Vibe Tanks - 1v1 Arcade Tank Combat

Vibe Tanks is a top-down 1v1 tank duel that runs in the browser. One HTML file, no framework, no dependencies, no build step.

Tools:

Claude in the browser for all the code. Canvas 2D for rendering. Web Audio for a soundtrack that speeds up as the match heats up. Cloudflare Pages to host. That's the whole stack.

Process that actually worked:

• Spec one small feature at a time. Never "make it better." Always a single, testable change.

• Full-file delivery every time, then diff against the last version.

• Keep a byte-identical backup before every change. AI ships silent bugs, and rollback is the only thing that saves you.

• Test every build on a real phone, not just desktop. Most of my breakage was mobile-only and I never saw it on the desktop.

• Reject what fails, re-spec, go again. Hundreds of times.

Things I learned the hard way:

• A self-recursing audio compressor node tanked performance for days. I only found it after instrumenting the frame loop to hunt long frames.

• The neon glow was recomputed every frame and choked phones. Fix was to render the glow once into an offscreen sprite and stamp that image each frame. Same look, a fraction of the cost.

• In a single file, global name collisions will wreck you. Check before adding any top-level name.

The AI writes the code. The actual job is direction, testing, and refusing to quit.