Google says Gemini 3 can do a lot of things, and while I don't doubt that for a second, my interest in the latest AI model was minimal at best. Frankly, my biggest curiosity in the latest version of Gemini is what it would do for NotebookLM, my favorite AI tool.
But when my editor told me he vibe coded a Minesweeper remake, my wheels started spinning, and eventually went off the rails. I'd already had some experience with vibe coding with Gemini and walked away satisfied with the results, but the project itself was practical and more of a proof of concept than genuine interest. Throwing gaming into the mix, especially old-school games from my childhood -- that changes things.
I decided to play around with Gemini's vibe coding powers, and I couldn't have had a better time. I never expected gold, and that's not what I received. But it was enough to satisfy my retro gaming desires. Best of all, everything it spat out was playable within a web browser. From a reworked Chip's Challenge to an 8-bit Tomba! and a very basic, 3D concept of the first Silent Hill game, this might be the most fun I've ever had with AI -- and I barely scratched the surface.
Below, I'll go over what I did, including how easy it was to code and make edits just by chatting with Gemini.
Gemini 3 feels more capable and thorough
Having a conversation with Gemini 3 feels different. The chatbot seems more aware of context and is able to address certain issues you might have as follow-up questions in the first go. Previous versions of Gemini could also do this, but Gemini 3 simply seems to be more thorough with its responses. And that's just in regard to having a regular conversation about any particular subject. For my experiments, Gemini went above and beyond at not only explaining the technical (above my head) stuff, but also breaking it down into easier-to-understand pieces when it was creating a game for me.
For instance, in the middle of my testing, I asked if it could package one of these games into an Android Package Kit file format, so I could sideload it to my phone. Gemini told me it couldn't do that, but asked if I'd like some steps on how to do it, and I said yes. After it generated the game I asked for, it created a separate document with steps on how to convert the HTML file it provided me into an APK using a variety of tools, broken down into effort levels. I didn't go further beyond this point; I still felt like this was a Gemini I hadn't chatted with before.
The cost of nostalgia
If you've ever wanted to relive old video games of your past and have visited a specialty retro gaming store, an unsettling reality comes into view. Old games can get incredibly expensive. In my visits to several stores in search of original Silent Hill titles, I've found I'd need to drop somewhere near $500 just to buy two of them -- and that's if I were lucky enough to find them in stock. And if you don't have the console to play them on, expect to pay even more, or be okay with the titles becoming part of a collection and nothing more.
Trying to grasp at the tendrils of a younger self's past joy comes at a cost, and it's going to be out of reach for many people. Here's where AI might be able to help preserve these games -- or at least the memory of them -- as they become harder to find and more expensive as they age. There's a reason Gemini and other LLMs are so good at remaking old games: They're trained on vast quantities of text and code, almost certainly including the source code for these games.
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