John McArthur Banbury 3H AGO

I built Bubble Grotto, a skill-based arcade game for mobile devices, using AI as a development partner. The concept is deliberately simple: start with a small bubble, grow it, navigate through a cave filled with hazards, and decide when to escape. The larger the bubble becomes, the greater the potential reward—but the harder it becomes to manoeuvre safely. The aim was to create the classic “one more go” experience: controls that can be understood almost immediately, with gameplay that becomes progressively harder to master. The interesting challenge was that building a game is very different from implementing a list of features. The code can work perfectly and the game can still be no fun. Timing, movement, difficulty, visual feedback, and risk versus reward all have to feel right when somebody actually plays it. Step-by-step: 1. I used AI to discuss how the core concept should work, including bubble growth, movement, hazards, progression, scoring and rewards, and the escape mechanic. 2. Rather than designing the entire game upfront, I used AI-assisted development to turn each mechanic into working code and get it onto a real device as quickly as possible. 3. Once a mechanic existed, I tested it myself. I checked whether movement was responsive, whether the bubble grew too quickly, whether obstacles were fair, whether escaping was too easy, and whether failure made me want another attempt or simply became frustrating. 4. I brought those observations back into the AI workflow, identified the relevant behavior or code, made targeted changes, and tested again. 5. Once the core loop felt enjoyable, I refined the interface, visual feedback, progression, and presentation instead of allowing cosmetic work to hide weak gameplay. This produced a development loop of: idea → mechanic → playable build → play-test → adjust → repeat The final result is Bubble Grotto, an arcade game with simple controls but increasingly demanding skill-based gameplay. Players grow their bubble while navigating hazards and must balance risk against reward by choosing the right moment to escape. One of the most useful things I learned is that AI can dramatically accelerate game development, but it cannot replace judgment about whether something is enjoyable. AI can help create a mechanic, investigate why it behaves incorrectly, and implement changes extremely quickly. The human still has to play the game and decide: is this actually fun? That combination allowed me to move rapidly from a simple game idea to a functioning mobile game while spending far more of my time experimenting with gameplay than wrestling with implementation.