No-App-Experience Workshop

Build a game with Claude & Xcode

Three friendly ways to go from an empty screen to a real, playable game — start with a fun classic clone, then make it truly yours.

✅ No coding · 🚫 (Almost) no Terminal · 🖱️ All done in friendly apps

Claude (the app)

→

Xcode

→

Play it!

First · Don't panic

You'll hear a few nerdy words today. Here's all they actually mean — no need to memorise anything:

🔨

XcodeApple's free workshop for making apps. It's where your game gets built and test-played.

🤖

ClaudeYour AI teammate. You describe the game in plain English; Claude writes all the actual code.

📱

SimulatorA pretend iPhone on your screen. Lets you play your game without a real phone.

📁

Project folderOne folder that holds your whole game. Claude reads & writes the files inside it.

🧩

Swift / SwiftUI / SpriteKitThe language & game kit apps are built with. Claude speaks them fluently — you don't have to.

⌨️

TerminalThe scary black text window. Good news: today we basically skip it and use apps with buttons.

Setup · Do this once

Install Xcode from the App Store

~30 min · one time

Get it here → Xcode on the Mac App Store ↗. Click Get, and when it's done, open it once and click Agree so it can finish setting itself up.

App Store — Xcode

Xcode

Apple Inc.

Developer Tools

GET Free · 9.45 GB · macOS 26.2+

RecreationStyled like the Mac App Store listing (real icon & details). Swap in a real screenshot anytime.

🤔Why so big / slow? Xcode includes everything Apple uses to make apps, so it's a large download. Grab it the night before the workshop and you're set.

Get the Claude app & sign in

Download · one time

Get it here → Claude downloads page ↗. Grab the Claude Code app (the friendly window version — no black text screen), open it, and sign in with your Claude account. That's it.

claude.ai/download

Claude for Mac

Chat, code, and build with Claude — right on your desktop.

↓ Download for Mac

Also available for Windows

RecreationStyled like the Claude download page (real icon). Swap in a real screenshot anytime.

🤔"Do I need Node / npm / commands?" Nope. The app installs itself like any normal Mac app — double-click, drag to Applications, done. Those command-line words are the old way; we're using the app.

🔀Prefer OpenAI's Codex instead? Xcode supports it too (Lane A). Download the

ChatGPT app ↗ and sign in with your ChatGPT account — then pick Codex instead of Claude Agent in Xcode's Intelligence settings. The rest of this guide works the same.

Now · Pick your lane

Two easy lanes to start (both skip the Terminal), plus a power-user lane once you've got the hang of it. You can switch anytime.

Lane A

🧭 Claude inside Xcode

Everything in one window. Xcode 26.3's built-in Claude Agent writes the code, builds, and fixes errors right where you play.

Open Xcode → File → New → Project, choose App, name it (e.g. FlappyClone), Save.

Go to Xcode → Settings → Intelligence. Under Agents, click Get next to Claude Agent, then Install.

In Claude Agent settings, click the … (More) button in the Account row → Sign In With a Claude.ai Account.

Open the Coding Assistant panel on the right, pick Claude Agent, and type your game idea. It edits files & builds for you.

🖥️ Needs Xcode 26.3+. Restart Xcode once after enabling if Claude doesn't appear.

Lane B

💬 Claude Code app directly

Chat with Claude in its own app; it builds the whole project folder. Then just open it in Xcode to play.

Make a blank App in Xcode (next section shows how) or let Claude create the folder for you.

In the Claude app, click New Project and pick that folder.

Type your game idea. Claude fills in every file; click Approve as it makes each change.

Ask Claude to "open this in Xcode" — or double-click the .xcodeproj.

🔁 Keep it open beside Xcode — one home base for all your games.

Build it · both lanes, step by step

The same Flappy Bird clone, built two ways. Follow either column top to bottom — 🧭 Claude inside Xcode on the left, the 💬 Claude Code app on the right. Steps 3–5 (describe → play → refine) are the same idea in each. Tap any screenshot to enlarge.

