ChatGPT Tries to Build a Retro Game — Here's the C64 BASIC Disaster

本站添加: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome to I Beat BASIC. Things look a bit different today, so let's jump into it. I am screen recording this live.

[00:00:06]This is for a YouTube video. The video today is going to be about having you, chat GPT, come up with a game in Commodore 64 BASIC. But the challenge is we only have 10 prompts to get it as good as we can. This is going to be the first prompt. So, I'm going to leave it up to you. The game could be as simple or as complex as you like, but I want the game to be as good as it can be, as engaging as it can be, as interesting as it can be, and as entertaining for my viewers as possible. You'll need to also let me know what the controls are so that when I start testing it, I can play it. So, give me your code. This is going to be prompt number one.

[00:00:45]Let's see how this game starts, and then we've got nine more prompts to make it as good as we can. Give me what you got.

[00:00:52]Okay, a solid starting point with a simple but actually playable arcade game gives us heaps of room to improve. So, we have A and D for left and right, and Q for quit.

[00:01:01]There's our code.

[00:01:03]I'm going to pop that into CBM Studio so that we can play it straight away.

[00:01:08]Let's see how our game looks.

[00:01:14]Ooh, we have a little intro screen. Gem drop, catch gems, avoid bombs. A left, D right, Q quit. Press any key to start.

[00:01:21]Not a bad start.

[00:01:23]>> [laughter] >> Okay. Ooh.

[00:01:29]All right. So, looking at the code here, I think it is cuz you can't just put random minus TI. So, they want to see the random generator, the random number generator, which is fine with negative TI. And TI is the jiffy clock. So, that that's a good thing. But you can't just put random. You need to put something like I equals random or R equals random.

[00:01:50]So, let's give that feedback.

[00:01:52]Ooh, disappointing. There was a syntax error in line 60. I think it's to do with your random number generator.

[00:02:00]Ooh, so this is going to be a waste of a prompt, but this was the second prompt.

[00:02:05]Okay. So, that's two prompts down. Let's give this code a try. See if we get something playable this time.

[00:02:17]Okay. Fingers crossed.

[00:02:21]Press any key to start.

[00:02:26]Oh my gosh, clunky.

[00:02:29]I don't know why we have the main character like that, but that's okay.

[00:02:34]All right. So, I Ooh, gem, and it tells me gem at the top. That's nice.

[00:02:41]Oh, I Do I have to keep pressing the key? It's just not moving.

[00:02:49]I do. So, you can't hold the key down.

[00:02:51]You actually have to keep smashing the key.

[00:02:56]Oh, that's helpful.

[00:03:02]Why do I only have two lives? Did I start with two?

[00:03:06]Or was one of them a bomb and I didn't even know?

[00:03:14]Okay. Or is that a bomb? Is that a bomb?

[00:03:18]I missed it. So, that was probably a bomb.

[00:03:20]Okay, we're about to find out what happens when I don't catch a gem.

[00:03:26]Do I just lose a life?

[00:03:30]Missed one lives. Okay.

[00:03:33]All right, I'm going to stop it there.

[00:03:36]Yes, it is working, but my feedback is it is painfully slow. I have to keep pressing the keys over and over to move in the main game loop. I would prefer it that if I could just hold the key down, and it would keep moving in that direction.

[00:03:54]If you could also, in this next prompt, try and do some variety of the gems that are falling, maybe some white diamonds or something that looks like a green emerald. That might be interesting. So, this is prompt number three.

[00:04:08]All right. So, it's going to use the peek 197 to look at what's being pressed on the keyboard. So, I think that's probably going to be a better idea.

[00:04:18]Yeah, the get A string is definitely a bit slower than using a peek 197.

[00:04:25]So, we should get some falling variety as well. Yellow gold, white diamond, green diamond, red bomb.

[00:04:31]Okay.

[00:04:34]Here we go.

[00:04:40]A is now moving in the wrong direction, so that's exciting.

[00:04:43]>> [laughter] >> Movement is still very clunky.

[00:04:49]Lost a life there. That makes sense.

[00:04:56]Let's see if we get any variety of the falling objects, cuz so far it's just been two.

