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Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

kikkupico.com

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Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#1

Post by kikkupico »

I'm calling this "Vibe Discovery" — distinct from vibe coding because I didn't know the requirements upfront. Started with "make something with the accelerometer" and discovered through 6 iterations that I wanted a WebGL marble game. The interesting part was the dev setup: Claude Code running in Termux on a Redmi Note 9 (4GB RAM). The same-device feedback loop — code, test accelerometer, react, iterate — made rapid discovery possible in a way that laptop-to-phone deployment wouldn't.

Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building
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Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#4

Post by phoronixrly »

jackmhny wrote: post #3

were approaching peak slop every day

Today on the front page there was an obviously vibe coded python script that pulls OSM data and slaps a colour scheme on it. Of course the data was skewed, because apparently LLMs don't do projections...

I gave up on the first non-ironic 'You are absolutely correct' comment... What is even real...

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#5

Post by furyofantares »

You posted the prompt to the game, care to post the prompt to the blog post? I don't care what an LLM thinks about how you built your game. I would like to know what you think, but I'm not going to try to salvage it from an LLM-generated blog post.

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#6

Post by daveguy »

phoronixrly wrote: post #4
jackmhny wrote: post #3

were approaching peak slop every day

Today on the front page there was an obviously vibe coded python script that pulls OSM data and slaps a colour scheme on it. Of course the data was skewed, because apparently LLMs don't do projections... I gave up on the first non-ironic 'You are absolutely correct' comment... What is even real...

To be fair, vibe discovery is a lot more viable than vibe coding. Vibe coding implies the LLM output is acceptable. Vibe discovery implies a human in the loop, because LLMs can't "discover". They have no inate preference based on their lived experience in the same sense that a human or any biological organism does.

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#7

Post by spuz »

Why can't we just call it "play". That is what we used to call doing things without a purpose.

I wish people would disclose when they used an LLM to write for them. This comes across as so clearly written by ChatGPT (I don't know if it is) that it seriously devalues any potential insights contained within. At least if the author was honest, I'd be able to judge their writing accordingly.

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#8

Post by cgio »

Quoting: “ What I’m describing is different. I’ll call it Vibe Discovery: you don’t know what you’re building. The requirements themselves are undefined. You’re not just discovering implementation - you’re discovering what the product should be.

The distinction matters:”

What is it with this pattern of phrases that screams LLM to me? Whenever I come upon this pattern I stop reading further.

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#9

Post by lithocarpus »

cgio wrote: post #8

Quoting: “ What I’m describing is different. I’ll call it Vibe Discovery: you don’t know what you’re building. The requirements themselves are undefined. You’re not just discovering implementation - you’re discovering what the product should be. The distinction matters:” What is it with this pattern of phrases that screams LLM to me? Whenever I come upon this pattern I stop reading further.

One way I'd describe it is LLMs say lots of things that technically make sense but aren't quite like anyone would normally say it.

And secondly they like to use more nouns for things, in my experience.

Of course all this is just what I observe currently and could well become different for better and worse in future versions.

Re: Show HN: I built a game on my old phone without knowing what I was building

#10

Post by trollbridge »

lithocarpus wrote: post #9
cgio wrote: post #8

Quoting: “ What I’m describing is different. I’ll call it Vibe Discovery: you don’t know what you’re building. The requirements themselves are undefined. You’re not just discovering implementation - you’re discovering what the product should be. The distinction matters:” What is it with this pattern of phrases that screams LLM to me? Whenever I come upon this pattern I stop reading further.

One way I'd describe it is LLMs say lots of things that technically make sense but aren't quite like anyone would normally say it. And secondly they like to use more nouns for things, in my experience. Of course all this is just what I observe currently and could well become different for better and worse in future versions.

It’s just like my friend has a distinct way of speaking. LLMs also have a distinct voice.
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