Battle Drones - a vibe coded RTS with audio-based multiplayer
- ID
- 37540
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 21 Oct 2026, 3:34 AM
- Fetched
- 22 Oct 2026, 12:51 AM
- Provider
- Simon Willison
- Category
- developer-ai
- Original URL
- https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/20/battledrones/
- Source URL
- https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
Summary
- Score
- 8.0
- Created
- 22 Oct 2026, 12:51 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_ml_learners
What happened
Simon Willison published Battle Drones, a browser-based Command & Conquer-style RTS built over 12 major iterations and 321 commits from coding agents (mainly Claude Code), playable on mobile and desktop. It ships 9 buildings, 7 ground vehicles, 6 aerial vehicles and 3 infantry units as 3D models, six maps across five biomes plus a random map generator, fog of war, Skirmish and Last Stand modes, AI personalities, an AI-vs-AI spectator mode, and an Agent vs. Agent mode where two LLMs play each other. The headline trick is multiplayer between two nearby devices that synchronise game state over audio messages, an extension of his earlier Chirp Pong experiment.
Why it matters
Two things worth copying: he credits the jump from 'technically working' to fun to a single qualitative prompt ('Make it a LOT more fun') rather than more features — try that before adding scope to your own prototype. And the audio-channel multiplayer means two phones in microphone range can sync state with no server, no pairing flow, and no backend cost, which is a usable pattern for demos and local co-op where you cannot justify infrastructure. The 321 agent commits across 12 iterations is also a concrete datapoint on how much review surface agent-driven development creates.
Discussion angle
Audio as a data channel: what are the realistic limits (bandwidth, error rate, line-of-sight, interference) versus just running a tiny WebSocket relay — and would you ship a local-multiplayer feature this way? Pair that with how you'd review 321 agent commits in 12 iterations.