Lane A

Claude inside Xcode

↓

↓ Step 3

↓ Step 4

🎉 Playable — all in one window

⭐Step 5 · Refine & polishKeep chatting in the Coding Assistant — tweak the feel, add juice, tune difficulty. Ideas below ↓

🏆 The finished game

Live

"Flippy Flappy" — playable in the Simulator · full recording ↓

Lane B

Claude Code app

↓

↓ Step 3

↓ Step 4

🎉 Playable — one app across projects

⭐Step 5 · Refine & polishKeep chatting in the app — "make it bouncier", "add confetti". Ideas below ↓

🏆 The finished game

Live

"Flappy Claudey" — playable in the Simulator · full recording ↓

▶ Watch them play · full recordings

Both games, running for real in the iPhone Simulator — same idea, two lanes. Tap play (audio is muted).

🧭 Lane A — "Flippy Flappy"

Built inside Xcode with the Claude Agent

💬 Lane B — "Flappy Claudey"

Built entirely from the Claude Code app

Steps 3 & 5 · what to type (either lane)

You don't write code — you describe the game in plain English, the same way whichever lane you picked. The trick: don't just name it, say how it should feel — bouncy, juicy, sparkly, satisfying.

③ Describe it — starter prompts

Flappy clone: Build a Flappy Bird–style game in SwiftUI using SpriteKit. A bird that flaps upward with bouncy, weighty physics when I tap, scrolling pipes with gaps to fly through, and a score that ticks up each pipe. Add a little particle burst when I pass a pipe, a screen-shake on crash, a satisfying "flap" sound, and a cheerful "tap to restart" game-over screen. Make it juicy and colourful.

Word game: Build a Scrabble-style word game in SwiftUI. A rack of letter tiles I drag onto a board with a satisfying snap, score each word by letter values with a pop animation, and keep a running total. Add sparkly particle effects on a high-scoring word, a "shuffle my letters" button, and gentle sound feedback.

🎨Want real art, music & sound? Tell Claude to use free or paid assets from itch.io, Kenney.nl, Pixabay, or OpenGameArt — e.g. "use a pixel-art bird sprite and an 8-bit jump sound." Drop the files in your project folder and Claude wires them in. SpriteKit (Apple's built-in 2D game engine) handles the physics, sprites & particles.

⑤ Refine & polish — this is where games are made

The first version is just the starting point. Keep chatting, press ▶ Run, feel it, ask for the next tweak — over and over. Every great game is dozens of small polishes stacked up.

Make it feel better:

Make the bird's flap feel bouncier and a touch floaty, add a subtle trail behind it, and make the pipes scroll a little faster as my score climbs.

Add juice & effects:

Add a confetti particle burst and a happy chime when I beat my high score, a gentle screen-flash on crash, and a soft background music loop I can mute.

Add polish & flow:

Add a colourful start screen with a Play button, save the high score between games, and show a "New Best!" badge when I beat it.

Tune the difficulty:

The game feels too hard at the start — widen the pipe gaps a bit and ease players in for the first 5 pipes, then ramp up.

⚠️Red errors are normal. Copy the red text, paste it to Claude, say "fix this please," and press ▶ Run again. Nobody gets it perfect first try.

♻️The loop, on repeat: ask → Claude edits → ▶ Run → play & feel it → ask again. There's no "done" — stop when it feels great. This is 90% of the fun.

⚡ Level up · Power-user lane

Lane C · Advanced

🎮 Claude + Unity (for bigger, 3D & cross-platform games)

Once you've shipped a SwiftUI game or two and want 3D, consoles, Android, or a full game engine — pair Claude with Unity. Unity uses C# instead of Swift; Claude speaks it just as well.

Install Unity Hub + a Unity Editor (the free Personal license is fine to start).

Don't start from a blank scene — grab a working game to build on. Open Unity Learn's Endless Runner template so you have real mechanics from minute one: learn.unity.com → Publish your first mobile runner game.

In the Claude app, click New Project and point it at your Unity project folder.

Ask Claude to edit the C# scripts — new obstacles, power-ups, a coin magnet, particle effects, a scoring combo system, whatever you dream up.

Press ▶ Play in the Unity Editor to test — then refine & polish, just like Step 5.

🧭 Bigger tool, steeper setup — best after you're comfy with the SwiftUI lanes. Same idea though: start from something that runs, then refine with Claude.

