Codex Mortis, the Vampire Survivors clone that finally answered the question nobody asked: “What if a game was made entirely by autocomplete?”
This isn’t just AI-assisted development, mind you. No, this is a game that proudly waves a banner reading 100% AI-driven, as if that’s a badge of honor rather than a content warning. Code, art, music, animations — all lovingly spat out by large language models after three months of intense prompt whispering. Human involvement appears to have been limited to hitting Enter and nodding thoughtfully at the results.
The developer insists no game engine was used, which is technically true in the same way saying “I didn’t cook, I just used a microwave, an air fryer, and a meal kit.” PIXI.js handles rendering, bitECS runs the backend, Electron wraps it all up — but don’t worry, it’s pure TypeScript, so clearly this is artisanal software, not mass-produced sludge.
Best of all, the entire thing was “vibe-coded.” Not designed. Not engineered. Vibed into existence. Architecture by horoscope. Debugging by manifestation. If something breaks, you simply explain the problem to Claude again and hope the universe aligns on the next response.
And hey, it only took three months! Which is impressive, assuming your goal is to prove that you can assemble a fully functional, legally ambiguous, aesthetically interchangeable game faster than a human can grow attached to an idea. Depth, originality, or a discernible creative voice were presumably left on the cutting-room floor to save time.
Of course, the genre choice is perfect. Vampire Survivors-likes are already algorithmic slot machines, so replacing the designer with an algorithm feels less like disruption and more like destiny. Why bother with intent when exponential damage numbers and screen-filling particles do the talking?
The real experiment here isn’t gameplay — it’s whether storefronts, players, and copyright law will politely look the other way while an entire product pipeline is outsourced to machines trained on everyone else’s work. If it sells, congratulations: the floodgates open. If it doesn’t, well, at least the prompts were free.
In the end, Codex Mortis isn’t trying to be great. It’s trying to be possible. And it succeeds. Making a game has officially become trivial. Making one that feels like a human cared? Still very much in beta.
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