2026-07-16
Guns that aim, plus an AI-built rig tool
Wiring aimed gunplay into the zombie survival game, with an AI-built rigging tool doing the heavy lifting.
// building in public
PickBits Arcade Devlog
Building the survival game I always wanted to play — live in Unreal Engine 5 with Claude driving the editor over MCP, one short clip at a time. New episodes post to pickbits.ai/arcade, Substack, Instagram, and TikTok.
2026-07-15
NanoFormers: a Mega Man Metroidvania
A walkthrough of NanoFormers, the newest game in the PickBits Arcade — charge beam, dash, a full roster of unlockable boss powers, and power-gated backtracking.
2026-07-10
Steel Phoenix gets a hype man
A narrator now calls out every power-up as you grab it. Ten minutes to wire in, and suddenly every pickup feels like an event instead of a stat bump.
2026-07-08
Resculpting Meadow Park
Smoothing Meadow Park's jagged terrain by hand and carving a better river, then handing the asset configs to Claude to move over — everything but the rivers.
2026-07-07
Zombie Survival: first look
First look at Zombie Survival, a hands-off vampire-survivors-style shooter — it shoots on its own, you steer, and dodging is the name of the game.
2026-07-06
Two weeks in: feature showcase
A proper showcase of the first two weeks: sneaking past wildlife with the new hearing-range mechanic, a build menu, a full farming loop, gathering, and a summit view of both biomes.
2026-07-05
Tilling and farming go in
A new hotkey bar, equipping the hoe, and placing tilled land — plus a height bug to squash so the patches sit flush anywhere on the map.
2026-07-04
The axe that wouldn't rotate
The equipped axe just floated next to the character's hand, so Claude compared the static mesh orientation to a known-good one and fixed it. Next cut: chopping trees into the inventory.
2026-07-03
Building the Meadows biome
The Meadows biome is roughed in — grass, trees, and a river through the valley that still bulges up over the terrain. Some ground to sink before it sits right.
2026-07-02
Two biomes built overnight
Claude cooked two full biomes overnight: forest and meadows, around 180,000 procedural instances, a farming unlock tied to a discovery POI, and a persistent discovery map.
2026-07-01
Tuning the camera live
Dragging the follow camera closer and higher while the game keeps running — the live-edit loop that makes the whole build move as fast as it does.
2026-06-30
Build at the speed of AI
A PickBits University update: 15 years of software engineering distilled into three tracks — because vibes alone aren't going to ship apps.
2026-06-29
The inventory menu goes live
Items get hover tooltips pulling real data from a Claude-populated struct, with live item counts — fiddly menu plumbing, happily handed off.
2026-06-28
Farming comes to Wildreach
The full loop lands: till the soil, plant a seed, water it, harvest, and replant from the seeds you get back. Cooking is next, and it feeds straight into survival.
2026-06-27
The Wildreach menus come together
Main menu with character select, a HUD showing real stats instead of placeholder A's, and resizable build and character menus with categories.
2026-06-26
Wiring up the HUD and build menu
Claude wires the health and stamina bars into existing systems and starts the build menu: a live preview environment and slots for every craftable item.
2026-06-25
Animals that roam, herd and take damage
The herd gets a brain: animals roam and herd on their own, bunch up and bolt when spooked, and you hunt them with the bow or go hungry.
2026-06-24
First signs of life: mounts and the bow
The mounted horse works and the bow fires — rough around the edges, but the survival game is starting to feel real.
2026-06-23
The first deer
The first deer roam the survival world. They don't run from the player yet — that fear behavior is the next thing going in.
2026-06-22
Running around the survival world
A lap around the early world: stone houses, cabins, open landscape, and a character who can actually run through all of it.