Unlocking Casual Fun: AI-Powered 'Vibe Coding' for Quick, Niche Apps

I recently heard the comparison that AI is the smartphone of our generation. Smartphones made...

I recently heard the comparison that AI is the smartphone of our generation.

Smartphones made taking photos easier for people to do casually. Do you still need experts to professionally shoot events, use the right equipment, and know the best lighting and angles? Yes. But the average person can take photos of their kids or pets for fun memories anytime.

AI “vibe” coding has opened up casually playing around with code and making small custom apps in the same way. Some people use it to learn, some use it for fun. Some people just want to see what it can do.

I play a game called FFXIV with a group of 48 people each week, working through a dungeon called Forked Tower: Blood. We have inside jokes, common things that happen in-game, and do special themed glams for the holidays.

Recently, we planned a meme night. The group was chatting about common memes and taking a drink each time X happened. I wanted to make sure people had fun rather than getting sick, so I quickly suggested bingo instead. It would also allow those not drinking to still have fun tracking the memes. I tossed in a couple of emotes as a prize for the first 5 to get bingo.

However, we only had about 3 hours until the run was going to start.

Google’s AI Studio helped me get set up quickly and easily. I needed specific features: the ability to import and export custom board items, a way to get a PNG of their board for winner verification, and fast randomization. I also needed a simple way to share it quickly without dealing with the fees or limitations of online bingo board generators. After I guided AI Studio to the point where I was ready to get the group's input(because the initial meme ideas were so cringe and I could only make about 20 off the top of my head), I hit publish. Google’s integration there meant I had a working URL to share within a minute.

We had a ton of fun. Lots of laughter was had tracking the night's shenanigans, and it cost 80 cents to host it (well, zero with my free-tier credits). I was asked to do it again the week after, but make it more egg hunt focused (the next run was the weekend of Easter). In the game, there is a limited-time event called HatchingTide, so I made a new theme for the board where they had a chance to randomly find eggs as they tracked their bingo. I also made a more vaporwave version of the board that had no mention of drinking for those who don’t want that on their board, but still wanted to participate. I fleshed out a safety version for “prog” runs where the focus was leaning and actually progressing through the fight. Now that I had a week to plan instead of 3 hours, I could play around with it more and add more options for the randomization.

AI isn’t perfect. I had to redirect it a few times. I wanted to revert to a previous version, but it remembered the prompts after the revert and brought back the changes I had tried to erase. It needed lots of manual checking, and I exported my options frequently in order to make sure that if it hallucinated that they needed to change, I could just copy and paste instead of fully reverting. There were UI changes that just did not make sense, and the options it chose initially made no sense to someone who actually plays the game. But it gave a great base for me to adjust to make something quickly for our group.

Because it needs that review, because what it creates is not always going to work or is going to have a ton of unnecessary code, our expert photographers will always be needed. This board will never be prod-ready.

I know there is a lot of anti-AI sentiment out there. I added a footer on the site says flame me if you want, and I want to acknowledge that we need to figure out how to support the artists and creators whose content trains the models. I want the art of my in-game character for my profile picture to be created by an actual artist. I want people who understand the game to help design collabs that actually mean something. We don’t need to shove AI at every problem. But focused use to help people quickly create what they otherwise wouldn’t have had the ability to do is amazing. I’m keeping an open mind as we see where AI takes us.