How to Make Your First Video Game with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide
You can make your first video game with AI, even if you've never made a game before. You describe the game, and the AI writes the code, makes the art and sound, and gives you a version you can play. AI is the fastest way to start, but it isn't the only one: visual engines like GDevelop and block tools like Scratch also let beginners make games.
The tool isn't the hard part. The hard part is knowing what to build and how to make it feel good. This guide shows you how to plan a first game, gives you a fill-in-the-blanks game brief you can paste into any AI game tool, and walks through a real build in Manus, from prompt to publish.
Table of contents
•FAQ
Can AI really make a video game?
Yes. Every game still runs on code, but the AI writes that code for you. When you tell the AI "when the player touches a coin, add 10 points," you're doing the same thinking a programmer does. You're just skipping the syntax.
Making a video game with AI means describing the game in plain words and letting the AI write the code and create the art and sound.
What AI doesn't remove is game design. You still decide what the player does, how they win, how they lose, and how hard it gets. Experienced developers are blunt about this. One commenter in r/GameDevelopment summed up the skeptic's view of AI game tools:
"Can you get a playable game? Probably. Will it be any good? Definitely not."
That's a fair warning if you stop at the first version. The fix is what game developers have always done: play the game, change one thing, and play it again. The walkthrough below is built around that loop.
AI and the other ways to make your first game
Here's how AI compares with the two other beginner-friendly ways to make a game. Prices and limits are from each tool's official site as of November 2026.
Method | How you build | Best for | Example tools | Free to start? |
AI game builder | Describe the game in your own words, then refine it by chatting and playtesting | Getting a playable 2D or 3D browser game fast | Manus | Yes, with the free credits you get when you sign up |
Visual no-code engine | Set up "events": rows of conditions and actions | Precise control, plus exports to desktop and mobile | GDevelop, Construct 3 | Yes. GDevelop has a free plan. Construct 3 has a limited free edition |
Block-based tool | Drag logic blocks and snap them together | Kids, classrooms, and learning how game logic works | Scratch | Yes, Scratch is free |
1. AI game builders: describe your game in your own words
An AI game builder turns a written description into a game you can play. You describe the player, the goal, and the look. The AI writes the code and creates the art and sound, and you play a preview. Then you keep asking for changes until it plays the way you want.
The trade-off is control over the first draft. The AI makes the first set of decisions, so you shape the game by editing it rather than assembling it rule by rule. That's the fastest route to something playable, and it's why playtesting matters so much.
If you'd rather skip the planning and start from a prompt, you can 
make a game without coding in Manus.
2. Visual no-code engines: build rules with events
Visual engines replace typed code with event sheets. Each event is a condition and an action, for example "when the player collides with a coin, add 10 to the score." You get more precise control than with an AI builder. In return, you learn engine concepts like scenes, objects, and behaviors.
GDevelop is a free, open-source (MIT-licensed) engine built around a no-code event system and ready-made behaviors. It packages games for desktop, web, and mobile, and it supports 3D. Its free plan includes unlimited publishing to its gd.games site and one desktop build and one Android build per day. Paid plans start at $7.99/month, and publishing to iOS starts on the Gold plan at $13.99/month. For beginners, it has in-app tutorials, including a step-by-step platformer course.
Construct 3 runs in your web browser and uses the same event-sheet approach. It publishes to the web, desktop, Android, and iOS. The free edition limits you to 50 events and 2 layers. A Personal license costs $129.99 a year.
3. Block-based tools: snap logic together
Scratch uses a block-based coding interface: you drag blocks and snap them together, with no tricky syntax. A team at the MIT Media Lab developed it in 2007. Today, a nonprofit runs it and keeps it free. It's designed for kids, and projects are shared in the Scratch online community.
Scratch is a good way to learn how game logic works. If your goal is a game for a wider audience, you'll probably move to one of the other two methods later. The logic you learn in Scratch carries over.
Which method should you pick?
