Battle Drones
A browser-based real-time strategy game developed by Simon Willison using AI programming tools. It supports play on mobile phones and includes 3D models, randomly generated maps, matches against AI opponents, and sonic-based multiplayer networking.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Battle Drones is a Command & Conquer-style real-time strategy game; the early version was built with Claude Fable 5, and after Opus 5.5 took over, the gameplay experience changed qualitatively.
Battle Drones supports 2- to 4-player multiplayer battles, medals, replays, seven maps, a random map generator and rule variants, and allows different LLMs to play against each other.
After Willison open-sourced Battle Drones under the Apache 2.0 license, a developer released a steampunk-style fork called Panache based on it the very next day.
Simon Willison released a mobile real-time strategy (RTS) game called Battle Drones under the Apache 2.0 license.
Both Battle Drones and Panache provide model showcase pages that allow item-by-item comparison.
Less than a day after Battle Drones was released, a fork called Panache appeared.
The Goliath unit in the original Battle Drones is a blue mech with shoulder-mounted missile launchers; in the Panache version, the same unit has been redesigned with a golden steampunk look.
v12 implemented sound-based multiplayer, where two devices can sync game state as long as they are close enough for the microphones to hear each other.
Simon Willison developed the game Battle Drones with 321 commits and 12 major versions.
There are no audio files in the project at all; the music is entirely generated by code, changes with the map, and intensifies when combat is fierce.
7 more timeline events
All Facts (17)
Battle Drones supports 2- to 4-player multiplayer battles, medals, replays, seven maps, a random map generator and rule variants, and allows different LLMs to play against each other.
50%UnverifiedBattle Drones is a Command & Conquer-style real-time strategy game; the early version was built with Claude Fable 5, and after Opus 5.5 took over, the gameplay experience changed qualitatively.
50%UnverifiedBoth Battle Drones and Panache provide model showcase pages that allow item-by-item comparison.
50%UnverifiedThe Goliath unit in the original Battle Drones is a blue mech with shoulder-mounted missile launchers; in the Panache version, the same unit has been redesigned with a golden steampunk look.
50%UnverifiedThe win rate of factions that trail by more than 800 resources in scrap and come back to win rose from 24% to 46%.
50%UnverifiedIn the v5–v9 stages, three.js was used to port the game to 3D, and all 3D models were built directly by Claude in TypeScript code.
50%Unverifiedv10 added an agent battles mode, in which two LLMs obtain information within the fog of war through tool interfaces and control troops to fight each other, and the project includes complete battle replays and debugging tools.
50%Unverifiedv12 implemented sound-based multiplayer, where two devices can sync game state as long as they are close enough for the microphones to hear each other.
50%UnverifiedSimon Willison developed the game Battle Drones with 321 commits and 12 major versions.
50%UnverifiedThere are no audio files in the project at all; the music is entirely generated by code, changes with the map, and intensifies when combat is fierce.
50%UnverifiedThe final game includes 9 types of buildings, 7 types of ground vehicles, 6 types of air vehicles, and 3 types of infantry, all as 3D models built entirely in code.
50%UnverifiedBattle Drones is a real-time strategy game playable in the browser, supporting both mobile and desktop devices.
50%UnverifiedIn 1,200 AI-versus-AI tests on Normal difficulty, the proportion of matches still undecided after 25 minutes dropped from 14% to 0.9%.
50%UnverifiedAfter Willison open-sourced Battle Drones under the Apache 2.0 license, a developer released a steampunk-style fork called Panache based on it the very next day.
50%UnverifiedLess than a day after Battle Drones was released, a fork called Panache appeared.
50%UnverifiedSimon Willison released a mobile real-time strategy (RTS) game called Battle Drones under the Apache 2.0 license.
50%UnverifiedBattle Drones unexpectedly became an offline-capable PWA, and the author found on a plane that it could be played directly from the phone's cache.
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