GoKawiilVibe coding has changed the game when it comes to creating something from nothing. While it has its limitations, it allows non-technical people to build apps or websites that they otherwise wouldn't have the knowledge to do.
If you're feeling extra creative, you can use vibe coding to create games, too. Before this project below, I'd only dabbled with creating event calendars and a couple of simple things, but my interest was piqued when my editor said they'd created a more advanced version of the classic Minesweeper game with a single prompt in Gemini 3.
I've been a gamer since I was a kid and when I got the idea of vibe coding games, I was all in. More specifically, I wanted to recreate some of my favorite childhood games in a retro, "demake" style. The results weren't perfect, but they perfectly satisfied what I was trying to go for.
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 is powerful
Gemini 3 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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