How to Make a Simple Game With AI and Put It Online

Every week, someone on Reddit asks how to put a small game online. They built a Tetris clone. Or a platformer. Or something they made with AI over the weekend.

Then they get stuck. Steam? Itch.io? A server? Do they need a domain?

I read those threads for a few hours. Then I looked at my own free tools and games. Four of them are live right now. All of them were vibe coded and shipped with Cloudflare Drop.

This post is the answer I wish those threads had.

The short answer

Make a small browser game. Keep it to one folder of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Test it locally in your browser. Then drag that folder into Cloudflare Drop, claim the link, and share it.

That's the whole stack. No server. No app store. No build pipeline.

If the game runs in your browser, it can run on the internet today.

Play BREAKOUT

What people actually ask on Reddit

These are the real questions, in plain language. Not the marketing version.

"Do I need to know how to code?"

No. Not for a simple game.

AI tools can write the whole thing from a prompt. You describe the rules, the controls and the look. The tool writes the code. You test it in the browser and ask for fixes.

But you still need taste. You need to feel that a jump is too floaty. That the hit box is too small. That the colors are muddy. AI won't notice those things for you.

"Can AI really make a game?"

Yes, for small games.

Think Tetris, Breakout, Snake, Pong, endless runners, clickers, trivia, memory games. One screen. One mechanic. One win condition.

The catch: AI is good at the first 90%. It's weaker at the last 10%. That last bit is where you fix bugs, tune difficulty and make the game feel good. That part is still your job.

There's a whole community shipping games this way. r/aigamedev is full of people asking how others vibe code full games.

"Where do I put the game so people can play it?"

Three good options:

1. Cloudflare Drop: drag in a folder or a zip, get a live workers.dev link.
2. GitHub Pages: free static hosting straight from a repo.
3. itch.io: a game page with a browser build, plus some built-in discovery.

Netlify and Vercel work too. The idea is the same everywhere. Static files in, shareable link out.

This question comes up all the time in r/statichosting and r/gamedev.

"Do I need a server or a database?"

No. Not for a simple game.

A browser game runs on the player's device. The server only sends the files. Static hosting is enough.

You need a backend when you add accounts, leaderboards, saved progress or multiplayer. Skip all of that in v1. Add it later, and only if the game earns it.

"Why does my game work locally but break online?"

Usually file paths.

Your laptop ignores uppercase and lowercase. Most web servers don't. Player.png is not the same file as player.png online. Rename the files and update every path.

Three more common causes:

• No index.html at the root of the uploaded folder.
• Absolute paths like /assets/... when the game lives in a subfolder.
• A build step that never ran before upload.

Open the browser console. The 404 errors tell you exactly what's missing. This is the number one source of "my game is broken" posts.

"How do I get people to actually play it?"

This is the honest part. Hosting is easy. Attention isn't.

A bare link rarely gets clicks. A 10-second clip of the game being played gets clicks. Show the fun part first.

What works for small games:

• Post a short clip, not just a URL.
• Share it in one community that fits the game. Not ten.
• Ask for one specific piece of feedback.
• Put the link in your portfolio and your bio.
• Reply to everyone who plays it.

This r/IndieDev thread says the same thing about itch.io pages. A link alone isn't a launch.

"Is it worth publishing tiny games?"

Yes, if you measure the right thing.

You probably won't go viral. That's fine. You will learn how to finish something, deploy it and explain it to a stranger. That's a real portfolio piece.

r/gamedev has a good thread on this. Most answers land in the same place. Publish anyway. Feedback is worth more than polish.

How I ship my own goodies

All four goodies on this site are vibe coded. Every one of them is deployed with Cloudflare Drop.

They're free. No signup. They run in your browser.

• MiM Picker is a fullscreen color picker. Move, click, copy the HEX, RGB or HSL code.
• MiM BG Remover takes an image and gives you a transparent PNG back.
• Tetris is the classic, with levels, power-ups and a ghost piece.
• BREAKOUT has 20 maps, perks and combo scoring.

