Sky Pups Dash

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Inspiration

The main inspiration for Sky Pups Dash was my family. I originally wanted to create a game that I could truly enjoy playing with my two daughters. Since they absolutely adore cute puppy characters, building a dog-themed game was the perfect choice. Having them by my side, having fun and playtesting the game while I was making it, kept me incredibly motivated throughout the whole process.

What it does

Sky Pups Dash is a fun, highly competitive multiplayer racing game featuring adorable puppy characters. Players can dash and compete against each other in real-time. The multiplayer mode is the core of the game, offering intense, edge-of-your-seat races that bring out everyone's competitive spirit.

How we built it

The development process relied heavily on AI tools and custom solutions. Initially, I tried using AI to generate the game's art, but it didn't quite capture the specific feel I wanted. After several failed attempts, I used Gemini to generate the base images and then created a custom Claude Code skill to convert them into 64x64 sprite sheets. While this produced plausible sprites, the pixel art itself wasn't very clean.

To fix this, I developed a custom pixel editor integrated directly into the game's admin page. This allowed me to manually refine and polish the pixels on the fly, streamlining my entire art pipeline.

Challenges we ran into

The entire journey from development to deployment was far from easy. Registering as a developer, capturing the right promotional images, navigating the app store upload process, and squashing endless bugs were massive hurdles. Honestly, if it weren't for the assistance of AI, I likely would have given up halfway through. Getting the pixel art to look clean and professional was also a significant technical challenge that required me to build my own tools from scratch.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am incredibly proud to have built a game that I genuinely enjoy playing myself. I play the multiplayer mode with a friend about once a day, and the races are thrilling and sweat-inducing! Successfully publishing the game to the store, seeing my daughters enjoy it, and building a custom in-house pixel editor to solve my asset issues are huge personal milestones.

What we learned

I learned the complete lifecycle of game development—from prototyping and asset creation to the grueling, meticulous process of app store publishing. I also discovered how to effectively chain different AI models and custom scripts together to overcome technical roadblocks when standard tools fail to deliver the exact results I need.

What's next for Sky Pups Dash

The biggest challenge right now is user acquisition. Although the game is fully developed and launched, we currently have very few players. Since the multiplayer racing aspect is the most fun and exciting part of the game, it's a bit disappointing not having a large enough community to fully enjoy it. What's next is focusing on getting the game into the hands of more players so they can experience the thrill of the race together!

Built With

• canvas
• claude
• express.js
• html5
• mysql
• node.js
• websocket