Ship a Game

Ship a Game is a blog about building games with AI assistance and modern tooling, aimed squarely at solo developers. The name is the thesis. Starting a game is easy and most people never get past it, so every post is oriented around actually finishing and publishing something.

The homepage puts it plainly. Build it, ship it, play it. That ordering matters, because the failure mode in solo game dev is not a lack of ideas, it is an unfinished prototype folder.

"AI Game Design Ideas Are Cheap. Here's What Isn't" is the post that defines the whole site. Ideas are free. Scope discipline, art consistency, and a Steam page are not.

What The Site Actually Covers

Thirteen long posts, all under a single Game Dev With AI category, split roughly into three jobs. Choosing your tools, making the assets, and getting the thing published.

On tools, there is "Best Game Engine for Beginners, From a Solo Dev" and "Godot vs Unity for Beginners, From Someone Who Ships." Both are written from the position of someone who picked one and lived with the consequences, which reads very differently from a feature comparison table.

On assets, the coverage is unusually specific about the quality problem. "Making AI Game Art That Doesn't Look Like Slop" and "AI Sprite Generator Reality Check for Solo Devs" both start from the assumption that naive AI art output is not shippable and work through what to do about it.

"AI Music for Games Without the Licensing Traps" covers the part most game dev blogs skip entirely. Generated audio has licensing questions attached, and shipping to a storefront makes those questions real.

The Shipping Track

The most useful cluster is the one about actually publishing. "How to Publish a Game on Steam and What It Costs" prices the process. "How to Make a Mobile Game and Actually Publish It" covers the store side rather than stopping at the build.

"How to Make a 2D Game and Actually Finish It" is the longest post on the site at roughly 2,500 words, and the emphasis in the title is on the second half of that sentence.

There is also a genuine beginner on-ramp. "How to Make Your First Game in Godot" and "How to Make a Game Without Coding (Real 2026 Costs)" are the two entry points, and the second one is honest enough to put costs in the title rather than pretending the no-code path is free.

Who It Is For

Solo developers and very small teams. The whole site assumes you have no art department, no audio contractor, and no producer keeping your scope honest.

Developers curious about where AI genuinely helps in a game pipeline and where it produces something you will have to redo. The art and sprite posts are direct about that line.

Beginners choosing an engine who are tired of the Godot versus Unity argument being conducted by people with strong opinions and no shipped titles.

It is less useful if you are on a funded team with specialists. Most of the advice is optimised around the constraint of one person doing every job, which is a different problem from coordinating five.

Language Coverage

Like the rest of the network, the blog is published in twelve languages with indexed paths for Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, and Vietnamese.

Given how international hobbyist game dev is, that is a meaningful difference from the typical English-only indie dev blog.

Reading It Cold

If you have not picked an engine, start with the beginners engine post and then the Godot versus Unity head to head. Those two settle the first decision.

If you have an engine and a prototype, skip to "How to Make a 2D Game and Actually Finish It," then the Steam publishing post. That pair covers the gap most solo projects die in.

If you are specifically here for AI, the art, sprite, and music posts are the three to read, and the design ideas post is the one that will save you the most time by talking you out of scope.

Where It Falls Short

Everything lives under one category, so browsing is by title rather than by topic. With thirteen posts that is manageable and it will not stay that way.

The coverage skews 2D and solo. If you are building 3D at any scale, a lot of the specific advice will not transfer.

It is also a young archive. The engine and tool posts are current for 2026, but this is a fast-moving space and a blog this size cannot refresh everything continuously.