A Rock and a Hard Place
Tilt the board to roll a rock into the leak before the village floods, without knocking the villagers over.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 3, 2026.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- Play free — itch.ioitch.ioReleasedFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Browser (no download) · itch.io
About A Rock and a Hard Place
A short physics puzzle game played in the browser: you tilt a board to steer a rock into the leak of a flooding village, trading speed against keeping the villagers on their feet. There are 10 villages across meadow, snowfield, desert and night settings, and the last four add a second rock. The developer, hf-doodle-studio, says on the itch.io page that Claude Code was used for the design conversation, writing the code, debugging and the automated test suite; graphics are drawn in code with the Canvas API and sound is made at runtime with the Web Audio API. It is free to play on itch.io.
How it was built
Partially verifiedThe "Tools used" section of the itch.io page credits Claude Code (Anthropic) with the design conversation, writing the code, debugging and the automated test suite, plus a playtest harness used to balance the stages. No model version is named. The itch.io AI disclosure ticks Code, Graphics, Sounds and Text; the page explains that the graphics are drawn in code with the Canvas API and the sound is synthesized at runtime, with no AI image, music or voice tools.
Plain HTML and JavaScript with no engine. Claude Code wrote and debugged the code and built the automated tests. Graphics are drawn in code with the HTML5 Canvas API; audio is synthesized at runtime with the Web Audio API; system fonts only.
- Engine / framework
- None (plain HTML and JavaScript)
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- Not disclosed
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Claude Code (Anthropic) — design conversation, writing the code, debugging, the automated test suite (#test)”Verification notes: AI use, tools, platform, status, languages and rating from the itch.io page; jam placement from the official jam results page. The itch.io page shows no publish date, so no release date is recorded. The jam placement rests on a single rating and is not treated as a popularity signal.
Development history
- August 2026
Entered in the [CLAUDE & CODEX] Coding Jam 2026 (submission window 7–14 August 2026); also entered in AI Browser Game Jam 4 and All Tools Allowed — A Critics Arcade AI Game Jam.
- August 2026
Ranked 1st overall in the [CLAUDE & CODEX] Coding Jam 2026 results with a score of 4.000 from a single rating.
Officialitch.io
Game performance
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itch.io
Not publicly available: Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
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No player reviews yet.
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Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Rock and a Hard Place on itch.io itch.io | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| [CLAUDE & CODEX] Coding Jam 2026 — results itch.io | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
