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PaperclipPerfector  27d ago (text post)   1870 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 1, 2026

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As someone with almost no experience I want to use AI code a game that’s basically a top down build and chase tag type game, think rts custom mod.

How feasible is this? What should I use? AI says Godot but I have no idea if that’s a good suggestion.

If you want to make an RTS custom map, why not use an RTS with custom map features instead? You will have a lot of assets available to you, and for the most popular games there should be a decent amount of documentation for the AI to draw on.

I want to make a standalone game. There’s already a custom map that I’m playing now.

I see. In that case, Godot, Unreal Engine, and Unity are all fine choices. Unreal Engine is probably out if you want the AI to generate most of the code though, since it will likely have to write it in C++, and I doubt you want to deal with that as a beginner. Between Unity and Godot, it is down to personal preference. There may be more tutorials on Unity, which would make your AI better at giving good responses. But the GDScript language of Godot is in my opinion more beginner friendly than C#.

As for feasibility, making a game is hard and takes time. Without AI, I would estimate anything remotely complex as a multi-year project, provided you want to make a game and not just a tech demo. Even making solid custom maps (where much of the code and assets you need already exist) can take months. With AI however, maybe that will change.

Unreal Engine is probably out if you want the AI to generate most of the code though, since it will likely have to write it in C++, and I doubt you want to deal with that as a beginner.

Unreal Engine is out for a beginner for a whole host of reasons, but one thing that GPT 5.2 is actually decent at is writing C++ code. I have a decade of experience in C# in Unity and a good deal with Godot, and hadn't done any C++ in over five years, then came to Unreal...and ChatGPT and the GPT-5.2 Copilot really pulled their weight in getting me onboarded. Turns out their corpus of training data does contain a lot of C++ knowledge!

That said, Unreal really is monstrous for beginner devs, and Unity and Godot are clearly the sane choices.

It's got a developer with more programming background than (I think) ThomasdelVasto has, but I'll point to Three Kingdoms Strategem. It's very much emphasizing the retro bit for speed of development, but I could believe Petersen's <six month estimate more than I do the GTA6 release date.

My estimate assumes ThomasdelVasto is a beginner at all things gamedev and is working alone in his spare time. Not saying all interesting games take that long. Obviously it changes with experience and how much time you allocate.

That said, AI could speed up the process, and it depends on how ambitious he is. It is of course entirely possible to spend less time if you know what you are doing, and keep a reasonable scope. But anyone opening with "what engine should I use" probably doesn't know all that much yet.

I did not mean to be discouraging, but simply wanted to inform that making games is difficult and takes time. An interesting prototype can be created within a few weeks, but making something that is fun for an hour or more just takes a lot of effort.

But a lot depends on the AI. If it can make up for the lack of experience, then maybe this project will take much less time than that.

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