How to Create a Platformer Game With AI

You ask an AI for a platformer. Thirty seconds later you have a square jumping on rectangles. You test it. The character sticks to walls, it double-jumps when you press once, and it falls straight through the floor if you drop too fast. You decide this isn't ready yet.

In reality, you were three fix requests away from a game that holds up. The problem isn't the AI, it's that nobody told you what to ask it for.

Why a Platformer Is the Best First Project

A platformer is a character, gravity, blocks and a goal. Four elements. Simple enough for an AI to produce in one pass, rich enough that you genuinely feel like you made a game.

It's also the genre where the gap between "it works" and "it feels good" is most visible. A runner forgives a lot. A platformer doesn't: if the jump is mushy, the whole game fails. Learning to fix a jump teaches you the craft in one evening.

What AI Almost Always Gets Wrong in a Platformer

Models generate correct code but calibrate feel poorly. Four flaws show up every time:

• The jump is binary. You press, the character rises a fixed height. In good games, the height depends on how long you hold the button.
• The jump is unfair. You press at the exact moment you leave the platform, and nothing happens. Professional games tolerate a few milliseconds of lateness, the well-known coyote time.
• Falling is too slow. Symmetrical gravity makes the character feel underwater. You need to fall faster than you rise.
• Collisions are sloppy. At speed, the character passes through thin platforms, or gets glued to walls.

Good news: all four are fixable in plain language, without touching the code.

The Method to Create a Platformer with AI, in Three Steps

Step 1: the starting prompt

Don't ask for "a platformer game." Ask for this, which already builds in half the usual fixes:

Create a complete platformer game in a SINGLE self-contained HTML file.
Mandatory technical constraints:
- all HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the same file
- no external resources (no images, no fonts, no libraries)
- colored geometric shapes drawn on a canvas, no images to load
- playable with a keyboard on desktop AND by touch on mobile
The game:
- a side-view character who runs and jumps
- platforms to cross, deadly gaps, coins to collect
- a clear goal to reach to finish the level
- 3 levels of increasing difficulty
Game feel (important):
- variable jump height depending on how long the key is held
- a few frames of tolerance after leaving a platform (coyote time)
- falling faster than rising
- slight acceleration on start and a light slide on stop
Display: coins collected and level at the top, end screen with a "Play again" button.
Style: [colors, mood in two words]
Give me the complete file, ready to open in a browser.

This prompt is long, and that's exactly why it works. To understand the logic behind this phrasing, our guide to the best prompts for creating an html5 game takes the method apart.

Step 2: save the HTML file

Copy the code, paste it into a text editor, save it as my-platformer.html. One file, no folder, no ZIP. That constraint is what will let you put it online in thirty seconds.

Step 3: the first test

Open the file in your browser and check, in this order:

1. Does the jump respond instantly? If there's any delay at all, that's the first thing to fix.
2. Can you finish level one? An impossible level is the most common bug.
3. Does it work by touch on a phone? Test on an actual phone, not by shrinking your window.

The Iterations That Transform a Platformer

This is where your game gets good. Copy these requests as they are, one per message.

Fixing the jump

• "The jump feels mushy. Make jump height proportional to how long the key is held, and make the character fall faster than it rises."
• "Add 100 ms of tolerance: if I press just after leaving a platform, the jump should still fire."
• "If I press jump just before landing, buffer the input and trigger the jump on landing."

Fixing collisions and walls

• "The character falls through platforms when moving fast. Fix collision detection by splitting movement into several small steps."
• "The character sticks to walls. Handle horizontal and vertical collisions separately."

Fixing the camera and the difficulty

• "The camera jumps abruptly. Make it follow the character smoothly, with a slight lag."
• "Level one is too hard. Turn it into a learning level with no deadly hazards, and save the difficulty for later levels."

Two or three passes and you'll have a game that genuinely plays. To compare with a simpler genre, see our guide on creating a snake game with ai.

Personalizing Your Platformer

The mechanics work, so now for identity. This is what makes a game get shared.

Swap the character for someone you know, replace the coins with something meaningful (coffees, dog treats, revision points), write the between-level messages yourself. Ask for a coherent visual theme: "neon night," "pastel cut-paper," "retro Game Boy in four shades of green."

A few variants that land well:

• A time-attack mode with a visible timer.
• A hidden level reachable from an unlikely spot.
• A two-player mode on one keyboard, one character each.

Publishing Your Platformer

A platformer is judged in ten seconds of play, never by describing it. So it has to be instantly playable, with no install and no account.

Go to the Hoora website and click the purple "Import" button in the left-hand menu, then drop in your .html file.

You get an instant playable preview: you check your jump under real conditions before publishing. Add a title and a description, publish, or keep it as a draft while you tune the difficulty. It's free, and your players need nothing installed and no account.

Your game shows up in a feed people browse by swiping, with a creator profile, followers and public stats: views, likes, shares, comments. For a platformer those numbers are gold: they tell you whether level one holds players or scares them off.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Which AI is best for a platformer? All three big ones manage. The difference shows in how well the code holds together across successive fixes. Our chatgpt vs claude vs gemini comparison covers their behavior.
• How many levels can I reasonably ask for? Three to five short ones. Beyond that the AI loses coherence: better to add levels one at a time.
• Can I have real graphics instead of rectangles? Yes, but stick to shapes drawn in code. The moment you add external image files you lose the single-file format and publishing gets complicated.
• My character jitters when running, why? Almost always a missing position rounding. Ask: "round positions when drawing to remove the jitter."
• Do I need to code to apply these fixes? No, every request in this article is plain language. If you're starting from zero, begin with our guide on making a video game without coding.
• Will the game be playable on mobile? Only if you ask explicitly, and you need to verify it on a real phone.
• How long does a decent platformer take? One to two hours with the iterations. Most of that time goes into tuning the jump, and it's time well spent.
• Can I add sound? Yes, ask for sounds generated in code rather than audio files, which keeps the single-file format intact.