At GitHub Universe, the conference badge features a full‑blown color screen computer. Steve Francia, working with Gemini, has ported a NES emulator and further added support for Game Boy and Game Boy Color, enabling games like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening to run on the badge if a ROM is available. The badge also allows users to flip it upside down and use built‑in touch buttons as a controller.
Stop Making TUIs Thomas Ptacek advocates for building real native user interfaces for even the smallest of personal tools, because coding agents have reduced the cost of getting a usable-enough GUI up and running to almost nothing. I wrote about my vibe-coded bandwidth and GPU monitoring macOS task bar apps back in March , and I'm still using both of those on a daily basis.
Release: llm-gemini 0. 33 It's been a while since the last llm-gemini release.
Simon Willison discusses a new inflection point in October 2026 for creating video games using AI, noting that Claude Opus 5.5 now reliably produces compelling 3D models, music, and especially game design. He reports having successfully "vibe coded" four enjoyable games without inspecting the code, and highlights that the real challenge is now generating novel, delightful concepts that AI alone could not conceive. The author compares Opus 5.5’s fun factor to GPT‑6 Astra, which he finds lacking in that regard.
Simon Willison released Battledrones v14, adding a new map called "Compass Rose" that supports four-player online battles with rotational symmetry and up to four AI players. The update modifies the WebSocket multiplayer code to allow up to four human players via share links or QR codes, and introduces new purple and green robot teams alongside existing blue and red designs. A replay demonstrates a four-way AI battle using the "Goliath Armada" mutator, where each side starts with four giant Goliath mech units.
Simon Willison presented a closing keynote at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, where he showcased a pixel‑art animation of kakapo parrots celebrating a record‑breaking breeding season in 2026. He used Claude Opus 5.5 to generate the animation from Google‑searched kakapo photos, then employed Claude Code with Playwright to record a 15‑second video of the animated HTML5 canvas, which he embedded in his Keynote slide.
Release: llm 0.37.1 A bugfix release for LLM, with contributions from Steven Huang, Tao An, Arjan Mossel, and XQ. Tags: llm
Chirp Pong is a two‑player competitive pong‑style game that runs entirely in static HTML on two separate phones. The game state is transmitted via audio chirps captured by each phone’s microphone, using the Web Microphone API to interpret the sounds. The project adds graphical and gameplay twists to make the experience more engaging than classic pong.
Battle Drones is a browser‑based, Command & Conquer‑style real‑time strategy game that evolved through 12 major iterations, adding 3D models, varied terrain, random map generation, and both local and online multiplayer via audio synchronization. The game features nine buildings, seven ground vehicles, six aerial vehicles, and three infantry units, with fog of war, area‑effect weapons, and multiple play modes such as skirmish and last‑stand. The project showcases how AI‑assisted coding (primarily Claude) can accelerate game development and introduce innovative multiplayer mechanics using sound.
The release of llm-gemini 0.34 introduces the new Gemini 3.8‑Flash model, available in low, medium, and high thinking levels, and fixes an issue where async responses failed to record the resolved model version. The update also notes that Google has released Gemini 3.8‑Flash (and a restricted 3.8 Flash Cyber version) today, with example outputs (pelicans) demonstrating the model’s performance across the different thinking levels. The author highlights Gemini Flash’s speed, low cost, and competence in generating HTML, JavaScript, and Markdown‑SVG content, citing a 13‑second, 1.8‑cent example of an HTML output.
Simon Willison comments on GPT 6.1‑Sol, describing it as "Near‑Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price." He notes that the model’s pelican illustrations are similar to those of the GPT‑6 family and provides links to the live‑blog of the keynote and to the pelican images. The post is tagged with AI, OpenAI, generative‑AI, LLMs, and playful references to pelican‑riding‑a‑bicycle.
Simon Willison created a .blend URL Viewer tool that lets users view a Blender model of a Fabergé egg themed after the TV show Pluribus directly in their browser. He generated the egg image using ChatGPT Images 2.5, then fed it to GPT‑6 Astra with a custom Blender skill to produce several .blend files. The viewer, built with JavaScript, is now part of his tools collection for easy access to the resulting 3D model.
Simon Willison describes a game experiment called "Tree Appreciator" created with Claude Opus 5.5 Max. The game, built in three.js, presents two algorithmically generated trees and challenges players to appreciate their differences through a spot‑the‑difference style mechanic. After three hours and seven minutes of processing, Claude produced a polished, music‑and‑animation‑rich game with achievements that feels both fun and beautiful.