guided it (typos corrected):

1.​ "I played it in elementary school: school bus, restaurants, I loved playing it. It was super simple and fun, and it got intense when you were passing your best score. It brings nostalgia of my childhood: elementary, my friends, lunchtime, aftercare." 2.​ We need to represent the nostalgia that we all lived when we were little. It goes outside of this game; it represents the best memories we have. The classic nostalgia.

3.​ "Let's also add food for lunchtime. That is a critical part of the day, and i dont think milk represents it enough."

AI disclosure: I used Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5), over about five rounds. I didn't write or edit any code. Claude also drafted this artist's statement from my answers, and I edited it.