[00:05:04]Oh, okay. I guess that's something else.

[00:05:10]Yep, there it goes.

[00:05:16]I do that I I do like the little touch at the top where it tells you what you've actually caught. So, the last thing I was gold. This thing I caught was diamond.

[00:05:27]Isn't there literally like a diamond shape as one of the PETSCII characters?

[00:05:31]Why aren't you using that?

[00:05:33]Okay. So, for our next prompt, this is going to be prompt number four.

[00:05:38]This is going to be prompt number four.

[00:05:41]Why don't you use the diamond PETSCII character for the thing that's actually a diamond? I think that would be a good idea.

[00:05:48]Uh the falling movement is still very slow, but is that how slow you want it for round one? Maybe it will improve.

[00:05:56]Let's look at some of the other things you want to add. So, let's add a different sound effect for each item type that falls. Yes, I'd also like a better player graphic. And if you want to try a nicer title screen, add that, too. And hey, if you want to go for multiple falling objects at once, you can do that. That's a lot for the prompt, but show me what you can do.

[00:06:20]Here we go again.

[00:06:23]Ooh, we got some colors. Gold, diamond, emerald. Bombs take a life.

[00:06:28]I look it's better than it was. I don't mind it.

[00:06:32]How does it remember? Oh.

[00:06:34]It's now painfully bad with the two falling objects, the slow blinking repeating.

[00:06:43]And I've got absolutely no chance of getting from one object to the other.

[00:06:48]But anyway, let's see if we get our sound at least. Here we go.

[00:06:54]Huh. Boop. Oh, that was great.

[00:06:57]I'm going to try and make it over to the diamond if I have any chance, and see Now, I keep pressing the wrong key cuz they're backwards.

[00:07:07]And see if we get a different sound, or if it is just that same beep.

[00:07:18]Ooh, well. Beep.

[00:07:21]Yeah, I've got probably no chance of making it across to either of those.

[00:07:28]Oh, I tell a lie. I actually made it.

[00:07:33]Why did I die?

[00:07:35]Okay. All right.

[00:07:39]So, some definite feedback there for our next prompt. The A and D key are backwards. So, when I press D, I don't move right, I move left.

[00:07:49]I caught a diamond, but then I died. So, I don't know why I died. Have you mixed up the diamond code with one of the bombs? It was a white diamond, and I died. That shouldn't have happened.

[00:08:03]You do have two objects falling. Whereas they're falling at the same time, the player moves so slow, there's no way that I can catch the first one and then get to the next one. It's just impossible. You need a delay for the second item, a significant delay.

[00:08:17]They're still falling really, really slow, and the player is moving incredibly slowly. I think you need to update the logic or look at how the player character is being redrawn, because it is just so slow, the game is almost unplayable.

[00:08:33]Let's just focus on those fixes now for our next prompt. We really have to improve the game playability and the responsiveness and the movement overall.

[00:08:43]It thinks it's found our gameplay problems and fixed them. So, A and D should be correct. The catcher's going to move faster. Only going to redraw when it moves. That's a good idea.

[00:08:53]Second falling object should have a delay. Game loop faster overall. We shall see. And the diamond is a good item, not a bomb.

[00:09:01]Copy that code.

[00:09:04]I think we're about halfway now, so not too many prompts to go.

[00:09:09]Let's see what we have now.

[00:09:20]Okay. Well, the movement is better. I will give it that.

[00:09:26]But the keys are still backwards.

[00:09:34]A and D are still backwards.

[00:09:38]But at least you can catch stuff now.

[00:09:39]Gold.

[00:09:40]Oh, we've lost the little pop-ups though that said what you caught. I like those.

[00:09:48]Hey, we're good. That really needs to come back.

[00:09:53]Ooh, am I going to be able to get to the No.

[00:09:56]That was an improvement. We've lost the little screen pop-ups that say what you caught. I like those. So, when you caught gold or diamond or emerald, they were cute. They should come back in.

[00:10:06]The keyboard direction is still not right. So, when I press the letter D, the character moves in the wrong direction. When I press the letter A, it moves in the wrong direction. So, you really need to look at that. As I said, speed was better.

