2D side-scrolling beat 'em up built with Unity and AI tools — exploring what it means to direct a game rather than code it.
Endbringers is a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up game co-created with my son. The project explores how AI tools change the role of a game creator — shifting from programmer to creative director. Art, concepts and assets are generated and iterated using Scenario and Gemini, while the game logic is built in Unity. Claude is used throughout for design decisions, writing and problem solving.
progress
Before October 2026
Paused
Development stopped. With the tools we had, we could not get consistent animations or side-on backgrounds that looked like they belonged to the same game. Every generated frame was impressive on its own and wrong next to the one before it. A beat 'em up lives on that consistency, so rather than push on with a game that looked like a collage, we put it down.
October 2026
The challenge is solved
We found a way through by building a pipeline instead of looking for a better prompt. ComfyUI generates the art, Blender gives us control over pose and perspective, and Claude drives the tools and keeps the process repeatable. Unity is back in the picture as the engine.
October 2026
Training a LoRA on backgrounds
Right now we are selecting images to train a LoRA on the background style, so every location comes out in one consistent look. Choosing the training set turns out to be the real work: it is a curation job, and the taste has to come from us.
links & tools used