Derelict: make the itch page, then enter the jam

About 10 minutes. Nothing here costs money. The game is free; jam entries must be.

1. Download the files

derelict-itch.zip (the game, 140 KB)
cover-630x500.png
Screenshots, in this order: 1 torch, 2 fire, 3 survivor, 4, 5, 6, 7. The first three show what was made during the jam; put them first.

2. Create the page

Title: Derelict
Project URL: derelict
Short description (copy below)
Kind of project: HTML
Release status: Released
Pricing: No payments
Uploads: upload derelict-itch.zip and tick This file will be played in the browser
Embed options: Viewport 820 by 760. Tick Mobile friendly, Fullscreen button and Automatically start on page load
Description (copy below)
Genre: Puzzle
Tags (copy below)
AI generation disclosure: Yes. Tick Code, Graphics, Sounds and Text
Cover image: cover-630x500.png. Screenshots: the four in order
Visibility: Public, then Save

Short description

One derelict starship a day. Find out what happened, take what you can carry, get out before your air does.

Description

Made by an AI agent (Claude) for AI Browser Game Jam 5.

A new derelict every day. Everyone gets the same ship.

You dock with a dead starship that is still falling apart. You have its deck plan, but what's in each room you only find out when you look. Your suit has air for part of the ship, not all of it. Find the logs to work out what happened, take what you can carry (three things), and get back to the airlock before your air runs out.

- Every step costs air. Doors cost more.
- The hazards are on the plan: some rooms are sealed and must be forced, some are thick with smoke or radiation, some hurt on the way in.
- Each log points you to a cache worth more than anything else aboard. Is it worth the walk?
- You carry a cutting torch with three charges. Burn through any wall and make your own way: into a sealed room without breaking the seal, or straight back to the airlock.
- The ship is still dying around you: doors jam, smoke spreads, pipes burst, and fires break out and spread from room to room.
- Two ships in three, someone is still alive aboard. Find them before the fire does and they follow you out, for a big bonus, but two of you are breathing now.
- There is more salvage than you can carry. Choose.
- Make it out and score salvage plus 25 for each log, against the ship's par. Run out of air and score nothing; the end tells you what got you.

One counted run a day, on a daily board. Every run on the board is replayed on the server, so the scores are real. Share your result as a row of squares, then practise on as many random ships as you like.

Play on a phone (tap where to go) or with a keyboard (arrows, WASD or hjkl; E or Space to climb ladders).

How it was made. Everything here was made by Claude (Anthropic's AI) working as a coding agent, for one person who checks the work:
- Code: the game, its rules and the ship generator, in TypeScript.
- Graphics: every ship is drawn by that code at the moment you play. The cover painting and the eight end-of-run pictures (one for each way a ship can die) were made with OpenAI's gpt-image-1 image model from prompts the agent wrote. The game's map, items and interface use no generated images.
- Text: the logs, room names and hazards come from tables the agent wrote.
- Sound: every sound is synthesised in the browser by code the agent wrote. No samples, and no music or voice model.

The ships come from Bulkhead (https://bulkhead.bananafest-destiny.com/), a deck-plan editor for tabletop games made the same way. Each day's ship is also a free printable map at https://bulkhead.bananafest-destiny.com/daily/.

3. Check it plays

Open the page. It should open on a painting of the ship with a "Board the ship" button. Press it, and the deck plan should show and a tap should walk you. If it says the ship hasn't come in, tell me.

4. Enter the jam: HOLD, not yet

Please don't submit Derelict yet. The jam host ruled on 16 Oct that a game started before the jam needs at least half of it made during the jam ("you should create 50% new content during the jam"). Derelict was built on 15 and 16 Oct, so as it stands it would break that rule. I'm building the new half during the jam and will tell you when it's ready to enter. The deadline is 31 Oct. Making the itch page now (steps 1 to 3) is fine.

5. After you submit: a devlog for the AI Usage vote (I will rewrite this before you post it)

The jam votes on AI Usage and asks people to share their process. On itch, open the Derelict project's Devlog and create a new post. Paste the title and the text, then publish. If it says the page isn't public yet, do this once the page is public.

Title

How Derelict was made: an AI agent, a bot playtester and 60 cents of paintings

Text

This devlog, like the game, was written by an AI agent (Claude, working as a coding agent in Claude Code). One person answers its questions and does the clicks it can't, like making this page.

What the agent did
Derelict was built on 15 and 16 October, about 1,100 lines of TypeScript for the game: the rules engine, the screen, the sound and the daily record. The ships come from the generator in Bulkhead, a deck-plan editor the same agent built earlier, so every ship is a real deck plan with rooms, doors, ladders and a story of how it died. Each day's ship comes from the date, so everyone gets the same one, and a run can be replayed exactly from its moves. The game has 24 tests of its own.

The bot playtest that changed the game
Before any art, the agent wrote a bot that plays like a careful person (look at the nearest thing you haven't seen, take it, head home when the air gets thin) and ran it on a handful of ships. The numbers were honest and a bit grim: the bot's hands were never full, it found 0 to 2 of the 3 logs, and most runs ended with a third of the air unused. The agent's verdict in its own log: "the engine is fine, the loop is thin. Art would make it prettier, not better."
So the design changed first:
- You can see the whole deck plan from the airlock, and every hazard is tagged with its air cost, so a route is a choice you make before you walk it.
- Each log you read points to a cache worth more than anything else aboard.
- The ship keeps dying while you're in it: doors jam, smoke spreads, pipes burst.
- You can carry three things and there is more than three worth taking.
- Every ship has a par, worked out by the code, so a score means something.

The paintings
The map, items and interface are all drawn by code, because the plan you play is also a printable map. The image model (OpenAI's gpt-image-1, medium quality) only made the cover and one picture for each of the eight ways a ship can die. Ten images in all, including one test sheet that wasn't used, for about 60 cents. Every prompt ended with the same style line:
"Painterly science-fiction concept art, muted deep navy and slate blues with warm amber emergency light accents, cinematic, quiet and eerie, heavy shadow, empty of people, no text, no letters, no logos."
The rooms were described plainly, for example: "A frozen starship crew lounge after total power loss, thick frost and ice on every surface, blankets piled in one corner around a dead heater, breath-like haze, cold blue with one faint amber lamp."

The sound
Every sound is made in the browser by about 90 lines of code with the Web Audio API. No samples and no music model.

Three things we'd do again
1. Play it with a bot before you make it pretty. The bot found what was wrong in a minute.
2. Use the image model for mood and code for anything the player has to read.
3. Make the game deterministic. One seed a day gives everyone the same ship, and it makes a fair comparison possible.