[00:10:20]What other things can we do to make the game much more exciting? Cuz it's still pretty simple. You've got a decent structure there, but could you maybe add some background elements like some little full stops in different colors that look like stars or something like that?

[00:10:36]I think this is Yeah, this is prompt number six. So, what else can you give us to improve the overall gameplay?

[00:10:43]Okay, so I don't like the spaces in that cuz that's going to be a pain when I paste it into CBM.

[00:10:52]Nope. I have to get rid of all of those spaces now.

[00:11:00]It's getting sloppy. We've got two line 720s.

[00:11:06]That's no good. They're all Um they shouldn't cause an issue. Just change them back to 725.

[00:11:12]So, I'm going to have to give that and the no spaces in the next feedback.

[00:11:23]Look, the dots are pretty.

[00:11:29]I wonder what will happen though when our objects fall. Are they going to Right, now I've got no keyboard movement at all.

[00:11:35]>> [laughter] >> Really like the dots though. They're cute.

[00:11:40]Phew. Right, so do not put any empty lines when you give me code to paste. That is a rule. Never do that.

[00:11:52]The dots in the background were pretty.

[00:11:54]I didn't mind them, but you need to make sure that when an object falls past them, that the dots just don't disappear. And now the keyboard was not responding at all, so I couldn't move the character at all. The character sprite is also a checkerboard pattern, a circle, and a random line. Can you do something that looks a bit more interesting, maybe like a spaceship or I don't know, something. It just doesn't look very good.

[00:12:20]I think you could also maybe try and add an occasional flicker for some of the background stars if it doesn't impact the gameplay too much.

[00:12:32]Oh, a simple little music loop. That would be amazing if you could do that cuz it's very difficult to do a music loop without just destroying the gameplay. So, go for it and that's going to be prompt seven. So, it says it's fixed the controls. The stars will be restored behind falling objects. There's going to be a little flicker. Player will look more like a ship.

[00:12:51]A simple non-blocking music loop.

[00:12:54]And keeping the pop-up messages. Oh, okay. I'm going to be very interested.

[00:12:59]What's that? And that was prompt seven.

[00:13:00]Seven. Okay, we've got three more.

[00:13:04]I wonder what type of music it's going to give us.

[00:13:08]And again, Treasure Storm. Ooh, love the name.

[00:13:14]And we've lost the title screen.

[00:13:17]We've actually lost everything.

[00:13:22]Um Oh, okay. Maybe is that the music routine loading? I don't know.

[00:13:41]Oh, cute music. Oh.

[00:13:45]Ah.

[00:13:48]We have issues now that the player cuz it moves so jerkily, you don't always Yeah, I couldn't have really caught that one.

[00:14:03]Oh, and I screen wrap as well, which is weird.

[00:14:07]Okay.

[00:14:11]The music did play. Could the notes maybe move a bit faster? It's, you know, it wasn't too bad.

[00:14:19]Uh the character the player character now moves really weirdly. It moves jerkily and lots of three. So, sometimes you're actually in a position where you can't actually catch a falling character. And when you get to the edge of the screen, it wraps around the screen and it shouldn't do that. So, you need to restore the player movement a bit better.

[00:14:38]Instead of the pi symbol for the middle symbol of the player character, is there like maybe a a triangle pointing upwards or something? That might be a bit interesting. I don't recall seeing any flicker in the stars as well as we played. So, let's see if you can fix those things.

[00:14:56]This is our prompt eight. Should do edge checks better. The player should be moving better. Ship redraw stable. Star flicker. Music updates. Ooh, rare bonus item. Combat scoring. Bombs that fall faster than treasure.

[00:15:11]Two more prompts to go.

[00:15:18]Yeah, that loading is interesting. I'll see if I can maybe fix that.

[00:15:23]Cuz now we just sit here for quite a while.

[00:15:28]Here come our stars.

[00:15:32]What is the code doing at the start?

[00:15:41]Yeah, doing a bit of poking. Okay.

[00:15:50]Oh, we're back to our super slow movement again.

[00:15:55]And redrawing the main player character when it doesn't need to be.

