My Game Keeps Breaking: Why, and What to Tell Your AI

Your game breaks because each new feature touches parts that already worked, and your AI may call it done without trying them. Change one thing at a time, save every working version, and keep a written list of what must keep working.

Why does adding one thing break another?

Say your small jumping game works. The hero jumps, coins count up and the shop sells boots that let you jump higher. You ask for a double jump, and it works. But now the boots do nothing, and the hero can jump forever after touching a wall.

Nobody was careless. Here is what usually happens:

• The same thing lives in two places. Two parts of the game each keep their own count of jumps. The AI updated one.
• The AI knows what you asked for, not what you care about. You asked for a double jump. You never said "and leave the boots alone".
• The AI cannot feel your game. It stops when the work looks done. The Claude Code docs say it well: if nothing tells it whether the work really is done, "looks done" is all it has to go on, and you end up finding every mistake yourself.
• Fixes pile up on fixes. Each repair adds another patch. Soon nobody can tell what the original code did.
• Big requests change too much. If twelve things changed and one broke, nobody knows which one did it.

What can I do instead of asking for another fix?

Four habits stop most of this:

1. Keep a list of what must keep working. The AI cannot protect what it does not know about.
2. Change one thing at a time. Then you know what broke it.
3. Save every working version. Ask your AI to use Git, a tool that keeps every saved version. A bad attempt then costs you minutes.
4. Make the AI show what it tried. "Done" is only a word. Ask what it did to find out that things still work, and what happened. How it does that is up to the AI. If it cannot show you, it should say it does not know. Show me where that is written explains the idea.

Paste this to your AI

Send this once, to set everything up:

My game keeps breaking when I add things. Help me stop that.

1. Read the whole project. If you cannot see my files, ask me to paste them.
2. Create must-keep-working.md. List everything the game does today, in plain words, one line each. For each line, name the part of the game that does it. If you cannot find it, write "I do not know". Ask me what you missed.
3. Find anything that is stored or worked out in two different places. Show me both places, and do not change them yet.
4. If this project does not use Git yet, set it up, and save this version.

From now on, for every change:
- First tell me which parts of the game you will touch and what could break.
- Change one thing at a time.
- Afterwards, go through must-keep-working.md. For each line that could be affected, show me what you tried and what happened. How you try it is up to you.
- If you could not try something, say "I do not know if this still works". Never say "it should work".
- Add a line to must-keep-working.md for each new feature.
- Save a version only when you can show that the list still holds.
- Tell me what to try in the game.
- Never tell me something is done or fixed unless you can show what that rests on.
- If you use automatic tests, never change or delete one just to make it pass. Ask me first.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP

When something breaks anyway, send this instead of asking for one more fix:

Something broke. Do not try to fix it yet.

1. Show me what changed since the last working version.
2. Go back to the last working version.
3. Tell me what you think went wrong, and show me what you saw that makes you think so. If you do not know yet, say "I do not know".
4. Make the change again in smaller steps. After each step, show me what you tried and what happened.

The Claude Code docs give the same advice in their own words. If you have corrected the same thing twice and it is still wrong, a clean start with what you learned usually works better than a third correction.

How to check it worked

• Walk through the list. Open must-keep-working.md and try each line in the game.
• Ask what it tried. Pick a line and ask what the AI did to find out that it still works. "It should be fine" is not an answer.
• Ask about something it did not try. It should say it does not know.
• Go back in time. Ask it to go back to yesterday's version and start the game, then return to today's. Now you know you can.
• Ask for a small change. See if the AI first tells you what it will touch.

None of this tells you whether your game is fun or whether a jump feels good. Only playing tells you that.

Can Spielerando check my game for me?

No. Our MCP server gives your AI our wiki, examples and tested values, so it has something better than a guess to start from. It never takes or runs your game or your code. Everything on this page happens in your own project, with your own AI.

You need an account with a login by e-mail or Google. Usage is counted in tokens, though no AI runs on our side. Setup is on this page.

If the trouble is in your story, start with the story help.