I made LEVEL ZERO, a procedural Backrooms horror game that runs in the browser. Play it here: https://synapcore.itch.io/level-zero
HOW I USED CLAUDE
I built the whole game in conversation with Claude Code (desktop app, Claude Opus 5.5). I'm not a programmer: I did the creative direction, playtesting and feedback, and Claude wrote and debugged all of the code.
- Initial build: I asked for "something like the Backrooms, procedurally generated". Claude wrote the game as a single HTML file using Three.js:
- an infinite chunked maze generated from a seed;
- custom shaders for the lighting, fog and VHS look;
- procedural textures drawn in code;
- Web Audio for the fluorescent hum, footsteps and the entity's drone.
- Design iterations: I'd play, then describe what felt wrong. Some examples:
- "the sanity effect isn't noticeable enough" → Claude added colour drain, chromatic aberration, screen warping, VHS tearing, fake footsteps, hallucinated words and images, and music that degrades in stages (muffled, overdriven, then skipping like a broken tape).
- "sanity barely drops, there's too much almond water" → Claude rebalanced the drain rates and made bottles rarer.
- "it's too easy, add events, puzzles and lore" → Claude added:
- blackouts, a voice calling your name behind you, looping corridors and ringing phones;
- a code split into digits painted on the walls;
- a "lights out" breaker-box minigame and a radio you tune to get directions;
- 6 notes and 2 VHS tapes that teach the survival rules and unlock a true ending.
- Testing: Claude playtested in the Claude desktop app's built-in browser. It used temporary debug hooks to teleport to spots and trigger every ending and event. It also flood-filled 20+ seeds to make sure all items and the exit can always be reached.
- Bug fixing from my reports:
- camera jumps with the mouse → raw pointer-lock input plus spike filtering;
- fake doors standing alone in rooms → moved onto real walls;
- title cut off inside the itch.io frame → menu layout fix.
- Release: Claude added the English/Spanish language system and translated all the text and lore. It also packaged the itch.io zip, captured the screenshots by driving a headless browser from a script, and composed the cover art.
OTHER TOOLS
- Suno Pro: the 4 soundtrack tracks, made by me.
- ffmpeg: converting the music to MP3 (Claude ran it).
- Three.js r128 (MIT), VT323 and Special Elite fonts (Google Fonts).
- itch.io for hosting.
Feedback welcome, especially on difficulty!