[00:16:02]Has anybody spotted a flickering star yet?

[00:16:08]Maybe that's what's eating into the the game speed.

[00:16:28]Okay, second last prompt. Everything's moving really, really slowly. Take out the code for sparkling stars cuz that just doesn't do anything.

[00:16:36]You are redrawing the main player character even when it doesn't move.

[00:16:41]Still, can you replace the middle character of the main player with a triangle Petski character? That would be really, really good. And when the game loads, it shows the score line at the top and then the screen goes black for quite a long time. Then the stars draw, but then the score line doesn't come back until the you get your first lot of points. So, the score needs to be at the top right at the start and see if you can improve the speed of the game loading and starting. Apparently, our startup will be faster. The score is going to print.

[00:17:13]We're not going to have the constant flicker of the ship, hopefully.

[00:17:16]Object two has a delay.

[00:17:20]And the middle of the ship should look better.

[00:17:23]Second last prompt. Here we go.

[00:17:29]Oh, that that's much better.

[00:17:39]And then we have our notes moving much faster.

[00:17:48]And they slow down a bit when we're under pressure moving.

[00:17:55]I'm not sure if the best four notes that could have been chosen.

[00:18:10]Okay, we've got our flashes back at the top. Yep. Got the gold. Got the gold.

[00:18:15]Am I going to be able to make it to the diamond?

[00:18:19]Probably not.

[00:18:29]Okay, we have one more prompt. What am I going to do?

[00:18:36]This is the last prompt. The four notes that you use in the melody are quite annoying. You need a much wider variety of notes to make it a bit more interesting.

[00:18:46]And is there anything else that you want to add? This is your last chance to make the game as good as you can. So, maybe take some time to think about this. And let's finish this off. Give me our final game code. Our final prompt. Varied music loop. A rare bonus item. A fast ship. A score line's going to be there.

[00:19:07]Multiple falling objects.

[00:19:10]Stars restored properly behind. No blank lines. Okay.

[00:19:14]Here is our last code. This is as good as it's going to get in 10 prompts.

[00:19:20]Okay.

[00:19:22]Treasure Storm. Gold, diamond, emerald, bonus. And bombs are the bonuses are light blue. A left, D right. Run stop to quit.

[00:19:29]Stars poking very nicely.

[00:19:32]Let's see how long I can stay alive.

[00:19:35]>> [music] >> Oh, is that my bonus item? Oh, but we're not going to make it. Oh, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Oh, yeah.

[00:19:47]Ignore the bomb.

[00:19:52]I I have been more specific about the music cuz there's notes that are close together that that make it sound a bit sad.

[00:20:00]I should have told it to maybe just use the major scale, but that's okay.

[00:20:06]I think if you type this from a magazine, you wouldn't be totally disappointed.

[00:20:12]It's not awful.

[00:20:14]Uh, don't think I'm going to get to that green one.

[00:20:19]The lives counter is working.

[00:20:21]I only lost one life so far. I'm on level one. Oh, level two. Okay.

[00:20:26]We're going to be falling a bit faster.

[00:20:30]Dodging the bombs.

[00:20:32]Not bad. Not bad.

[00:20:34]Uh, give me that gold. Ooh, am I going to make that? I'm not going to make the other gold, am I? Yeah, no chance.

[00:20:40]That's okay.

[00:20:43]One life left. Hey, another bonus.

[00:20:45]Well, that's been my game, everyone.

[00:20:47]Thank you so much for watching. I just thought I'd try [music] a different experiment, something just a little different, out of the ordinary. Wanted to see what ChatGPT could come up with.

[00:20:56]Please subscribe if you haven't already.

[00:20:57]Feel free to leave me as many comments as you like about this game.

[00:21:01]Maybe I could try an experiment like this again. Maybe you could give me some prompts or some type of games that you might like it to create. Maybe we could try an adventure game next time. I don't know.

[00:21:11]Thanks so much for watching. Please come back soon. There's definitely always going to be some more 8-bit basic, and I think I'm not going to make it for this last object.

[00:21:21]Uh, there we go. Thanks for watching.