When I started university, back in the Stone Age, I really believed I’d become a game developer. I spent a lot of my time during my first two years building prototypes, doing game jams, learning pixel art, and going to game dev hackathons.

It didn’t get me anywhere. The bar for joining the top gaming studios in my area was really high, and despite being objectively good for a student, I just didn’t cut it. So, I turned to web dev, and later general software dev. More of a financial-driven decision than a passion-driven one. (Today, I don’t regret that, by the way.)

But, with LLMs, I get to experiment with a bit of What if? thinking, without losing track of other things in my life. So, lately, I’ve been working on a game, which I am provisionally calling ”Tetraform: Colony Builder.” It’s heavily inspired by Drop Duchy.

The idea is simple: Tetris, but the blocks don’t disappear, and you get infinite time, and tools to arrange them on the grid. Stack the same colors together, and you get bonuses. The only rule—the piece you place must connect to another one.

Here’s what it looks like so far.

Tetraform v0: Core game loop
Tetraform v0: Core game loop. (Yes, my naming of things is on the nose. Sibernia, is indeed, an ice planet.)

The cool part is that you get to place the Command Center (the white 1x1 block) wherever you want at the start. That means you can choose to build out from the center, the corners, or some unique location that just vibes for you.

Some more stuff:

Tetraform v0: StarMap
The StarMap—Level selection

You hop from one planet to another, each with a different grid and challenges. “Faction Authority” is the currency you use during a run to unlock special bonuses and unique blocks.

There’s also special events; but I don’t want to spoil much at this point:

Tetraform v0: Special Events
Special Events

As for the LLM part, Kimi K2.5 has been my main buddy on this one. (See my thoughts here.) Minimax M2.5 is also decent, but the one model that has really struggled is the recent GLM-5 (Z.ai). Despite being stronger on benchmarks, it is easily lost in the unique tech stack/setup I created for this project: React + pure canvas, with shared game state between them. It’s sort of esoteric, I suppose. Perhaps such esoteric setups are an emerging benchmark?

Anyway, go play Drop Duchy, if you haven’t.

It’s really good.

—Filip