Building Games

Before the full walkthrough: what a small complete game piece is, and the order of work that actually finishes.

Finish Keyboard Basics firstNext: full game walkthrough

Sprites becoming a playable game — Playable first. Pretty second.

You do not need to be a senior engineer

You only need Beginner skills: open Grok in a folder and send a clear goal. We explain programming words when they appear.

What “shipping a game with Grok” means

You still choose design and taste. Grok helps write code, fix errors, and wire assets faster. The winning strategy is a vertical slice.

Vertical slice (simple definition)

One tiny path a player can finish end-to-end—for example “move, hit one enemy, see health change, win or lose.” Not “all menus” with no play. Not “all art” with no controls.

# Create SLICE.md in your game folder
Player can move with WASD.
One enemy walks toward the player.
Space attacks; enemy loses HP.
When enemy HP is 0, show You Win.

Out of scope for this slice: inventory, story, multiplayer.

Step-by-step playbook

Write SLICE.md and AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md should say how to open the game and how to run tests if any exist.
Start Grok inside the game folder
```
cd path/to/your-game
grok
```

Build logic before polish

Example prompt:

@SLICE.md @AGENTS.md
Implement only the slice. Use the simplest code that works.
If tests exist, add tests for damage math.
Verification: explain how I manually play the slice in 3 steps.

Play it yourself
Grok cannot replace you sitting down and pressing keys. Write bugs you feel into the next prompt.
Then art and juice
Sprites, particles, screenshake—after the slice is fun. Point Grok at a style guide file if you have one.

Too big

“Make an open-world RPG with crafting.”

Slice-sized

“Add a 0.5s dash cooldown to the player. Show remaining cooldown in the HUD text. No other features.”

If you use Unity or another heavy engine

Tell Grok where scripts live (usually an Assets folder).
Put the exact build/play commands in AGENTS.md.
Long compiles: ask Grok to run them in the background and continue other work.

Lab

Timebox 90 minutes. One verb + one obstacle + win condition. Commit or zip the folder when the slice works. That is a real finish.

Want a full script?

Follow the copy-paste, phase-by-phase guide: Walkthrough: Your First Game (Star Clicker Arena) — exact prompts to use, prompts to avoid, and playtest steps from empty folder to win/lose/restart.

What to do next

This lesson is short on purpose. When you finish reading, open Walkthrough: First Game and follow every phase in order.