•Pick an AI game builder if you want a playable version of your idea today and a browser link you can send to friends.
•Pick GDevelop or Construct 3 if you want fine control over every rule or need to export to desktop, Steam, or app stores.
•Pick Scratch if you're teaching a kid or want to learn the basics of game logic first.
Plan your game before you build it
Two decisions shape your game more than the tool you pick: the core loop and the game brief. Make both before you open any tool.
Pick one core loop
Every game has a core loop: the action the player repeats every few seconds. In a platformer, it's jump and land. In a racing game, it's steer and boost. In a match-3 puzzle, it's swap and clear. Your first game should have exactly one core loop.
Good first games include:
•An endless runner where you jump over obstacles
•A platformer with three short levels
•A top-down arena where enemies arrive in waves
•A sliding-block puzzle with a move counter
•A racing game with one track and a lap timer
Skip open worlds, online RPGs, and story games with dozens of characters for now. If you can't describe your game in one sentence, it's too big for a first project.
Write a one-paragraph game brief
A vague request like "make me a fun space game" gets you a generic game. A brief that answers nine questions gets you something close to what you imagined.
Copy this template and fill in the brackets:
Plain Text
Game type: [2D or 3D] [genre]
Player: [who or what the player controls]
Goal: [how the player wins a level or the game]
Controls: [keys, mouse, or touch]
Obstacles: [what gets in the player's way]
Lose condition: [what ends a run or costs a life]
Progression: [levels, waves, timer, or score]
Look and sound: [art style, mood, music]
Device: [desktop browser, phone, or both]
Here's a filled-in example. It's the exact prompt used in the Manus walkthrough below:
Plain Text
Build a 2D platformer where the player controls a small robot collecting batteries across a city's rooftops at night. The player wins a level by reaching the exit door with at least 3 batteries. Use the arrow keys to move and space to jump, and add touch controls for phones. Obstacles are gaps between rooftops, patrolling drones, and steam vents. The player has 3 lives and loses one when they touch a drone or fall. Make 3 levels that get harder, with a timer and a high score. Style: neon pixel art, synthwave music, short beep sound effects.
The brief is useful even if you use a visual engine like GDevelop or Construct 3. It becomes your checklist: every line maps to an object, an event, or a setting you need to build.
Step by step: make your first video game in Manus
Here's the full workflow for making your first video game with AI in Manus. The screenshots below come from a Manus build of the example game brief above. You don't need to write code at any step, and the same flow works for a simple arcade game or a 3D video game.
1. Sign up for free
2. Open Build and choose Game development
On the Manus home screen, open Build and choose Game development.
The Build menu in Manus. Game development is the last option.
The prompt box switches to Create games mode. Below it, Explore games shows games other people made with Manus.
Create games mode. The prompt box asks you to describe the game you want to build.
If you'd rather start from an existing game, open one in Explore games, play it, and read the prompt that made it. Use this Prompt puts that prompt in your input box so you can edit it.
Each showcase game shows the prompt behind it. This one was made with a single prompt.
3. Describe your game
Paste your game brief, or describe what the player does, how they win, and the look you want. Then send it.
The example game brief from above, pasted into the prompt box.
4. Confirm the Game Blueprint
Manus sets up the project, then shows a Game Blueprint card. The card summarizes the game type and the gameplay Manus plans to build, and Manus asks you to confirm the production choices before it starts. Check that the Blueprint matches your brief before you confirm.
For this brief, Manus chose a 2D platformer and started a project in Godot, a free, open-source game engine. This build ran at the max effort setting with AI-generated art.
The Game Blueprint card for the robot rooftop platformer.
5. Let Manus build and test the game
Manus now creates the art, music, and code. In this build, it generated the images with GPT Image 2.5, made a synthwave music track, and created short beep sound effects.
Manus generating the art and music for the game.
Manus also tested its own work. It ran automated checks on the controls, touch input, lives, and level progression. Then it captured screenshots of each level, saw that the drones blended into the night skyline, and made the drones and the robot brighter.
