Kiro Game Night

Build a Game with AI in 3 Hours

Note: Check the slides here: Kiro Game Night Workshop

Hi, I’m Neil

Lead Software Engineer by title
Community Connector by choice
Built a text adventure with Kiro
Today: helping you build a game

Today’s Plan

Game Design 101 (20 min)
Game Dev 101 (20 min)
Kiro Demo (20 min)
Game Jam (90 min)
Deploy & Judge (20 min)

Game Design 101

What Makes a Game?

Goal — What is the player trying to do?
Rules — What can and can’t they do?
Feedback — How do they know they’re progressing?
Fun — Why would someone keep playing?

Design Principles

Start small — Finished simple > unfinished complex
Core loop — The repeated action (jump, shoot, choose)
Juice — Details that feel good (shake, sound, color)
Constraints breed creativity

Good Jam Genres

Text Adventure — Story choices, minimal code
Clicker / Idle — Simple, satisfying progression
Quiz / Trivia — Easy to make, fun to play
Simple Arcade — Dodge, collect, survive

Quick Exercise

Write down your game idea in one sentence, the core loop, and your tech choice.

Game Dev 101

Vanilla JS — Browser Games

HTML — Structure (buttons, text)
CSS — Styling (colors, layout)
JavaScript — Logic (state, events, DOM)
Canvas API — For graphical games

JS Game Loop

function gameLoop() {
  update()    // change game state
  render()    // draw to screen
  requestAnimationFrame(gameLoop)
}
gameLoop()

Python — Text Games

Input/Output — input() and print()
Game state — Dicts and lists
Flask — If you want a web frontend

Python Game Loop

while game_running:
    show_status()
    action = input("> What do you do? ")
    process_action(action)

Key Concepts

Game State — Variables tracking everything
Player Input — Keys, clicks, or text
Game Loop — Update → Render → Repeat
Win/Lose — When does it end?

Kiro Demo

”I Am Please”

A text adventure built live with Kiro. Try it at iam-please.neilriego.me

Demo Flow

Create a new project in Kiro
Write a spec describing the game
Let Kiro scaffold the code
Iterate — add features one at a time
Test locally and polish

Kiro Tips

Be specific in prompts
Use specs — .kiro/specs for game design
Iterate small — one feature, test, next
Review the code Kiro generates

Game Jam

Rules

Solo or pairs — Up to 2 per team
Use Kiro as your primary tool
Browser-playable — Must run in browser
Open theme — Build anything
90 minutes to build

Workflow

First 10 min — Plan and scope down
Next 60 min — Build with Kiro
Last 20 min — Polish and bug fix

“Create a text adventure where the player wakes up in a mysterious room and must find clues to escape. Use vanilla HTML/CSS/JS with a retro terminal style.”

— Starter Prompt: Text Adventure

“Create a cookie clicker-style game where the player clicks to earn points and can buy upgrades. Use vanilla HTML/CSS/JS with satisfying click animations.”

— Starter Prompt: Clicker Game

“Create a trivia quiz game with 10 questions, a timer, score tracking, and a results screen. Use vanilla HTML/CSS/JS.”

— Starter Prompt: Quiz Game

“Create a simple arcade game where the player moves with arrow keys to dodge falling objects. Track a survival timer as the score. Use HTML Canvas.”

— Starter Prompt: Survival Game

Deploy to itch.io

Deployment Steps

Build — npm run build (if using Vite)
Zip — the dist/ folder or your files
Upload — itch.io/game/new → select HTML
Check — “Played in the browser” ✓
Share the link with the group

Submission & Judging

How to Submit

Go to the jam page on itch.io
Click Submit your project
Select your game
Add a short description
Click Submit

Voting Categories

Most Creative — Unique concept or twist
Most Polished — Best looking and feeling
Most Fun — The one you kept playing
Best Use of Kiro — Clever AI-assisted dev

Judging Tips

Be generous — everyone built this in 90 minutes. Rate what’s there, not what’s missing.

Q&A

Questions, ideas, or “how do I make this work?”

Thank You!

Let’s connect:


GitHub	scaredmeow
LinkedIn	Neil Riego
Website	brain.neilriego.me
Email	hello@neilriego.me

🧠 Neil's Brain

Explorer

20260330 - Kiro Game Night Workshop