You can try all of them from the Tools & Games page.

Try MiM Picker

The workflow is boring in a good way:

1. Prompt the first version.
2. Play it.
3. Fix what feels wrong.
4. Drop the folder into Cloudflare.
5. Share the link.

Cloudflare Drop is the part most people don't know about. You drag in a folder or a zip file. You get a live URL on Cloudflare's network. You have 60 minutes to claim the deployment and keep it. Once it's claimed, you can connect a domain.

No CLI. No config file. No build settings. Cloudflare Drop does one thing and does it well.

Play Tetris

Tools that make this easy

You only need one AI tool to start. These six are the ones I see people actually shipping with.

Tool	Best for	What it gives you
v0	Going from a prompt to a working interface	Clean React code and a preview link
Claude	Game logic, long edits, debugging	A patient pair programmer that explains its changes
Cursor	Working inside a real project	An editor with AI built into every file
Lovable	Prompt to app, with hosting included	A full app and a deploy button
Bolt.new	Full-stack experiments in the browser	Code, preview and deploy in one tab
Replit	Learning and hosting in one place	A browser IDE that can publish your project

All six have a free tier. Limits change often, so check the pricing page before you commit to one.

How to pick:

• Want a UI fast? Start with v0.
• Want to own the code? Use Claude or Cursor.
• Want build and deploy together? Try Lovable or Bolt.new.
• Want everything in a browser tab? Replit.

My own path was simple. Prompt in Claude, paste the result into a single HTML file, test it, then deploy. No framework. No package manager. That's still the fastest way to get a playable link.

A 7-step plan to ship this weekend

1. Pick one mechanic. If you can't explain the game in one sentence, cut it.
2. Ask for one file. Prompt for a single index.html with inline CSS and JavaScript. One file is almost impossible to deploy wrong.
3. Play it on your phone. Not just your laptop. Touch controls break more often than desktop ones.
4. Fix the three worst things. Ignore the other twenty.
5. Add a title, a start button and a way to restart. That alone makes it feel finished.
6. Put index.html at the root of a folder. Check that no file name has a stray capital letter.
7. Drop the folder on Cloudflare. Claim the link, test it in a private window, then share it.

Step 5 is the one people skip. A game with no restart button feels broken, even when the code is perfect.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Building the menu first. The mechanic is the game. The menu is decoration.
• Adding accounts in v1. Nobody wants to sign up to play a five-minute game.
• Only testing on desktop. Most people will open it on a phone.
• Uppercase file names. They work on Windows and 404 on Linux hosting.
• Waiting for final art. Placeholder shapes are fine. Ship, then improve.
• Explaining instead of showing. A clip beats a paragraph every time.

The same pattern shows up in bigger AI products too. I wrote about the common mistakes when building with AI if you want the longer version.

Simple game ideas you can finish

These are small enough to ship in a weekend, with AI or without.

• Snake with a twist. Growing faster, or walls that move.
• Breakout with power-ups. Perks are cheap to add and fun to test.
• Memory match with a theme you care about.
• Trivia for one niche. Music, football, local history.
• Reaction timer with a leaderboard you keep on the device.
• Endless runner with one button.
• Minesweeper with a cleaner interface.
• Word game with a daily puzzle.

Pick the one you'd play. That sounds obvious, but it matters around hour six.

FAQ

Sources

• How do I publish my game? — r/gamedev
• How to release a browser based game? — r/gamedev
• Hosting simple browser games with static sites — r/statichosting
• How are so many people successfully vibe coding full games? — r/aigamedev
• Good idea to publish small games I make while learning? — r/gamedev
• How do I get people to visit my itch page? — r/IndieDev
• Cloudflare Drop changelog — Cloudflare

Start smaller than feels comfortable. Ship sooner than feels finished. Then send the link to one person who will actually play it.