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I rebuilt the art for my game this week using @Envato AI tools, sprites, background, sound, even the voiceover on my video. The whole look, one toolkit. But the part I actually want to talk about isn't what the AI made. It's what I threw away.
The AI gave me a beautiful fire-vent sprite. High contrast, sharp, better than mine by every measure. Then I put 47 of them on the board and couldn't find the target anymore. The number said better. My eyes said broken. So I went back to the plain one.
Same with the music. I made a track I genuinely loved, then measured it against my sound effects, found they lived in the same frequencies, and cut it. It would've buried the sounds players need to hear. And the bar the ball rides on? I chose not to generate it at all. It stretches every frame; a sprite would fall apart. Some things are better left as code.
The AI @Envato gave me dozens of options, and even the voice telling you this story. What it couldn't do was tell me which ones to keep, or which ones to throw away.
🎮 Daily Thaw — a daily ice balancing puzzle @Envato @Contra
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My entry for the Envato × Contra Human by Design challenge.
AI has changed the game and made almost anything possible. But just because you can make anything doesn’t mean you always know what to make.
For this one, I took one simple piece of Envato’s identity, the logo, and pushed it as far as I could with one goal: make a pretty sick ad.
From there, it was a lot of experimenting, prompting, failing, refining, and eventually bringing all those ideas to life using Envato’s AI tools.
The result is my take on Human by Design. AI can give us endless possibilities, but someone still has to come up with the idea and decide where to take it.
100% created using Envato’s AI features.🚀
My entry for the Envato × Contra Human by Design challenge.
AI has changed the game and made almost anything possible. But just because you can make anything doesn’t mean you always know what to make.
For this one, I took one simple piece of Envato’s identity, the logo, and pushed...
Nice work
🕹️ What I Built
I created Neon Byte Runner, a fast-paced retro arcade game Lens for Snapchat inspired by classic endless dodgers and 80s neon aesthetics. Built entirely using prompt-based iteration in EasyLens, the game includes:
Procedural Pixel-Art Visuals: Glowing neon ships, data bugs, energy bytes, and background scanlines drawn in real time for crisp rendering across all screen sizes.
Drag-and-Dodge Controls: Intuitive mobile steering where players dodge incoming "data bugs" and collect "energy bytes" for score multiplier points.
Dynamic Damage System: A three-life mechanic where taking damage physically breaks off spaceship parts (wings and tail) with visual particle flares.
Magical Heart Repairs: Rare falling heart powerups that grant an extra life and visually repair broken spaceship parts back onto the ship.
Chiptune Audio & Global Leaderboard: Custom-generated arcade music and sound effects paired with an integrated HUD and leaderboard to drive replayability.
💡 Why I Built It
Reimagining Classic Arcade Mechanics for AR:
I wanted to capture the instant-play energy of old-school arcade cabinets and adapt it into a social, mobile-first Snapchat Lens. The goal was to create a game that takes seconds to learn, but offers enough depth and escalating difficulty to keep players saying, "Just one more run."
Visual & Emotional Damage Feedback:
Instead of relying on a standard health bar, I wanted players to feel the stakes. Making the ship parts physically break off and scatter across the screen creates an immediate, dramatic feedback loop when you make a mistake—and grabbing a rare heart to repair your ship feels genuinely rewarding.
Pushing the Boundaries of Prompt-Based Game Design:
As a developer, I wanted to explore how far prompt engineering inside EasyLens could go. I set out to prove that you can build complete, highly polished game systems—including state management, procedural rendering, sound synthesis, and dynamic damage states—purely by guiding AI with precise multi-step prompts.
✨ How EasyLens Made It Possible
Using EasyLens, I didn't need to hop between traditional 3D software, external audio workstations, or manual script compilers. I iterated through targeted prompts to handle:
Generating procedural visual assets on the fly.
Setting up custom arcade music and dynamic sound triggers.
Fine-tuning game controls, collision boxes, and damage states.
EasyLens handled the heavy lifting, allowing me to focus on game feel, pacing, and player experience