Lane C 🎮

Claude + Unity

"Bush Bandit → Rubbish Raccoon" — built on Unity's Endless Runner template, then reskinned & extended with Claude editing the C# scripts. Tap any shot to enlarge.

Compare · Which lane?

Lane A

🧭 Claude inside Xcode

Easy & tidy — one window for everything.

👍 Pros

One tidy window — code, AI, and ▶ Play button all in the same place.
Deep Xcode powers: the agent builds, reads your Previews, and fixes its own errors.
Nothing new to arrange on screen — you're already in the app you'll run the game in.
Great when you're focused on one game and want it simple.

👎 Cons

Tied to one project window — juggling several games/apps is clunkier.
Doesn't carry your style & past decisions across different projects as smoothly.
Needs Xcode 26.3+ and a quick one-time setup in Intelligence settings.

Lane B

💬 Claude Code app

Fast & flexible — one brain across all your games.

👍 Pros

Hop between apps/games fast — switch projects in the app without wrangling Xcode windows.
Carries memory & learnings across projects — remembers your style, shared code, and past fixes.
Ideal for building several games in one flow, and it's the same app you'd use for Unity (Lane C).
More control, skills, and automation as you grow.

👎 Cons

Two apps side by side (Claude + Xcode) instead of a single window.
You (or Claude) hop over to Xcode to press ▶ Play.
A little more to arrange on screen at first.

🤔Rule of thumb: building one game and want it cosy? → Lane A. Bouncing between several games (or heading to Unity) and want Claude to remember everything? → Lane B. Ready for 3D / cross-platform? → Lane C. All three skip the Terminal.

Going deeper · Make it a good game

🎯

Coding it is easy now — designing it is the real craft

Claude handles the code. What makes a game fun is design: a tight core loop, satisfying game feel / juice, a smooth difficulty curve, and a clear hook that makes "one more go" irresistible. Learn the principles, then feed them to Claude as instructions.

🔁 Core loopThe 10-second action players repeat: tap → fly → score → repeat. Nail this first.

🧃 Juice / game feelScreen-shake, particles, pops, sound — the polish that makes actions feel great.

📈 Difficulty curveEasy start, gentle ramp. Too hard early = players quit; too easy = they're bored.

🪝 The hookThe one twist that makes your clone yours and worth sharing.

💡

Supersonic Ideation Kit ↗

A free workbook from Supersonic (the team behind loads of hit mobile games) that walks you through structured exercises to invent a game concept and pressure-test whether it has legs — before Claude builds it.

📦 What's actually inside the kit

🔀 Mechanic + genre combosIts headline exercise: fuse two proven mechanics into one fresh idea — e.g. runner + merge, or shooter + assembling.

🧱 Hybrid-casual depthAdd collectibles, upgrades, and mid-level milestones so a simple game keeps players coming back.

📊 App Store analysisWorksheets to compare the top 10 games, spot trending themes, and track what's rising vs. fading.

🔎 Inspiration miningPull ideas from unexpected places — Amazon & Netflix trends, puzzle categories, and creator accounts.

…plus built-in brain breaks (stretch, breathe, reset) so the ideas actually flow.

💡The one big lesson: don't try to invent something totally new — combine two things that already work. Take two features from games in the top charts and mash them together; that combo is far more likely to land than a from-scratch idea.

🧠Then hand the idea to Claude: once the kit helps you pick a combo or hook, describe it in the chat — e.g. "take my Flappy runner and add a merge mechanic: collect coins that fuse into bigger multipliers," or "add a risk-reward combo — the longer I survive without collecting, the bigger the multiplier, but one hit resets it." Design thinking in, working game out.

🎓 Back in the classroom

Making a game with Claude isn't just fun — it maps neatly onto the Digital Technologies curriculum in both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Because the AI handles the syntax, students spend their time on the thinking the curriculum actually asks for: designing solutions, decomposing problems, algorithms, and evaluating what they built.

