Hey HN!
Over Christmas break, I built GLITCH - a first-person survival shooter where you play as a "glitch" fighting debugging agents in a neon-lit spherical arena.
The stack:
React Three Fiber for 3D rendering
Zustand for state management
PostgreSQL for the global leaderboard
Hosted on Replit
What I built in ~40 prompt iterations:
- Full 6-DOF movement (fly in any direction)
- 4 enemy types with unique AI behaviors (rushers, floaters, brutes, glitchers that teleport and drop mines). If it's interesting, I have plans to expand.
- Shield ability with knockback physics
- Wave-based progression system
- Global leaderboard with nickname entry for top 10 scores
- Prodigy-style electronic soundtrack with random track rotation
- Visual effects: chromatic aberration on damage, scanlines, vignette
Interesting challenges we solved with AI assistance:
- Elastic boundary system to prevent players getting stuck at arena edges
- 3-meter knockback limit so enemies get pushed back but resume chasing
- Mine cleanup system with proper TTL handling
- The entire game loop - from concept to playable with leaderboards - was built conversationally with an AI coding assistant. Each prompt built on the last, iterating on mechanics until they felt right.
I actually wanted to build something I like to play instead of "consuming" others' games.
