As a web developer, my world has always been that of CMS, ERPs and SaaS. I always saw video games as something foreign, a complex terrain full of heavy engines like Unity or Unreal that I never wanted to touch. But what happens when a nephew's curiosity and current AI tools intersect in a WhatsApp chat?
A promise and a WhatsApp chat.
My nephew always asked me: “¿Cuándo vas a sacar tu propio juego?”. Among my home and work responsibilities, time was our greatest enemy. We couldn't physically meet, but we could chat. That's how it was born CIRCLE: a project built in the spare time, between voice messages and code snippets.
My Stack: Vibe Coding with AI
I didn't seek to be a GameDev expert, I sought to be a Project Manager of my own code. I used Gemini to advise me on architecture and technical decisions, and Cursor para “vibe codear” toda la lógica en React Native. Fue una experiencia fascinante: yo definía la estrategia y la IA ejecutaba, mientras yo supervisaba la calidad y la estructura.
Local to Global
The magic of Firebase At first, the game was going to be a simple local pastime. But when I heard my nephew say, “Por fin seré un top global”, I understood that competition was the lifeblood of the project.
To make the ranking real, I integrated Cloud Firestore in your free plan. Now, each game is saved in the cloud, allowing a global experience, in real time and without its own server. We use anonymous authentication so no one wastes time signing up.
The result? Aún estamos puliendo detalles, pero el juego ya es funcional y divertido. Ha sido una lección de que hoy, con las herramientas correctas, la barrera entre “ser desarrollador de apps” y “crear un juego” es más delgada que nunca.
Do you want to try it? Here's the APK so you can be one of the first to try CIRCLE. I look forward to your feedback before officially launching it on the Play Store!