One Developer's Dream Game: Built Day by Day with Claude and a Local LLM

June 14, 2026 - 22:45

A solo game developer is bringing a long-held vision to life using an unusual toolkit: Claude, a local language model called Gemma4, several Excel spreadsheets, and what they describe as "vibe-coded duct tape." The project, built one day at a time, shows how accessible AI tools are changing the way independent creators work.

The developer, who has been posting updates online, says the process is far from polished. Instead of using a traditional game engine or a structured pipeline, they rely on Claude for brainstorming dialogue, generating quest ideas, and even writing code snippets. Gemma4, running locally on their machine, handles tasks that require privacy or offline access, like generating procedural lore or tweaking character stats without sending data to the cloud.

Excel sheets serve as the backbone for tracking everything from inventory tables to NPC schedules. The developer calls this approach "vibe-coded duct tape" because it prioritizes momentum over elegance. If something works, even if it looks messy, they keep it. The result is a game that grows organically, shaped by whatever the AI suggests and whatever the developer has time to implement that day.

The project is still in early stages, but the developer says the daily routine of asking Claude for help, running ideas through Gemma4, and updating spreadsheets has become a sustainable workflow. It is not a replacement for a team or a budget, they note, but it is enough to keep the dream alive, one small step at a time.