Before bed, I opened two consoles — Codex in one, Claude in the other. I gave both the same prompt: make a browser game about Soviet apartment blocks and AI. Everything else up to them. By morning I want a playable link.
🎮 District 404: Signal in the Courtyard (OpenAI Codex)
Codex built a 2D top-down game — a courtyard between a Khrushchyovka and a nine-story block. WASD controls, walk around locations, interact with objects. It has 5 stages, an achievements system, and sound. Codex drew SVG character sprites (12 animation frames) and a world tileset — trees, benches, buildings, antennas. Nice style, warm palette. But the gameplay is fairly simple — mostly walking and clicking, lacking quest depth. The plot is "catch the code" and open the entrance by entering 404. Overall — a working prototype, but far from a finished game.
🕹 SIGNAL: Mystery of the Basement (Claude Code)
Claude took a completely different approach. It built a full atmospheric point-and-click adventure in pixel art. The story: IT developer Alex moves into an old Khrushchyovka building and discovers a mysterious signal from the basement.
5 chapters, 12 locations, inventory, dialogues, puzzles, and even two endings. Everything renders on a 320×180 Canvas with procedural graphics — night courtyard, flickering windows, rain, moon. Sound via Web Audio API. Zero external assets — everything is code-generated. Total weight ~164KB in 6 files.
Apartment 47 — the starting location. Boxes still unpacked, but the computer is already connected. Alex searches for Wi-Fi and finds a mysterious signal instead...
🏆 Result
Both games are playable, but Claude won on depth. Codex made a nice prototype with controls and locations, but simple. Claude — a full quest with 5 chapters, story, puzzles and two endings. All from one prompt and zero intervention!
🔗 SIGNAL — https://myitnotes.dev/games/signal/
🔗 District 404 — https://myitnotes.dev/gamesov/
Ever wanted to release your own game? Now it's within everyone's reach!