📋 Where game-making fits

Year band	🇦🇺 Australian Curriculum v9 · Digital Technologies	🇳🇿 NZ Curriculum · Digital Technologies (Hangarau Matihiko)	Game-making activity
F–2	Follow & describe algorithms as a sequence of steps and decisions	Computational Thinking — Progress Outcome 1	Unplugged game rules; ScratchJr; "give the bird instructions"
Yrs 3–4	Visual (block) programming with branching & user input	CT — Progress Outcome 2	Simple Scratch / MakeCode Arcade games
Yrs 5–6	Visual programming with branching, iteration & variables; define & design digital solutions	CT — PO 3–4 · Designing & Developing Digital Outcomes PO 3	Design & build a sprite game (Scratch / GDevelop); storyboard your Flappy clone
Yrs 7–8	General-purpose (text-based) programming; implement & modify algorithms	CT — PO 4–5 · DDDO PO 4	First real-code game — direct Claude to build a SwiftUI + SpriteKit clone; read & tweak the code
Yrs 9–10	Object-oriented programming; develop, test & evaluate complex digital solutions	CT — PO 6 · DDDO PO 5–6	Full game project (SwiftUI / Unity); iterate, add features, evaluate & ship
Yrs 11–13	Senior state courses (e.g. QCAA Digital Solutions, VCE Applied Computing)	NCEA Levels 1–3 Digital Technologies achievement standards	AI-assisted app/game project + design portfolio & testing evidence

Official curriculum & standards: ACARA v9 (AU) ↗ · Tāhūrangi / NZC (NZ) ↗ · Teach Computing / National Curriculum (UK) ↗ · CSTA K–12 CS Standards (US) ↗ · ISTE Standards ↗.

🧭Why AI shifts the year levels: normally "produce a working digital solution" waits until students can hand-write code (Yrs 7–10). With Claude doing the syntax, a Year 5–6 class can design a real, playable game and direct its creation — hitting the Generating & designing and Designing & Developing Digital Outcomes outcomes early. Keep the rigour by making students own the design, the algorithm, and the evaluation.

📚 Quality resources · with & without AI

A curated shortlist — all free (or free-to-start) and genuinely good. AI marks the AI-in-the-classroom ones.

🍎 Apple · Swift / SwiftUI / SpriteKit

Hacking with Swift — "Crashy Plane"Paul Hudson's free step-by-step Flappy-style SpriteKit game.
Kodeco — SpriteKit for BeginnersPolished 2D game tutorials (ex-raywenderlich).
Apple — Develop in Swift TutorialsApple's own beginner Swift/SwiftUI path + teacher guides.
Swift PlaygroundLearn Swift by making, on iPad or Mac.

🎮 Game engines (bigger / cross-platform)

Unity LearnFree official pathways — incl. the runner template used in Lane C.
Godot — Your First 2D GameFree, open-source, beginner-friendly engine.
GDevelopNo-code, browser-based game maker — great for classrooms.
GameDev.tvHighly-rated Unity & Godot courses.

🧩 Beginner & K–8 creative coding

Scratch (MIT)The classic block-based game maker for younger students.
MakeCode ArcadeMake retro games with blocks or JavaScript.
Code.orgCS Fundamentals + Game Lab, full lesson plans.
PICO-8Tiny "fantasy console" — constraints spark creativity.

🎓 Free courses & channels

Harvard CS50 — Intro to Game DevelopmentRigorous, free, project-based university course.
The Coding TrainJoyful creative-coding videos & challenges.
Brackeys (YouTube)Beloved beginner Unity & Godot tutorials.
Digital Technologies Hub (AU)ACARA-aligned lesson plans & units for teachers.

🎨 Teaching game design (mechanics & aesthetics)

Game Maker's ToolkitMark Brown's superb free video essays on why games work — the best classroom starting point.
The Art of Game Design — Deck of LensesJesse Schell's definitive book & free "lenses" app for interrogating any design.
The MDA Framework (PDF)Mechanics → Dynamics → Aesthetics: the classic model for talking about game feel.
Extra Credits — Game DesignShort, student-friendly explainers on core design concepts.

🤖 AI in the classroom

Experience AI AIFree lessons from the Raspberry Pi Foundation & Google DeepMind (ages 11–14).
Day of AI AIFree K–12 AI-literacy curriculum from MIT RAISE.
TeachAI AIGuidance & policy toolkits for AI in schools.
Claude for Education AIAnthropic's resources & guidance for classroom use.

Appendix · The Xcode interface

You can build a whole game only ever pressing ▶ Run — but the first time you open Xcode it's a lot of buttons. Here's a friendly map of the bits you'll actually touch, and what everything else does when you get curious.

