Veteran dev: Claude built my racer's vehicles and physics in 3 days, but fumbled the dirt bike
titkun · reddit · 2026-10-09
A game developer with 25 years of experience (mostly AAA, now indie) tested how far Claude could take a real game in days: a Road Rash (1991) x rally mashup, playable in the browser.
- Opus 5.5 did most of the heavy lifting in about 3 days: 4 vehicles, physics, drift boost, jump pads, and rockets replacing Road Rash's chains. The hardest part was tire/shock behavior against the ground while keeping it fun and arcade — the model kept drifting toward realism, which is wrong when you're hitting a jump pad at full speed
- Visuals came from Astra 6: given a benchmark screenshot and told to hit at least 90% of its quality, it ran 3–4 hours per map across 5 maps; levels were then hand-tweaked in the editor
- Music from Sandscape and ElevenLabs; Sandscape also handles multiplayer and leaderboards
- The dirt bike is where it fell apart — expected to be the most fun, ended up the jankiest, still iterating
An honest first-hand account: vehicle physics and gameplay systems largely deliverable, but specific vehicle feel still needs human polish.
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