# Making a game with my son

DevFeed: [Making a game with my son](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/making-a-game-with-my-son-21579.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/making-a-game-with-my-son>)

Published: 2025-07-06T07:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Mary Rose Cook](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/mary-rose-cook.md>)

Topics: [cursor](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cursor.md>), [Claude Code](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/claude-code.md>), [Code](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code.md>), [Mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/mobile.md>), [App](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/app.md>), [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>), [web applications](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web-applications.md>), [OpenAI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openai.md>)

Tags: [app](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/app.md>), [claude-code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/claude-code.md>), [code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code.md>), [cursor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cursor.md>), [mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mobile.md>), [openai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openai.md>), [programming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/programming.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>), [web-app](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web-app.md>)

## AI overview

A parent describes making a mobile web game with her seven-year-old son using Cursor and Claude Code. Code generation shortened the feedback loop, while a prompt interface, pixel editor, and audio transcription let them modify the game together on a phone.

## Source excerpt

One morning, my son woke up and came downstairs, deep in thought. He looked up at me and said, "Can we make a game, Mummy?" He's seven and he's called Jacob. He told me his game was called Exploding Kitties. He described the mechanics. Bad guys patrol up and down. If they see the player - a kitty - they laser them with their eyes and the kitty explodes. If the kitty can sneak behind a bad guy, it can scratch and kill him. I had a little game making kit already. A mobile web app. An update and render loop, game objects. I showed Jacob how to add game objects to the level. He added some red squares for the baddies and a blue square for the kitty. I can't tell you how magic it was to see him use something I made. I said, shall we make the kitty move? He said yes. I prompted Cursor, "Make it so when the player taps the screen the blue square gradually moves to where they tapped." Cursor generated the code and applied it. The mobile app, served on localhost and made available over WiFi, refreshed on my phone. Jacob tried tapping the screen and the kitty moved to where he'd tapped. In the past when we'd made games together, the programming had been too slow for Jacob to stay engaged. Now, with code gen, the feedback loop was fast enough to keep his attention. I told Cursor to add a prompt input box to the game itself. I wired up a little backend route that could receive the prompt and pipe it through for Claude Code to implement. The UI for modifying the game was now built into the game itself. Jacob and I could both work on the phone. A shared headspace through a shared device. Jacob said he wanted to draw proper pictures for the kitty and the bad guys. I typed into the phone, "Create a pixel editor on the game object properties screen. Store the pixel art on the game objects." Two minutes later, Jacob was poring over the throne, drawing the kitty in the pixel editor, enthralled. It reminded me of when my Dad and I would make icons in ResEdit on the Macintosh. After Jaco