1 · The toolbar (across the top)

👆A real Xcode window — tap to enlarge. The numbers match the table below. (This is Lane A: the Claude Agent panel on the left is actually building the game.)

#	Control	Shortcut	What it does
1	▶ Run	⌘R	Builds your game and launches it on the chosen destination. This is the button you'll press most — it's the "play it" button.
2	■ Stop	⌘.	Stops the app that's currently running. (That's Command + the full-stop key.)
3	Scheme	—	What Xcode builds — your app. Usually just your game's name; leave it as it is.
4	Run destination	—	Where it runs: a Simulator (e.g. iPhone 16 Pro) or a real iPhone/iPad plugged in. Click to pick one.
5	Status / activity	—	The strip in the middle narrates what Xcode is doing — “Building…”, “Build Succeeded”, or a red error count you can click to jump straight to the problem.
6	✦ Intelligence	—	Opens Xcode's built-in AI coding assistant — this is where Claude lives. See below.
7	Panel toggles	⌘0 · ⌥⌘0 · ⇧⌘Y	Show/hide the Navigator (file list, left · ⌘0), the Inspectors (settings, right · ⌥⌘0) and the Debug area (console, bottom · ⇧⌘Y).

2 · Handy menu actions

Action	Where / shortcut	What it does
Build	⌘B	Compiles the app without running it — a quick way to check everything still builds.
Run without building	⌃⌘R	Relaunches the last build instantly, skipping the compile step.
Clean Build Folder	⇧⌘K	Throws away all the built files. The classic “turn it off and on again” when Xcode gets stuck — the next build starts fresh.
Archive	Product ▸ Archive	Makes a distributable build and opens it in the Organizer, ready to send to the App Store or TestFlight. Greyed out unless the destination is a real device or “Any iOS Device”.
Settings	⌘,	Xcode's preferences — including the Intelligence pane where you connect Claude.

3 · ✦ The Intelligence button — where Claude lives

Xcode 26's Coding Intelligence is its built-in AI. Open Settings (⌘,) ▸ Intelligence, and under Agents tap Get next to Claude Agent — then sign in to a Claude.ai account or add an Anthropic API key. An agent can edit your files, build and run the project, read what your SwiftUI Preview shows, and fix its own errors — the exact loop Lane A relies on (that's what's happening on the left of screenshot #1 above). There's also a Chat section (Claude Sonnet & Opus) for straight question-and-answer. The agentic Claude Agent needs Xcode 26.3 or later.

4 · The Simulator

The Simulator is a pretend iPhone (or iPad) running on your Mac. Press ▶ Run with a simulated destination and your game opens right here — no real device needed.

In the Simulator	How	What it does
Home screen	⇧⌘H	Pops out of your game to the simulated home screen — same as pressing Home.
Rotate	⌘← / ⌘→	Turns the device left or right, so you can test landscape.
Screenshot	⌘S	Saves a picture of the screen to your Desktop (handy for the App Store).
Start fresh	Device ▸ Erase All Content and Settings	Resets the simulated phone to factory — clears saved scores, settings, everything.
Pick / add a device	Toolbar destination menu · Window ▸ Devices and Simulators	Choose which iPhone/iPad model to simulate, or add more.
Good to know	—	It isn't a real phone: no camera, no App Store, and speed & timing differ. Always test on a real device before you ship.

5 · The Organizer window

Open it with Window ▸ Organizer. It's where the builds you Archive collect, and where you keep an eye on how a shipped app is doing out in the world.

Tab	What's in it
Archives	Every build you've Archived. Pick one and hit Distribute App to upload to App Store Connect / TestFlight, or Validate App to pre-check it first.
Crashes	Crash reports from real users (once you've shipped), grouped by cause so you can see what to fix.
Hangs	Moments where real users' apps froze or stuttered.
Metrics	Battery use, launch time, memory and more, measured from actual devices in the field.
Feedback	Comments and screenshots your TestFlight testers send in.

🧭Most of this is for “someday”. To just build and play, you only need ▶ Run (#1) and the Simulator. Archive, the Organizer and distribution only matter when you're ready to put a game on the real App Store.