A solo maker built a live browser game with Claude
A self-taught developer with a full-time job in an unrelated field spent several months building herdz.io during spare moments in the week. Herdz.io is a browser .io game where players herd glowing creatures into pens and try to outlast everyone else on the server. The hardest part was not one specific feature, but keeping a long solo project moving without a team, a deadline, or someone to challenge weak ideas early.
Several core parts were rewritten more than once. The nearly pushed the game toward a major redesign, because games can feel broken when no one else is around. Claude helped late at night with design decisions, avoiding , and clearing boring glue work that could have stopped progress for days.
Claude did not build the game alone; the maker still had to keep the vision and make the main decisions.
Key points
- A self-taught developer built herdz.io while working a full-time job in another field.
- Herdz.io is a browser .io game about herding glowing creatures into pens.
- The main challenge was sustaining a months-long solo build without a team or deadline.
- The project involved multiple rewrites and a difficult .
- Claude helped with design thinking, avoiding , and small glue work.