This build took 1 hour and 31 minutes from prompt to finished game.
6. Play the preview and check the result
When the build finishes, the chat shows a card for your game with its cover art and a Publish button. You play the game in the Preview tab, and the Canvas tab shows the sprites Manus made.
The finished game, Neon Rooftop Runner. The Canvas tab on the right shows the robot, drone, battery, and door sprites.
Manus's summary listed the controls, the rules, and how scoring works. It also said it hadn't played the game in a real browser, and it recommended checking the controls, sound, and phone layout by hand.
Treat that as your cue to playtest. Play the game for a few minutes. Then do a silent playtest: hand it to two or three people and don't explain anything. Watch where they get stuck, where they die, and where they stop playing. Those three moments are your next to-do list.
7. Tune the game and ask for changes
You have four ways to change the game without code:
•Tweak panel: Click the wrench icon in the bottom-left corner of the Preview tab. Manus builds this panel for your specific game. The example game's panel had sliders for run speed, jump power, player gravity, drone speed, camera zoom, and music volume. Click Apply to try new values in the preview, then click Save with Manus to send them to your task so Manus updates the game. Most gameplay values take effect when you start the next game.
•Assets tab: The Assets tab lists every image, animation, audio file, and font in your game. Open one to ask for an edit, or ask Manus for new sprites and sounds.
•Chat: Describe new rules, levels, or controls in plain words. Manus also suggests follow-ups. After this build, it suggested "Can you make the jump feel a bit snappier?"
•Checkpoints: Manus saves your game as a checkpoint. If a change breaks something, roll back to an earlier version.
Whichever way you make changes, be specific. Numbers work better than adjectives:
Instead of | Try |
"Make it more fun" | "Spawn coins 30% more often and give a bonus for collecting 5 in a row" |
"The jump feels bad" | "Raise the jump height by 20% and lower gravity slightly so the player hangs in the air longer" |
"Make it harder" | "Keep level 1 the same. Add one moving spike in level 2. Cut the timer from 90 to 60 seconds in level 3" |
"It's too hard" | "Give the player 3 lives instead of 1 and add a checkpoint halfway through each level" |
"Make it work on phones" | "Add on-screen touch controls: a joystick on the left and a jump button on the right" |
Change one thing at a time, then play again, so you can tell what each change did.
The tweak panel for Neon Rooftop Runner. Each value has a slider and a number field, so you can change player gravity without touching code.
8. Publish and share
Click Publish in the top-right corner of the game panel. Check the game title, choose who can open the game under General access (the example game was set to "Anyone with the link"), and click Publish now. Your game gets its own link. Share it on X, Reddit, or Facebook, or copy the link for Discord. After you make changes, publish the latest version or turn on Auto publish when it is ready. Manus also offers to turn your game assets into a promo video of your gameplay.
The Publish dialog. The example game hasn't been published, so it shows "Not published."
A few details are worth knowing before you start:
•Phones: Games run in a web browser, so players can open your link on a phone. Manus can add touch controls. The example game got on-screen left, right, jump, and pause buttons.
•Multiplayer: Ask for multiplayer in your prompt, and Manus builds both the game client and the server. The server runs on a Manus Cloud Computer that you choose or buy separately, and friends join from the same link.
•Code access: You never have to touch code. If you're curious, the Code tab shows the game's files.
•Cost: Building a game uses credits, and bigger or longer builds use more. Publishing doesn't use credits. A paid plan lets you change your game's subdomain and hide the "Made with Manus" badge (Manus). See Manus pricing for current plans.
The Code tab is optional. It shows the project files if you want to look.
Copy-paste prompts for your first game
These four starter prompts appear on the Manus AI game builder page. They also show what a good prompt looks like: one core loop, clear goals, and specific numbers. You can paste them into any AI game tool.
2D platformer
Plain Text
Build a 2D platformer where a fox explores floating islands. Add a double jump, moving platforms, spikes to avoid, gems to collect, checkpoints, three levels, and a timer for each level.
