Hormiguitas

Ask for it like this

Copy this prompt, paste it into Claude or ChatGPT, and that's it. It's the short version: the minimum for the game to come out playable.

Hazme un juego de puzzle para navegador con hormigas, con arte original.

- Arriba, un dibujo de pixel art hecho de cubitos de colores dentro de un marco, y debajo un hormiguero.
- Debajo, 5 casillas de espera y columnas de cajas de color con un número. Solo se toca la caja de adelante de cada columna.
- Al tocar una caja, va a la primera casilla libre y salen del hormiguero tantas hormigas de su color como su número. Cada una se lleva un cubito de su color que toque el borde del dibujo o un hueco que llegue al borde.
- Si una caja no tiene cubitos a su alcance, espera en su casilla y sigue sola cuando se liberan. Pierdes si las 5 casillas se llenan y ninguna puede avanzar. Ganas al vaciar el dibujo.
- 100 niveles en un ciclo fácil, medio, difícil y súper difícil, cada vuelta más grande. Todos tienen que poder ganarse.
- Sin multijugador: solo puntaje por niveles superados y un ranking.
Técnico: un solo archivo HTML con el CSS y el JavaScript dentro, sin librerías ni imágenes externas, todo dibujado en canvas. Que se juegue con el dedo en el celular y con mouse o teclado en la PC.

This one is still in Spanish. Paste it as is (the AI understands it) and add "Answer in English" at the end.

Getting it as an HTML file

A game like this is a single file you open with a double click. These four steps are the same in any AI.

1. 1. Ask for the whole file

   Add this line at the end of your prompt: Give me a single, complete HTML file, nothing cut out, ready to save as index.html and open in the browser. Without it, you often get the code in pieces.

2. 2. Copy all of the code

   In Claude the game shows up on the side, already running, with a button to copy or download it. In ChatGPT, copy the whole code block: it has to start with <!DOCTYPE html> and end with </html>.

3. 3. Save it as index.html

   Paste it into Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit in plain text mode (Mac) and save it as index.html. Watch out for .txt: if the file ends up as index.html.txt, it won't open as a page.

4. 4. Double-click to open it

   It opens in your browser and it's ready to play, with nothing to install and no internet needed. To share it, upload it to any web host or send it by email: it's just one file.

If the game shows up blank, go back to the AI and paste the error from the browser console (right click → Inspect → Console). With that text it fixes it fast.

The full prompt, the one actually used

Longer and more specific: numbers, screens and style details. It's the one that produced exactly this game, unedited. Use it if you want to fine-tune the result.

Diego wrote it in Spanish and it stays in Spanish on purpose: it's the honest record of how the game was made, and a translation would be a prompt nobody used. Claude and ChatGPT understand it as is; add "Answer in English" if you want the game's text in English.

quiero otro juego de hormiguitas asi como este .. el juego es que cada que voy sacando uno de los colores salen hormiguitas a llevarse los cubitos disponibles

y hay un ciclo que siempre se repite .. primeor es un nivel facil depsues medio despues hard y super hard y depues de nuevo y asi infinitos niveles .. hazme hasta el nivel 100 .. aca sin multiplayer solo leaderboard

For ChatGPT, add the line from step 1 at the end: it tends to hand over the code in pieces.

What this prompt was missing

What became clear once the game was finished. If you're making your own from this one, add these from the start: fixing things later costs another round.

• Say which cubes can be carried off (here: the ones touching the edge or a gap that reaches the edge). Without that rule in writing, each AI invents its own and the game can't be read.
• Ask for the 100 levels to be tested by a program that plays them: nobody checks 100 levels by hand, and one impossible level ruins the campaign.
• If the picture is big (hundreds or thousands of cubes), ask from the start for the frame to be painted once and only the cells that change to be erased.

What was asked after the first result, in Diego's own words (Spanish):

• Diego agregó después: cajas amarradas con cadena entre columnas (salen juntas, a veces de a tres), cajas "?" solo a veces, dibujos reconocibles sin marcas ni personajes (animales, comida, lugares, escenas tipo póster) y cuadros de cientos a miles de cubitos en los súper difíciles, con cajas más grandes.

It works in any AI

Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot: the prompt is the same and so is the method. What changes is where you see the result. Four things that hold in all of them:

1. Ask for a single file

   "A single HTML file with everything inside, no libraries or CDN." That way the game works with a double click, with nothing to install, and you can upload it to any website.

2. Ask it to tell you what it assumed

   End with: "before writing the code, tell me in 5 lines what you assumed". That's where the gaps in your prompt show up, while fixing them is still cheap.

3. One fix per message

   Say what happens and what you expected. If you ask for three changes at once, one usually undoes another.

4. Ask it to test, not to promise

   "Check that every level can be won and tell me how you checked." That's how the games on this page found their bugs before going live.

The 6 parts of a good prompt, with a template to copy