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If you have a tech-inclined person in your life, the odds are good that they have tried “vibe coding.” It’s the idea that anyone, even someone with no coding background, can use A.I. tools like Claude Code to program for them. You don’t have to know any programming languages, just give the A.I. some vibes. Theoretically, you could tell the bot to build you a game, or an app to organize your schedule, or really anything your imagination allows.
On my show, What Next: TBD, we’ve started a segment called TBD Tries, in which we try different tools and apps to really put them to the test. Do they work? Are they overhyped? We want to find out through experiential and, uh, sometimes stunt-based journalism.
We made a memecoin from $40 of leftover crypto that briefly reached a market cap of $2 million. We asked our colleague Nadira Goffe to share her Oura Ring data with us to test out why the Trump administration is so obsessed with wearables. And this week, we decided to vibe-code a game.
I cannot emphasize enough that we are dummies when it comes to programming. Our producer Evan Campbell has a tiny bit of coding experience. But our other producer, Patrick Fort, and I do not.
We got a little help from the web team at Slate, including our VP of technology, Greg Lavallee, and we made a game. Or rather, Claude Code made a game, based on our prompts. It’s not Grand Theft Auto. It’s more like The Oregon Trail for podcasting, but with less dysentery.
We had Greg review it for us, and you can hear his thoughts in the show. But we wanted to put it out on the web so that Slate audiences can play it for themselves.
While we wanted to embed the game on Slate for you to play, but Greg told us no because of security concerns—you can play it here instead.
Please enjoy our ridiculous, vibe-coded game.
