Your first project

One brief, built three ways. Richard kept the one built with our guides.

We gave Claude Code two first projects, typed the way someone new would type them: a book club app and a little submarine game. Each one went to three empty folders. In the first, Claude was on its own. In the second, it had NodeGX as it was last week. In the third, it had NodeGX and two new guides that npm create nodegx now writes into every project. Richard Osborne, who makes NodeGX, answered every question the builds asked and played all six.

The game · play all three

A submarine in a dark sea cave

The brief: “I want a little game where you pilot a submarine down into a dark sea cave with a headlamp, collecting glowing creatures before your air runs out.” Each game below is the first version Claude handed over, unchanged.

Glimmerdeep on a phone: a title screen, and a cave lit by the sub's lamp with a jellyfish, two pink fish, a silver air pocket under the rock, and Lamp and Ping buttons.
NodeGX with the guides

Glimmerdeep

Before building, it asked six questions in one message. They covered games Richard loved, what bores Richard, the feel, the device, how a dive goes and what to leave out. Richard’s answers named Echo the Dolphin, air pockets underwater and levels that end.

Richard This is beautiful, amazing concept with the fish running away when there’s light, switching off the light to attract them… it really got the concept in the brief of making me nostalgic for Echo the Dolphin. This one is a keeper, I’ll get my kids to play it

12 minutes of building · $2.79

Play it, best on a phone →
Deep Glow: a yellow sub at the top of a narrow shaft, its lamp lighting two jellyfish, with air, depth and glow counters.
NodeGX, no guides

Deep Glow

It asked nothing and built the whole game straight away. It tested it at desktop and phone sizes and listed the choices it had made for Richard.

Richard It works fine, no sound which is sad and completing the game is fairly easy. The difficulty doesn’t appear to increase and getting air is a breeze.

11 minutes · $2.63

Play it →
Lumen Dive: a yellow sub under a pale surface, its lamp angled down into the cave, with jellyfish glowing below.
Claude on its own

Lumen Dive

It asked nothing and built one HTML file. It said it hadn’t played it. Served on its own, its title and game-over screens stayed over the cave after you pressed Dive. That’s one of the traps the game guide names, so we added the guide’s one-line fix to this copy.

Richard It’s a bit better than Game 1, one extra fish type which was cool… Then you hit rock bottom at a certain point and don’t know what to do next… the game just had a bottom with no endgame. So disappointing

6 minutes · $1.28

Play it →

“Game 1” is Richard’s name for Deep Glow. Richard saw each build under a number and wasn’t told which NodeGX build had the guides.

The app · pictures

A book club for eight friends

The brief: “I run a small book club, there are 8 of us. I want an app where we can suggest books, vote on what to read next, and keep a list of what we’ve read with everyone’s star rating.” Each book club needs a live database that anyone could write to. So here they’re pictures, showing what Richard typed while trying them.

The book club on a desktop: a purple Now reading card and a Voting closes in 3 days card. On a phone: the vote page, two books with two votes each.
NodeGX with the guides

Book Club, playful

It asked five questions first. Richard chose playful, phones, pick your name, several votes each and a round that closes on a date. Rounds can last 3 days, a week or two weeks.

Richard Generally App 1 has a better UX, but the UI is a bit childish and looks silly on desktop

16 minutes · $10.06

The code next to a voter’s name was the other NodeGX book club’s saved name. Both ran at the same address on Richard’s computer and shared the browser’s storage. We filed that against our preview tool.

The book club on a desktop and a phone: tabs for Suggestions, Reading now and Read, a form to suggest a book, and a book with two votes.
NodeGX, no guides

Book Club, plain

It wrote a plan with three questions and waited for a go. It started with seven placeholder members beside Richard. Only the organiser can choose the next book.

Richard This one has a clean, simple design, and is mobile and desktop friendly from the start… the app is clean but the UX is very basic.

10 minutes · $4.53

A dark page titled What are we reading?, with a notice to open it on claude.ai, empty Now reading and vote sections, and a form to suggest a book.
Claude on its own

Book Club, one page

It asked nothing and published one page on claude.ai. The other seven members join as editors of that page, each with a claude.ai account. Opened anywhere else, it shows the notice in the picture.

Richard It’s a pretty sad prototype… It looks more like a Claude artifact [than] a credible prototype.

3 minutes · $1.07

What the guides are

Two guides that Claude reads before it builds

Claude Code reads a skill when the job calls for it. npm create nodegx now writes two of them into every new project.

The first-project guide is how the builds people loved were run. It asks for everything it needs in one message. It puts something in the person’s hands early. Then it improves the build in rounds from their notes, which it keeps word for word.

The game guide holds 90 traps from our own game builds, each with the fix. One is the screen that Lumen Dive left over its cave. It also says how to test a game on a phone-sized screen without a person there.

Neither guide gives Claude rules to obey. In an earlier test, making Claude follow a method up front produced the worse game. So these guides only pass on what we’ve learned.

What this shows, and what it doesn’t

One build each, judged by the person who makes NodeGX

Both builds with the guides asked their questions before building. Neither of Claude’s builds on its own asked anything. What Richard praised in Glimmerdeep came from Richard’s own answers.

  • Each brief was built once per folder. A second run could come out differently.
  • Richard makes NodeGX. Nobody told Richard which NodeGX build had the guides. Richard asked for the two builds by Claude on its own afterwards, so those two weren’t hidden.
  • The builds that asked questions got a second turn, with Richard’s answers.
  • The book club with the guides cost $10.06, against $1.07 on its own. Part of that was Claude keeping its preview running for two hours.
On its ownNodeGX, no guidesNodeGX with guides
Game6 min, $1.2811 min, $2.6312 min, $2.79
Book club3 min, $1.0710 min, $4.5316 min, $10.06

Every build used Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code 2.1.317, on 3 and 4 November 2026. Each folder was sealed from our other projects and settings. Times are Claude’s building time.

Since create-nodegx 0.2.9, npm create nodegx writes both guides into every new project. Start here walks you through it.