3D racing game
Plain Text
Build a 3D kart racing game on a figure-eight track with a bridge, ramps, and speed boosts. Add three laps per race, a lap timer, and three computer-controlled rivals.
3D physics puzzle
Plain Text
Build a 3D physics puzzle game where you launch stones from a catapult to knock down timber and stone castles. Give each level a limited number of stones, rate each castle from 1 to 3 stars, and make later castles harder to topple.
Online multiplayer arena
Plain Text
Build an online multiplayer arena game where up to four friends join from a shared link, move with WASD, pick up power-ups, and score points in three-minute rounds.
After the first version, use follow-up prompts like the ones in the table in step 7 of the Manus walkthrough.
What AI still can't do for your game
AI game tools and the engines above all have real limits, and it's better to know them before you start.
Big scope is still hard. Open worlds, deep RPG systems, and large online games need careful architecture. Unity's 2026 guide to making games without coding points out that complex enemy AI and performance tuning for high-end 3D graphics usually push no-code tools past their limits. Start small and grow the game one feature at a time.
Multiplayer is improving but not free. The same Unity guide calls multiplayer networking "exceptionally difficult" for pure no-code and AI tools. Some tools now handle more of it for you. Manus builds the client and the server, and GDevelop includes multiplayer lobbies (one lobby with up to four players on its free plan). You still need to plan for servers and costs.
AI first drafts can feel generic. An AI builder makes the first design decisions for you. A specific brief and several rounds of playtesting are what make the game feel like yours.
Free plans have caps. Construct 3's free edition stops at 50 events. GDevelop's free plan keeps 3 projects in the cloud and allows one desktop build and one Android build per day. With Manus, building uses credits. Check the limits before you commit to a big project.
FAQ
Can I make a video game with AI for free?
Yes. Manus gives new accounts free credits to try its AI game builder, and publishing a game doesn't use credits. If you'd rather build the rules yourself, Scratch is free, GDevelop has a free plan that includes publishing to the web and one desktop build and one Android build per day, and Construct 3 has a free edition limited to 50 events.
How long does it take to make a video game with AI?
The example game in this guide, a three-level platformer built at the max effort setting, took 1 hour and 31 minutes from prompt to finished game. Plan for a few more rounds of playtesting and changes after the first version.
Can I make a 3D game with AI?
Yes. Manus builds 3D browser games from a text description, such as kart racers and physics puzzles, and new accounts get free credits to try it. If you'd rather build it yourself, GDevelop's free plan includes the full engine, which supports 3D games. Keep your first 3D game to one small area and one core mechanic.
What's the best way to make your first video game?
It depends on your goal. For the fastest playable result, use an AI game builder like Manus. For precise control and exports to desktop and mobile, use GDevelop or Construct 3. For kids and classrooms, use Scratch.
Can I make a multiplayer game with AI?
Yes, with some setup. In Manus, you ask for multiplayer in your prompt, and Manus builds the client and the server. The server runs on a Manus Cloud Computer that you choose or buy separately. GDevelop has built-in multiplayer lobbies, and its free plan includes one lobby for up to four players.
Can I publish my game on Steam or in app stores?
Yes, if your tool exports native builds. GDevelop publishes to desktop and Google Play, and to iOS on its Gold plan. Construct 3 publishes to desktop, Android, and iOS. Manus games run in a web browser and are shared by link.
Can I see or edit the code later?
Usually, yes. Manus shows your game's files in the Code tab. GDevelop is open source and lets you add JavaScript to extend the engine. Construct 3 lets you mix event blocks with JavaScript.
Can kids make their own video games?
Yes. Scratch was built for this. Kids snap blocks together to make games, stories, and animations, and they share them in a moderated online community.
Start building your first game
Pick one core mechanic, fill in the game brief, and get a playable version in front of a friend this week. If you want to see your idea running in a browser today, try Manus Game Dev for free: paste your brief, play the first version, and tune it until it feels right.
