A 2D procedural space exploration game built entirely using AI coding agents — an experiment to test the limits of AI-assisted game development.
This project was created as an experiment to push the boundaries of what's possible when using AI coding agents for game development. The entire codebase — rendering, procedural generation, ECS architecture, audio synthesis, UI, and gameplay — was written by Claude (Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6) through iterative prompting.
- AI Models: Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 4.6
- Total Development Time: ~8 days of on-and-off work
- Lines of Code: ~28,000 (all AI-generated)
- (Cost tracking discontinued)
- AI Model: Claude Opus 4.6
- Total Cost: ~$50 USD in API/token usage
- Development Time: ~4 days of on-and-off work
- Lines of Code: ~18,000 (all AI-generated)
- Procedural Galaxy — Seed-based deterministic generation of star systems, planets, moons, asteroid belts, and space stations
- Multiple Scales of Play — Fly your ship through solar systems, land on planets, explore surfaces on foot or by vehicle, enter stations and settlements
- Ship, Vehicle & Avatar Customization — Upgradeable equipment slots for weapons, shields, engines, armor, and more
- Combat — Space combat against pirates, traders, and patrols; surface combat against fauna and bandits
- Procedural Audio — Fully synthesized music and sound effects at runtime (no audio files)
- Procedural Pixel Art — All textures generated at runtime (sphere-shaded planets, glow stars, pixel-art sprites)
- Mission System — Accept and complete missions from station/settlement boards
- Mining — Mine asteroids and surface rocks for resources
- Galaxy & System Maps — Navigate between star systems via FTL jumps
- Language: C# / .NET 10
- Desktop Platform: SDL3 via SDL3-CS
- Browser Platform: WebAssembly (.NET 10 WASM + Canvas 2D API via JS interop)
- ECS: Arch ECS with Arch.System extensions
- Audio: SDL3 built-in audio API (desktop) / Web Audio API (browser) — fully procedural synthesis (no external audio files)
See docs/SCREENSHOTS_V1.0.0.md (includes video demo).
# Requires .NET 10 SDK
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl
# or use the convenience script:
run-sdl.bat# Requires .NET 10 SDK + dotnet-serve
dotnet tool install -g dotnet-serve
run-web.bat # build and serve at http://localhost:8080
watch-web.bat # build + watch mode with auto-rebuilddotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- [--seed|-s <seed>] [--location|-l <location> [--sublocation|-sl <sublocation>]]
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- [--seed|-s <seed>] [--location|-l <location> [--sublocation|-sl <sublocation>]] [--showcase|-sc <showcase> [--star-type <type>]]| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
--help, -h, /? |
Show CLI usage help and exit. |
--seed <seed>, -s <seed> |
Optional explicit seed for deterministic world generation. If omitted, a random seed is used. |
--location <location>, -l <location> |
Target top-level start location (system, station, planet, settlement). |
--sublocation <sublocation>, -sl <sublocation> |
Target sub-location for the selected location (see matrix below). |
--showcase <showcase>, -sc <showcase> |
Launch a debug showcase directly (star-type, planet-type, asteroid, surface-mining). |
--star-type <type> |
Optional star class override for --showcase star-type (default: G). |
Location / sub-location matrix
--location |
--sublocation values |
|---|---|
system |
(omit or use none) |
station |
orbit, docked, inside |
planet |
orbit, landed, on-foot, on-vehicle |
settlement |
above, inside, on-foot, on-vehicle |
Examples
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --help
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --seed 12345
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- -s 12345
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --location system
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- -l station -sl docked
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --location station --sublocation docked
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --seed 42 --location planet --sublocation on-foot
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --location settlement --sublocation on-vehicle
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --showcase planet-type
dotnet run --project Game.Sdl -- --showcase star-type --star-type K# Check and apply formatting locally
dotnet format SpaceExplorationGame.slnx whitespace
# CI-style check (fails if formatting changes are needed)
dotnet format SpaceExplorationGame.slnx whitespace --verify-no-changes# Enable repository hooks (one-time per clone)
git config core.hooksPath .githooksThe pre-commit hook validates formatting before each commit using the same whitespace check as CI.
See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for a detailed breakdown of the codebase architecture, ECS components, rendering pipeline, and game state management.
This project is provided as-is for educational and experimental purposes.