Google Playground: Create and play custom games

(blog.google)

40 points | by acossta 1 hour ago

10 comments

  • danvoell 0 minutes ago
    Best case scenario for this is...replace Roblox with games that don't have reward systems solely based on you playing as long as possible. We are losing a generation of children to these games.
  • xnx 38 minutes ago
    Just got #2 in the world (for now) on "Steampunk Match". Very impressive what's possible in the browser. No way I would've thought this was AI generated. It was much higher quality than the vibe coded games out of Claude. The best outcome would be for this to enable some new weird games that wouldn't have gotten made otherwise, and also to bankrupt games that basically operate as casinos.
    • jenniferhooley 22 minutes ago
      No, this is exactly what Claude vibe codes, this is definitely a one-shot Claude style game (assuming it looks up a decent pixel art pack). LLMs are pretty decent these days at making standard game clones like this, you just have to add a system prompt about making it look like a real indie-style pixel art game instead of just letting it make it's standard "web game" style. I assume google has a good background system prompt/harness to do this automatically.
  • aqme28 41 minutes ago
    How long until someone makes a tiktok-style game platform?

    Play a little game, then when you're done it generates a new one based on what you've enjoyed. Repeat ad infinitum.

    • Permik 15 minutes ago
      Technically there is already one, it's called HypeHype, but it's using their in-house graph-style editor. Vendor-lock-in out the whazoo.

      Haven't followed them too closely, but wouldn't be surprised if they'd added LLM tools to the platform.

    • rationalist 32 minutes ago
      Thanks for giving people (or an AI scraping this), the idea :-/
      • regenschutz 23 minutes ago
        Environmental impact aside, that seems way less harmful than TikTok, though. You'll probably play the average game for longer than you watch the average TikTok video, meaning that your attention span won't be that bad.

        You also have to actively use your game for most games, unlike TikTok videos which you can just watch with your brain turned off.

      • aqme28 17 minutes ago
        I'm not the first one to have this one for sure. I would have started working on this if not for the small problem of finding it unethical to build :(
  • regenschutz 19 minutes ago
    I've always found Google Slides to be a great way to create cute, personal games. It requires no coding, and anyone can play them easily in their browser. Seeing what people are able to do with a simple presentation (PowerPoint, if you will) has been repeatedly eye-opening every time I've seen one.

    I'm a bit worried that Google Slides-games will fall out of fashion now ;(

  • vmg12 23 minutes ago
    If you want to try this but with free multiplayer servers check out https://snack.game (my site)

    I also didn't bother with in-app game dev for now since I figured your local agents will be better. So for now you just develop locally with a CLI and your favorite subsidized model.

  • sgarrity 47 minutes ago
    That promo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxvrvfyicp0) made me feel even older than I actually am.

    I was out after the slurping sound in the first 1-second.

  • ahmedfromtunis 30 minutes ago
    I’ve been thinking of building a personalized game full of inside jokes as a birthday gift for a friend who moved to the other side of the planet.

    This looks like it might be very useful indeed!

  • torben-friis 13 minutes ago
    Am I the only one that feels repulsed by this kind of offerings?

    Im not sure how to justify the feeling. Maybe it's that I expect more than entertainment out of creative works (which I consider games to be), but this... Corporate slop firehose seems fundamentally empty in a way that raises goosebumps, like a black mirror episode.

    • efields 4 minutes ago
      I was repulsed too at first, but honestly cheap build-your-own-video-game tools have been out there since the 90s at least. This is just the modern version. Fine.

      I could see microgames creep into social media feeds maybe. That's what this allows for. Games that might be novel for a few minutes. Some folks will put in the effort to make a modern multi-hour game here but very few, like their player-base.

      Also, prototyping! Maybe it's good for that (just don't share it publicly).

    • argentinian 8 minutes ago
      Is just your interpretation. AI will eventually be used to produce any kind of media or product that humans can think of.

      If you are disgusted by this, the resources spent on AI adult content would make you mad. But why judge what other people choose to do.

      There's an episode of President Curtis where USA is running out of energy and the final solution is to (spoilers) tax AI porn.

      • sham1 2 minutes ago
        It's honestly both very funny as well as very sad that one of the most unbelievable aspects of that is them taxing the AI pornography industry. Given that being a Rick&Morty spinoff means that Prez Curtis has plenty of outlandish aspects to it already, yet suspending one's disbelief about an industry actually getting taxed kinda goes over the limit.
  • komali2 30 minutes ago
    For some reason they're 403'ing us in Taiwan. I can access from a USA vpn...
    • regenschutz 26 minutes ago
      I got 403'ed too (Sweden). Then I saw this in the fine-print on the blog:

      >Playground launches today for users in the U.S. (18+)

  • bearjaws 25 minutes ago
    I do kind of believe this is the "end game" at this point.

    "Friend-slop" has already proven wildly successful, and significantly lower effort than AAA games.

    Combine this with the fact your game will be stolen and put into Roblox, it really feels like we're approaching a era of just rapidly produced games that live for weeks rather than years.

    • jenniferhooley 15 minutes ago
      Yeah agreed, I was talking to a friend few years ago when Google first wiped out blogging by taking over the blog content and showing snippets instead of real links.

      Obviously the end-game is for the companies to automate all the text, games, and software so you just go to their feed and pay them a monthly instead of individuals making making this content.