Everything just accelerated
TL;DR: In four days, most of a game's core systems went from nothing to shipped - and I think it's because of how I started splitting the work: Sonnet 5 planning out high level requirements, Opus 5 building in large chunks.
In four days the game went from safe empty caves, to a fully destructive world with bombs, digging, hazards, a cash economy, a day/dive loop, a dynamic map, wall hang, double jump, and an increasing-difficulty-depth-curve.
Many of those were one-shot builds, not the story-by-story grind I'd become accustomed to.
| Date | Landed |
|---|---|
| Jul 28 | Cash economy design, first gold and rare diamond pickups, hazards & protection system (3 stories, one sitting) |
| Jul 29 | Shop & economy system (6 stories, whole feature same day), day/dive loop (4 stories, one sitting) |
| Jul 30 | Map & core UI (4 stories, one sitting), wall hang + double jump, bombs |
| Jul 31 | Digging, then three playtest passes rebuilding terrain across screen boundaries. Depth curve, world floor, new loot tiers (one pass) |
My best guess: it's Opus 5
Since trying Fable and Opus, and realising how much they can figure out on their own, I've settled on the following approach:
Sonnet 5 does the planning (epics, stories, high level design)
Then Opus 5 does the actual game development building
I've heard the opposite can also be true, using Opus for the detailed planning and Sonnet for doing the grunt work, but this approach worked well for me.
Published Friday 31st July 2026 at 11:30 PM