Day 1 of Christmas - Hacker Mystery 95
Some of you have helped Beta test my first game ever, but I'm happy to release Chapter 1 for general availability!
There's a different post focused on the game itself, but for each release, I want to talk a bit about what's impactful for webOS development.
For me, this is the first time I made a game -- and I really couldn't have done it without AI. And that's what's significant for webOS: the fact that a modern AI can be constrained to write code for webOS.
It needs to be reminded regularly (at least, once per session) not to use ES6 or newer CSS features, but when given these constraints in its context window, Claude Code is actually really useful! Of course, it helps that the source code of the Enyo library is open and easily readable. It quickly picks up the characteristics like kinds, and how the code is organized, and matches the style in developing app features.
The most fun thing for me, though, is how it unlocks creativity. Enyo documentation was pretty good, but it was still a lot of self-teaching to figure out how to code in it. Claude takes care of that. It's like a higher level of abstraction where I describe what I want the code to do, but don't have to worry too much about exactly how to implement it. But more than that, while I have a general idea where I want the game to go, Ai's hallucinations jump-start the creative juices. It's like having a (very accommodating) co-worker to trade ideas with.
For professional software development, I still would not recommend it for an inexperienced developer -- you need to be able to tell what is good output, and what its not. But for hobby development, it really is an enabler for any skill level. If you have any interest in exploring webOS development, grab the Enyo bootplate and your favorite coding AI, and type in some ideas! You might just be surprised and delighted by what you get!
Grab the game for webOS here, or play in a modern web browser (tablet or PC is best, I didn't optimize for phone)!
