Solo dev builds Formula Cat — 22 cats racing vacuums on Steam — with AI pair-coding
ledniv · reddit · 2026-10-17
A solo developer built Formula Cat, a Steam-bound racing game where 22 cats drive racing Roombas across 11 teams and 31 circuits with battery-swap pit stops — all created with the AI tool Astra starting from a single prompt.
Development methodology:
- Iterate from playable builds: fix what you see ("the cat looks like it's vibrating, add tail movement")
- When AI opponents were too slow, had the AI record lap times and explain why each cat lagged, spawning lap-recording tools and targeted fixes
- Pit stops were described physically: mark your pit box, stop on it, a robot arm swaps the battery; teammates share boxes
- Stack: JavaScript + Three.js + Electron, with race state in preallocated typed arrays and sim/rendering separated for headless race analysis
- Offline racing-line optimizer built with Python, CasADi and IPOPT
Favorite testing failure: two banked Nordschleife corners leaned the wrong way yet tests passed — implementation and test shared the same wrong sign convention.
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