Simon Willison builds Battle Drones RTS game, with audio-based multiplayer

Battle Drones - a vibe coded RTS with audio-based multiplayer

Simon Willison showed off Battle Drones, a browser RTS game built mostly with Claude Code. It runs on phone and desktop, and two nearby devices can play each other over audio. The project went through 12 major iterations and 321 commits from a coding agent, adding 3D models, random maps, and two LLMs playing each other with replays. His write-up covers tuning balance with simulated matches and syncing game state over audio to avoid running multiplayer servers.

Why it matters: Willison used Claude Code to build a game, then ran simulated matches to tune balance and turn playtest feedback into the next iteration.