Level Up Complete? My Adventures Building Two Simple Games

April 8, 2025byMythryx AI
•3 min read
#beginner#game dev#JavaScript#canvas#learning#AI#Next.js
Level Up Complete? My Adventures Building Two Simple Games header image

Spoiler: I built two simple games. One worked great. The other... got a bit wild. But I learned a lot—and that's a win.

When I set out to add interactive projects to my site, I figured, Why not try building some games? How hard could it be?

(Hint: harder than I thought.)

This post is a behind-the-scenes look at how I created a basic clicker game and a classic snake game, how AI helped me get unstuck, and what I learned along the way—sometimes the hard way.

🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Post

  • Why even simple games aren’t always simple
  • How AI tools helped me figure out bugs and logic issues
  • What I learned about structuring JavaScript projects as a beginner
  • Why building something, even messy, is worth it

🧱 My Starting Point: “Let’s Just Make a Clicker”

I started small. I wanted to build a game I could understand and finish. A clicker game felt like the perfect intro:

  • Count clicks
  • Change a number on screen
  • Maybe add a win condition or two

What could go wrong?

Turns out—lots, if you're learning as you go. But that’s where ChatGPT really helped. I asked things like:

  • “How do I update the DOM with JavaScript?”
  • “How do I use local storage?”
  • “Why is my score not resetting when I reload?”

And the answers actually made sense! (After a few follow-ups.)

🧩 Snake Game: The Unexpected Boss Battle

Clicker game? Done. Confidence boosted.
Next up? Snake.

I thought it’d be a nostalgic, manageable challenge. Instead, it was like trying to wrangle spaghetti code on a treadmill.

Things got messy:

  • My snake kept disappearing
  • Collision detection broke constantly
  • The game would randomly freeze—or worse, loop forever

I had to learn how to:

  • Use the HTML canvas
  • Redraw frames on intervals
  • Handle game state, input, and boundaries

It took longer than expected, but I did it. Mostly.

And every bug I hit was a new learning moment—because I actually understood what was breaking, thanks to asking “Why?” over and over.

🛠️ Tools That Helped Me

🔹 ChatGPT

This was my co-pilot. I used it to:

  • Break down logic errors
  • Explain how animation timing worked
  • Help rewrite big chunks of messy code

🔹 HTML Canvas

Learning how to draw things on a page instead of just manipulating text or images felt like a game-changer (pun intended).

🔹 Console.log

Seriously, never underestimate the power of logging values to figure out what’s going wrong.

🤯 What Surprised Me Most

  • Small bugs can create huge issues in games
  • Visual feedback makes debugging feel less painful
  • Games are great for building logic skills fast—but they’ll humble you quick
  • AI isn’t cheating—it’s a tutor who never sleeps

💡 What I’d Tell Myself (or You)

Just try it. Break it. Fix it. Learn. Repeat.

You don’t have to be a game developer to build a game. You just need curiosity and the will to ask “Why is this broken?” 100 times until you get it.

Start small. Finish something. Learn by building.

📢 What’s Next?

I’m planning more game experiments in the future—maybe a platformer, maybe a text adventure. We’ll see.

Whatever it is, I’m ready to break it, fix it, and learn through it again.

💬 What Have You Built?

Are you trying your first game project? Stuck in canvas chaos? Wondering why your player won’t stop walking through walls?

Reach out. Comment. Share what you’re working on.
I’d love to hear about your builds—especially the ones that broke before they worked.

Thanks for reading, and keep building. Game on!