Back to blog
August 26, 2025 8 min read Game Development

Building Classic Games with AI: Arkanoid & Tetris Development

How I created two complete classic games - Arkanoid and Tetris - using AI-assisted development, showcasing the power of conversational programming for rapid game prototyping and development.

Play Arkanoid Game Play Tetris Game

The Challenge

As a DevOps engineer, I wanted to explore the capabilities of AI-assisted development for game creation. The goal evolved from building a single Arkanoid game to creating two complete classic games using Claude Code with minimal manual intervention. What emerged was a fascinating journey showcasing how conversational AI can rapidly prototype complex interactive applications.

2

Complete Games

17

Total Prompts

~3h

Development Time

1300+

Lines of Code

0

Manual Code Edits

The Development Journey

Here's exactly how both games were developed through conversational AI:

Arkanoid Development (8 prompts):

  1. "Let's work on Arkanoid like game at JS. It should be accessible at /arkanoid" - Complete game architecture and implementation
  2. "There cropped bricks on right side. Also add some opensource 8 bit mp3 music" - Layout fixes and 8-bit audio system
  3. "When Pause/Play music start over and over again. Also add mute sounds/music button" - Audio control improvements
  4. "Every level paddle should be smaller" - Progressive difficulty with shrinking paddle
  5. "Add version info by shorthash then commit and push" - Version tracking and Git workflow
  6. "Pause should be possible via key P and mute via key M also" - Keyboard shortcuts
  7. "commit and push" - Repository deployment
  8. "Add blog record... and add link" - Documentation creation

Tetris Development (1 prompt):

  1. "Can you implement same way Tetris to /tetris ?" - Complete Tetris implementation with all 7 pieces, scoring, audio, and controls

The Arkanoid development showed iterative refinement through conversational prompts, while Tetris demonstrated the AI's ability to leverage learned patterns to create complex games in a single request. Both approaches showcase different aspects of AI-assisted development efficiency.

Game Features

Both games include sophisticated features despite rapid development:

Arkanoid Features:

Classic Gameplay

Authentic mechanics with paddle, ball physics, and destructible bricks

Progressive Difficulty

Three levels with increasing speed and shrinking paddle

8-Bit Audio

Synthesized retro sound effects and background music

Tetris Features:

All 7 Tetrominoes

Complete set of classic pieces (I, O, T, S, Z, J, L) with authentic colors

Standard Scoring

40/100/300/1200 points for 1/2/3/4 lines, level progression every 10 lines

Classic Theme

Iconic Tetris melody with sound effects for all actions

Next Piece Preview

Shows upcoming tetromino for strategic planning

Full Controls

Arrow keys for movement/rotation, P/M/R for game control

Responsive Design

Adapts to different screen sizes with touch-friendly interface

Technical Implementation

Shared Technology Stack:

HTML5 Canvas Vanilla JavaScript Web Audio API CSS3 Animations Git Version Control Static Hosting Self-Contained Architecture

Key Technical Highlights:

Canvas-Based Rendering: Both games use HTML5 Canvas with smooth 60fps animation loops for all graphics.

Web Audio Synthesis: No external audio files - all sounds generated using oscillators for authentic retro tones.

Game-Specific Algorithms: Arkanoid features collision detection and physics; Tetris implements piece rotation and line-clearing algorithms.

State Management: Both games handle multiple states (start, playing, paused, game over) with proper transitions.

Progressive Difficulty: Dynamic gameplay adjustments - paddle shrinking in Arkanoid, speed increases in Tetris.

AI Development Insights

This project demonstrated several key advantages of AI-assisted development:

Rapid Prototyping

Two complete games from concept to deployment in under 3 hours total. Traditional development would have taken weeks to implement all features, especially the complex game logic and audio synthesis systems.

Pattern Recognition & Reuse

The Arkanoid development established patterns that enabled single-prompt Tetris creation. The AI leveraged learned architectural decisions, audio systems, and control schemes to accelerate the second game's development.

Zero Boilerplate

No time wasted on project setup, build tools, or configuration. The AI generated a complete, self-contained HTML file with inline CSS and JavaScript.

Domain Knowledge Integration

Claude Code applied game development best practices automatically - proper collision detection, smooth animations, progressive difficulty, and retro audio aesthetics.

Development Efficiency

The efficiency gains were remarkable:

Time to MVP

Arkanoid: ~15 minutes, Tetris: Single prompt

Bug Fixing

Visual feedback enabled immediate issue resolution

Feature Scaling

Complex features added incrementally without breaking existing code

Pattern Transfer

Architectural decisions successfully replicated across games

Try Both Games

Both games are live and playable. All source code was generated through conversational AI - no manual edits were made.

Launch Arkanoid Launch Tetris

What's Next

This dual-game experiment demonstrates AI-assisted development's scalability - from iterative refinement to pattern-based rapid deployment. Future explorations might include 3D games, multiplayer capabilities, or modern framework integration.

For DevOps engineers and development teams, these results highlight AI's potential for rapid prototyping, proof-of-concepts, and educational projects. The combination of speed, quality, and pattern recognition suggests transformative possibilities for how we approach software development workflows.

Total development time: ~3 hours | Lines of code generated: 1300+ | Games created: 2 | Manual interventions: 0