Brackenmere / dev log

The Brackenmere dev log · a maze game, built with AI agents

A storybook world, built one wrong turn at a time.

Brackenmere is a storybook maze adventure for my children, built with my children. These are the build notes: every playtest, wrong turn and rebuild, written up one story at a time.

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trailer · a minute in Brackenmere
19 sep 21 sep 28 sep 5 oct 12 oct 19 oct 24 oct G01 Day one: a canvas greybox called Brackenmere G02 The hedge maze, a three-minute run G04 The torchlit castle and the see-through walls problem G03 First person and sword combat G07 Worlds as data: a mine to prove it, then three worlds in one evening G06 The asset diet and quality tiers G05 Walk into the inn, forge and apothecary G08 The village rebuilt in timber, plaster, stone and slate G11 The living town, written overnight G09 The kit: one catalogue of placeable pieces G12 Meshy from Nick's own pictures G10 Performance by construction G13 A home that grows with the hero (and "no 8 of 10 bar") A04 Making the repo agent-ready, then guarding its rules with tests A02 Tests that step time instead of waiting A01 Handoffs, one worktree per feature and standing rules G16 A Laravel backend for families G15 Streaming an open world: chunks, paths and haze G14 The lore arrives: a world, a town and a running story written in the cloud G18 The village becomes a streamed region and Kit Yard retires G17 An adventure generator: a quest that builds its own maze, then a keep and a fen A03 Audits that become queues: simplifying what the agents built G20 Far tiles and tree cards G21 Sword moves you press on purpose G22 Twenty-seven pieces of feel G23 A storybook way in, and a fine first morning G19 The village, laid out three times A06 Making the agents cheaper to run G26 A storybook UI built from research on child readers G25 Steady frames, 2x MSAA and the limits of optimisation G24 The kids got lost: keep everything, fix the pacing G29 A quest card an eight-year-old can read G28 A whole campaign in a day: first morning to Lantern Night G32 "Not stale in its world, stale in what the player gets back" G30 Immersion: a world that answers the hero A07 The team takes shape: root, owners and one reviewer A05 The agents measure themselves G34 Renown that matters: I reverse the vision G33 Combat for kids who love fighting G31 Village life: 22 new people, their weeks and how they walk G27 The Charwood: a new wood every visit A08 Three AI designers, one brief G36 Goblin raids, kept forgiving G35 A world, not a to-do list: the village changes because of you G38 Three new worlds in one night G37 Four rooms, built from the pictures I sent G39 The quest ledger, and five worlds finally joined up
fig. 00 · 47 posts across 36 days Building Brackenmere Building it with AI agents

What is this?

Brackenmere is a storybook adventure for children. You start in a village with people to help and jobs to do, then head out through its gates into hedge mazes, dark woods and a torchlit castle, with the odd goblin to chase off along the way.

This blog is how it gets made. I'm Nick, a developer building it for my two kids with a team of AI agents writing most of the code, and the kids as playtesters. Each post is one step: what I asked for, what came back and what they made of it.

More about us
In-game view from above of a lantern-lit hedge maze, with the hero facing a giant spider in a stone clearing.
fig. 01 · the hedge maze, after dark
Nick, seen from behind, carrying his two young children towards a full rainbow over a park.
fig. 02 · the playtesters

Latest entry

fig. 03

Previous entries

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All 47 posts
Building Brackenmere

G38 6 min read

Three new worlds in one night

One evening I asked for three new maze worlds that were not rectangular grids, with movement and emotion, and stepped away. By morning a drowned abbey, a giant's kitchen and a clockwork hall were on main. Then I played them.

Building Brackenmere

G37 6 min read

Four rooms, built from the pictures I sent

I sent the agents an isometric picture of the inn I wanted, then three more for my home, the Forge and the Apothecary. All four were rebuilt in one evening. It took a second day, and my complaint that the inn felt stale, to make them warm.

Building Brackenmere

G36 6 min read

Goblin raids, kept forgiving

My son voted for goblins running into the village, so the game's one safe place got a fight. The first raid worked in the tests and meant nothing to a player; it took my own walk on the green, a few dictated paragraphs and a day of fixes to make it a raid you notice, can win and can never really lose.

Building Brackenmere

G35 6 min read

A world, not a to-do list: the village changes because of you

I played Brackenmere end to end and found an errand chain: talk, fetch, return, repeat. Three AI designers diagnosed it independently, my son voted on their ideas, and by the evening every quest left a mark on the village.

Building it with AI agents

A08 5 min read

Three AI designers, one brief

When the game felt like an errand chain, I asked three AI designers the same neutral question and kept every other opinion, mine included, away from them until they had answered. How that ran, and what a month of building this way taught me.

Building Brackenmere

G34 6 min read

Renown that matters: I reverse the vision

The first version of Renown gave my kids a rank, a title and a Book of monsters, and kept my own rule that the hero's health never grows. A day later I shot up four levels without getting any stronger, and asked for levels that really mean something.

Read about it, then go and get lost in it.

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