Zero Game-Dev Experience: He Built a Game Boy Game for His 9-Month-Old With Codex
Hacubu · x · 2026-10-05
With no game-development background at all, the author used an OpenAI Codex subscription plus a ModRetro handheld from DevDay to build a game that runs on real Game Boy Color hardware over a weekend.
The game: explore a fog-covered world, rescue birds with magic powers, log them in a journal, and hunt for a mystical phoenix that can lift the fog — spoiler: there is no phoenix, and the friends made along the way save the day. It was inspired by his daughter's fascination with Bay Area birdlife.
He admits the result is far from perfect — misplaced textures, inconsistent gameplay, sprite issues — but going from zero to something playable on real hardware in a short time felt magical, and it was fun to do something creative and story-driven outside of work.
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