The Alien Series

Four generations of the same little game

The same duel — a tank, a descending UFO, one shot at a time — rebuilt once per wave of AI capability. First pencilled into a school copybook in BASIC, recreated by a simple prompt, "enhanced" with claims it couldn't keep, taught to fight back and learn, and finally given a third dimension. Each page is a playable snapshot of what the technology could actually do at the time.

AI Alien

First generation · BASIC ~1982

The childhood original, recreated by a simple LLM prompt. Zig, zag, descend, repeat.

Generative AI Alien

Generative AI enhanced edition

Score, sprites, touch controls — and marketing claims the code never quite delivered.

Generative AI Alien 2

Third generation

It fights back — aimed bolts, dodge-dashes, and an honest learning algorithm.

Generative AI Alien 4

Fourth generation

The duel finds a Z axis — WebGL deep-space approach in three.js.

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