Turtle can draw
Turtle see ghosts
Turtle can capture the ghosts

🐢💀 Necro-Turtle: Project Story

🧙‍♂️ Inspiration

I've always loved the simplicity and charm of Logo turtle graphics — a language where drawing a square felt like casting a tiny spell. For Kiroween, I wondered: What if those spells literally became magic?
That question became Necro-Turtle, a resurrection of the classic turtle concept, now reimagined with necromancy, rituals, and undead minions. Reviving a 1960s educational language with a dark twist felt perfect for the Resurrection category.

🔮 What it does

Necro-Turtle is a web-based game where you control a turtle familiar using a spooky DSL (Domain-Specific Language). By writing necromantic commands, you draw ritual sigils on a canvas. If the sigil forms a closed shape, it gathers magical energy — energy that can be used to raise zombies, cast rituals, and defend against threats.

Players write code-like spells such as:

// Draw a cross
summon(100)
banish(50)
spin(90)
summon(50)
banish(100)
summon(50)

The turtle performs the commands, the sigils come alive, and your undead army grows.

⚙️ How we built it

The project was built with TypeScript, Vite, HTML Canvas, and a custom interpreter for the Necro-Turtle DSL.
Kiro played a central role throughout development:

Vibe Coding

Through conversational coding sessions, Kiro helped me design commands, refine syntax, and build interpreter logic. It supported everything from command execution to generating GitHub workflows and deployment setup.

Specs

Project specifications guided the code generation process. Kiro helped formalize the TypeScript structure, testing expectations, game mechanics, and quality standards. Every foundational rule of the project was captured in the spec.

Hooks

Hooks created a development-assistant environment that automated build checks, TypeScript validation, dev server runs, and more. Kiro generated most hook logic and even helped investigate performance issues during development.

Steering Docs

A “Necromancer Compiler” persona ensured all generated code stayed thematic, spooky, and TypeScript-correct. Steering docs kept Kiro consistently aligned with the project’s tone and constraints.

⚰️ Challenges we ran into

Keeping the interpreter, game loop, rendering system, and canvas interactions aligned
Achieving smooth real-time canvas rendering without a full game engine
Designing a DSL that was both readable and fun while remaining extensible
Maintaining tone and structure across AI-assisted code generation

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a fully working custom DSL from scratch
Creating a playable, thematic drawing-based game loop
Designing a smooth canvas renderer and ritual detection system
Using Kiro’s tooling effectively across specs, hooks, vibe coding, and steering
Achieving a unique blend of retro programming nostalgia and spooky gameplay

🧠 What we learned

How to design and interpret a custom programming language
How to structure canvas-based rendering and geometry calculations
How to collaborate productively with an AI assistant
How important specs and steering docs are for keeping an AI-guided project coherent
That building spooky software is extremely fun