How FortWar gets made: live, with AI, with you

I'm a software developer, and these days I make games with a lot of help from AI. I build FortWar in the open, live on stream at twitch.tv/kiralumen. Here's what that looks like.

From "what if…" to the game

It usually starts with someone saying something. In chat, in the Discord, or in the game's own feedback box: "the turrets feel weak", "I didn't know my core was dying", "what if chat could name the boss?"

I turn that into a short write-up: what's wrong, what the player should see instead, and how we'll know it works. Then the AI and I build it together. It writes a lot of the code, I steer, test and decide, and we check it in the real game before it goes in. Sometimes that's the same night. Bigger things take a few sessions.

The point is that the loop is short. You say it, you watch it get built, and then you play it.

A month in

FortWar's first commit was on 25 September 2026. It's about a month old now, with more than 200 changes since, and it went from an empty hex map to:

• seven kinds of monsters, including a boss every 15th wave,
• a shared day and night clock, where the whole world goes dark together,
• raids between real players' forts,
• three turret types, each with a target priority,
• chat that can join your fort, boost your buildings and call down an orbital strike,
• generated 3D models, recorded sound effects and a generative soundtrack.

Here's how far the look has come. The first shot is the procedural shapes FortWar started with (they're still in the game as the Low graphics setting). The second is the same fort on High today.

Your feedback goes straight in

There's a 📝 Feedback button in the top right of the game, on the world map and in your fort. Pick a mood, write what you noticed, hit send. It reaches me with where you were when you wrote it, so "this turret is useless" comes with the fort it happened in.

Those notes are exactly the kind of thing that becomes the next write-up. The best feedback is what you notice in the moment, and that's what the button is for.

Why build it this way

Partly because it's fun. Building in front of people who care about the game is a lot more fun than building alone.

Mostly because FortWar is a game about chat. It would be strange to build a game where chat is a first-class citizen without chat in the room while it gets made.

Come build it with us

Drop by the stream at twitch.tv/kiralumen and tell me what you'd change. Play at fortwar.io and hit 📝 when something feels off, or bring it to the Discord. There's a good chance your idea ends up in the game.

— Jeff