Zoo Strength (Animal Strength & Conditioning / The Game)

Inspiration

I was inspired by my professional field of strength and conditioning, as well as by recently attending the NSCA national conference. I enjoy the programming aspects of strength and conditioning and thought it would be cool to make a game about it. Currently being a collegiate track and field athlete myself gave me the inspiration to make the athletes in the game track and field athletes. I was inspired to make the characters animals because there are all kinds of animals, which to me represented how they are all different types of athletes coming with different personalities and backgrounds.

What It Does

It is a game that is a strength coach simulator designed to realistically represent how the human body reacts to weightlifting. The adaptation in the games are based on real world research on how the body adapts to resistance training in the midst of the volume of a sport specific track practice. Real world strength coaches should perform exponentially better than the average person for this reason. The game mimics an actual career progression in track and field, progressing through different collegiate divisions, gaining achievements, and building notable athletes.

How I Built It

I used the Codex extension in VS code. I simply inputted the idea into GPT 5.6, then gave codex a prompt using 5.6 sol on ultra, and just like that the first iteration of the game was born. From there, I tweaked it heavily asking codex to make the changes that I wanted in order to get a product that matched my vision and inspiration for the game.

Challenges We Ran Into

One of the main challenges I ran into was being unfamiliar with the consequences of changing the reasoning effort on the 5.6 models. In front of my eyes I saw 100s of credits evaporate from my account from a couple of prompts on 5.6 Sol - Ultra. Another challenge was overcoming the tendency for codex to add way too much user facing detail and unnecessary text.

Accomplishments That I'm Proud Of

I'm glad I added this real world programming aspect to this game, being able to create reps and sets and selecting exercises like a real world strength coach. I'm also really glad I decided to go with animals as characters because animals are just so fun a a breathe of fresh air to look at. I made great efforts to have the weight room look pleasing and am proud of its current version.

What I Learned

I learned how addicting and fun vibe coding is. It feels like real life Minecraft creative mode; building something that's in your mind by just talking to Codex is amazing.

What’s Next for Strength & Conditioning / The Game

I’d love to release it one day and continue to grow it by adding more characters, achievements, and features. I'd also love to expand on the story type elements of what is happening in the athletes lives.

Built With

• codex
• godot
• sol
• terra
• vibes
• vscode