WRITING
From an AI drawing to a 299-game arcade in one week
A week ago, the SkillX arcade was a drawing. Today it is SkillXGames (opens in a new tab): 299 games, two Chrome extensions comin' (we have time), a self-serve ad offer and a crew of mascots with their own TikTok.
I'm a solo maker. I don't use design software and I don't have a dev team even I learned, and there was really a generative path with AI which will come back later. First the catalogue take place in Skillxtube, also curated and built with AI + transcripts python,/.json. Skillxgames inspired this decision. Which is a relief, read until the end to understand why.
What I have is a very clear idea of what I want, and an AI model that kept up. This is the story of that week, and of the model behind it.
Day 0: an arcade machine that only existed as an illustration
It started with a design request, not a code request. I asked for a Halloween version of the SKILLX arcade machine, the illustrated cabinet that sits on the site.
One machine turned into a system. The cabinet became a reusable component with a season switch: winter, spring, summer, autumn, then Black Friday. Zip and the crew (Buffer, Ding, Skip, CC, Thumby, Later) became components too, with hats and accessories you can swap.
On top of that came 12 social posts for a full year of celebrations, from Lunar New Year to Diwali, plus a Black Friday kit for Stories, email and the site banner.
That was the moment I realised the arcade was no longer decoration. It had a calendar, a cast and a visual language. It was ready to become a real place.
From a corner of SkillxTube to its own site
The arcade was born inside SkillxTube (opens in a new tab), my platform that turns YouTube videos into 3, 7 or 14-day learning paths. It began with one mini-game, Zip vs the Brainrot, tucked into the Community space. Then more games joined it.
At some point the arcade stopped fitting in the corner. Games want to be shared, played in 60 seconds and sent to a group chat. A learning app wants focus. Those are two different jobs, so I split them.
SkillxTube stays the serious one: you learn a skill in days, not months. SkillXGames became the lab: an AI-powered arcade in the spirit of the old Adult Swim web games, where the games are allowed to be weird and the only goal is to make people play, laugh and share.
The week, day by day
The catalogue grew faster than my own pages could keep up: the advertiser page still said 69 games when the site already showed 151. A few days later, the arcade counts 299.
| Date | What shipped |
|---|---|
| Nov 2 | A "stop on your gamer" video: the characters spin fast and you screenshot the one you land on, plus a Christmas version |
| Oct 31 | SkillXGames goes live as an "AI lab", and a second Chrome extension turns the new tab into a daily game with streaks and a "challenge a friend" link |
| Oct 29 | 151 games counted across 10 universes, each one scored for virality, and a brand media kit built on top. First Chrome extension, Brainrot Breaker, offers a 60-second game when you binge too many Shorts |
| Oct 28 | The Halloween arcade machine, then the seasonal machines, 12 calendar posts and the Black Friday kit |
On October 29, the games were spread across 10 universes: Memory, Puzzle, Logic, Quick Games, Adventure, Skillz, Social Media, IQMaxxing, Card Room and Seasonal. The games most likely to travel are Daily IQ Gym, Zip vs the Brainrot and Viral or Flop?, followed by Deepfake Patrol, Emoji Decoder and Thumbnail Face Off.
The model behind it: Claude Opus 5.5
The new model behind this week is Claude Opus 5.5. Anthropic released it on September 22, 2026, as the first model of its Claude 5.5 family (Claudelog).
Three things made the difference for me:
- Top-tier quality at a lower price. Anthropic says it performs at the level of Claude Fable 5.1 on most work and costs 40% less to run than Opus 5 (Digg). For a solo maker who once dropped Claude as "too expensive", that changes the maths.
- A huge working memory. It has a 1M-token context window (Vals.ai), so one session can hold the whole brand, the character sheets and the game catalogue at once.
- It writes the way you ask. Anthropic says it is more concise than earlier models and follows writing style instructions more closely (The Batch). That matters when every piece of copy has to sound like Zip.
The model didn't have the ideas. Zip, the lab, the weird games and the "From Watch later to I made this" line are mine. What Opus 5.5 changed is the distance between an idea and a working thing: a drawing became a component, a component became a calendar, and a list of games became a site.
What one week taught me
- Design first, code second. Building the arcade as reusable pieces made every next step faster.
- Split the jobs. A learning app and an arcade want different things from their users. Two sites made both better.
- Let your counters be dynamic. When the catalogue jumps from 69 to 299 games, hard-coded numbers break first.
Come break the lab
The arcade is open. Play a few games, find the weirdest one, and tell me. That feedback decides what we build next.
- Play: skillxgames.com (opens in a new tab)
- YouTube and Instagram: @skillxgames
- Twitch: skillxgameszip
- Substack: @watchlatervibe
From "Watch later" to "I made this."
Sources
- What is Claude Opus 5.5, Claudelog
- Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5, Digg
- Claude Opus 5.5, Vals.ai
- Claude Opus 5.5 Leaps Forward, The Batch