{
 "id": 72971,
 "slug": "2026-02-25_three-games-in-three-weeks",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/posts/2026-02-25_three-games-in-three-weeks/",
 "source_url": "https://willem.com/en/2026-02-25_three-games-in-three-weeks/",
 "language": "en",
 "date": "2026-02-25",
 "published": "2026-02-25T23:00:00+01:00",
 "created": "2026-09-08T07:07:48.802000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-09-08T07:12:58.287000+02:00",
 "title": "Three Games in Three Weeks",
 "subtitle": "Block 89, Outburn 87 and a new engine for Snake '97",
 "summary": "This month I shipped three games in three weeks: a rebuild of Block 89, a brand new arcade racer called Outburn 87, and a new engine for Snake '97, the game millions of you carry in your pocket. Each one was a different kind of job, and together they taught me more about building software with AI agents than any customer project could. This post is about the three, and about why games are such a good development ground.",
 "topics": [
  "AI",
  "creating",
  "design",
  "game",
  "programming",
  "snake"
 ],
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "translation": {
  "language": "nl",
  "url": "https://agents.willem.com/nl/posts/2026-02-25_drie-games-in-drie-weken/",
  "source_url": "https://willem.com/nl/2026-02-25_drie-games-in-drie-weken/"
 },
 "image": "https://willem.com/global/images/92ed7a380095.webp",
 "image_width": 2560,
 "images": [
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/972e7b45551a.webp",
   "description": "Block 89 in the notebook of 13 February: the initial version after two days on the right, version two on the left",
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  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/4ebfb6df5847.webp",
   "description": "Block 89 v2 in play, a new high score with the share replay button, and the Play Store listing at 50k downloads",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-2.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/3310d3423a08.webp",
   "description": "Outburn 87 on 16 February, work in progress: an early car on green grass, the title screen and the desert road, all before the release",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-3.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/bc71e149f6d0.webp",
   "description": "The night of 21 February: App Store Connect and the Play Console side by side, and the approval five days later at 08:04",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-4.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/9ee498517d83.webp",
   "description": "Snake '97 engine v3 on 25 February: the new game over screen on the phone next to the laptop, the stats in detail, and snake97.com",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-5.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/e4496b20a60d.webp",
   "description": "Update: the same ThreeJS rendering now turns a world of cardiovascular evidence on cardiotherapeuticupdates.org",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-6.png"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/c45488452b2a.webp",
   "description": "The three game sites, all built with the same publisher: block89.dsd164.com, outburn87.com and snake97.com",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72971_images-7.jpg"
  }
 ],
 "text": "Block 89: rebuild\nBlock 89 is my handheld brick puzzle, done properly: a dot-matrix display, 8-bit bleeps, ten shapes falling into a 16 by 16 grid. The original had a problem players kept telling me about: the timers were too tight, the fun was hiding behind frustration. So I rebuilt it on the existing engine logic, with a completely new implementation, a new UI and gameplay improvements through targeted changes in the underlying mechanics and maths. The killer feature is perhaps the timelapse: your whole game as a replay you can share. Version two was ready in the evening of 14 February, both store versions were in review the next day, and on 17 February there were fourteen downloads. Financially nothing, but it is progress, something new, something of my own.\nOutburn 87: new everything\nOutburn 87 is a retro arcade racer inspired by the golden age of 80s driving games: top down, pedal down, a pixel Mercedes on a sunset road. New concept, new engine, new gameplay, new revenue model, new landing page, new everything. Very exciting, and absolutely a worthy product. The screenshots below are from 16 February, work in progress: the grass, the signs and the horizon changed a lot before the release, so do not take them for the final game.\nIn the night of 21 February I squeezed it out. Despite being very tired I pushed on, and just after midnight the build was tested on a real phone and submitted to both stores. The game is not easy, but it has a certain flow, and I got pretty far myself. Five days later the approval notification arrived at eight in the morning. We will see if it finds traction. However it goes, sometimes the journey matters more than the destination: thanks to Outburn I escaped burnout while doing customer work at the same time.\nSnake '97: with respect\nThe third job was the hardest and the most rewarding. Snake '97 exists since 2011, has millions of players and an engine I had not touched in years. So the task was different: map the existing engine, the builder, the gameplay and the loader, analyse, optimise, and then extend it with respect. Existing installs, score migration, feature flags: a very different challenge from a green field. Engine v3 went live on 25 February. Not just a few extra buttons, but real achievements, stats and all time values, with a typical wink such as the distance metric: how long is your snake? Thought up, built, tested and localised in one day. And rolled out. One of my companies now runs entirely on an agentic pipeline.\nWhat the AI does well, and what I do\nThe agents do very well when you give them code. Old, good code is a form of value: the Block 89 game, the Snake engine, the things in my archives are worth digging up. Working with AI requires a tight mental model for the best result, but also creativity, such as the kilometers of snake, and commercial insight: the little planes in Outburn, cross promotion between the games, retention and replay value. And general insight: in a retro game I cannot change the game itself, but I can change everything after it. The weakness of my games, no pixel menus, turned out to be their strength.\nOne more thing I noticed: the AI lives in the workshop, in the build process. The products are not different in their values. Still simple, timeless and robust. No thousand assets, no AI dependency in the game.\nGames as a development ground\nHere is the thing about games: they are unforgiving. A game has to load instantly, respond to a touch within a frame, and feel right on a small screen or nobody plays it twice. Efficient loading, touch interaction, UI that explains itself, sound and animation timing: you solve those problems in a game because you have to. And then you carry the solutions over to the dull office software, where nobody demanded them but everybody enjoys them. A planner that loads like a game is a better planner.\nUpdate: some of the 3D rendering technology from these weeks, ThreeJS in the browser, which I first tried for my workout data, now turns a world of cardiovascular evidence on cardiotherapeuticupdates.org. Drag the world, or let it turn.\nConclusion\nThree games in three weeks: a rebuild, a new title and a respectful extension of a classic. Three different jobs, one workshop. The games earn little, and that is fine: they are where I learn fastest, and what I learn ends up in everything else I build. Great artists ship, ha!\nThe three games and their sites, all built with the same publisher:\n- Block 89, play with blocks like it's 1989\n- Outburn 87, drive like it's 1987\n- Snake '97, play Snake like it's 1997",
 "word_count": 809,
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/posts/2026-02-25_three-games-in-three-weeks/post.md"
}