Make a Game With Gemini: Three Ways In
You can make a game with Gemini in three places: Canvas for a quick playable idea, AI Studio Build when you want to keep and export the code, and Antigravity when the project outgrows a chat. Start in Canvas, and move only when something there stops you.
Everything below reflects Google's pages on 2 November 2026.
Which door should I use?
| Canvas | AI Studio Build | Antigravity | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where | gemini.google.com | aistudio.google.com | An app on your computer |
| Best for | Trying an idea in minutes | A web app you can download as a ZIP | A long project made of many files |
| Cost | Open to all Gemini users, sign-in needed | Google warns you if an app could cost money, for example with paid AI | A $0 plan with "basic weekly rate limits" |
| Watch out | Shared links open only on gemini.google.com | Outside AI Studio you need your own Gemini key | Limit numbers are not on the pricing page |
If you read older guides, note that Gemini CLI was replaced by Antigravity CLI for unpaid users on 18 June 2026.
The trap in sharing a Canvas game
Google's help page says anyone with a public link can view and edit the data of your app. For a family joke that is fine. For anything with a real score, it is not.
Take Snail Derby, an invented game where five snails race and you bet coins on one. Say you ask Canvas to keep a shared leaderboard, send the link to your running club and offer a prize for the top score. Anyone with that link can change the numbers, by Google's own description. Keep scores out of shared data, or do not promise anything that depends on them.
Two age rules matter too. Adding AI features to an app requires you to be 18 or over, and copying someone's shared Canvas is not open to under-18s.
When should I leave Canvas?
Move on when one of these is true:
- You want the code outside Google's chat. Build lets you export a ZIP, or sync with GitHub.
- You need many pictures and sounds as real files.
- The game has so many parts that each change disturbs another. That is when a tool working on files, such as Antigravity, earns its install.
Whichever door you use, bets and payouts are a good example of a rule that must hold on every path. Have Gemini think it through first, in a Mermaid chart, which is text that turns into a drawing at mermaid.live. A chance-based game also benefits from a loot table mindset: write the odds down.
Paste this to your AI
In Canvas, build Snail Derby, a small browser game. Five snails race across the screen at slightly random speeds. Before each race I bet coins on one snail. I start with 20 coins, and the game ends at zero.
Before you build, write a short Mermaid chart of a round: betting, racing, payout, game over. Check it against two rules: coins can never go below zero, and exactly one snail wins each race, even in a dead heat. Explain in a few lines why each rule holds on every path, then build from the chart.
Do not store anything other people could change. Keep coins for the current session only, and tell me plainly if you add saved or shared data.
When you finish, quote the lines that set each snail's speed and the line that pays out a bet. If you only estimated a snail's chance of winning, say "estimated". If you cannot show something from the code, say you do not know.
Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP
How to check it worked
- Race ten times. Every snail should win sometimes, unless the chart says otherwise.
- Bet everything and lose. The game should stop at zero and never show minus coins.
- Reload the page. Coins should reset, as you asked.
- Open the shared link in a private window. See what a stranger sees before you send it to anyone.