ARES OUTPOST
Free · play online in your browser, no download
Build a fortress on Mars and hold off endless waves of alien bugs in a 50-operation campaign whose choices change the colony and its ending.
Official site coyne-studios.itch.io, verified Nov 3, 2026. Linked from the developer's own Reddit post on r/ClaudeAI and from the Coyne Studios site, which the App Store listing names as the developer's website.
Age rating: 16+
App Store age rating 16+ (US store page, 8 Nov 2026) for frequent cartoon or fantasy violence, mature or suggestive themes and guns or other weapons, and infrequent horror/fear themes; Apple's lookup data gives 17+. The itch.io page is tagged Violent. (App Store (Thomas Coyne))
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Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- View on the App StoreApp StoreReleased$1.99
Install from Apple's App Store on an iPhone or iPad.
Mobile · App Store (Thomas Coyne)
- Play free — itch.ioitch.ioEarly access · itch.io status: In development; the developer's site calls it the PC/browser development versionFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Browser (no download) · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About ARES OUTPOST
A sci-fi tower defense and base-defense strategy game set on Mars. Earth has gone silent, the first Martian settlement is exposed and the Dominion is coming. You build walls, turrets and support structures on open Martian terrain, deploy autonomous drones and tactical abilities, and play 50 campaign operations with five objective types: holding relays, extracting survivors, evacuating civilians, hunting war machines and defending the fortress. Between operations you research technology and make decisions about how the colony governs, shelters and fights; one of four political doctrines (Civic Compact, Red Bastion, ARES Accord or Carthage Underground) changes objectives, rewards, enemies and the final siege, and the campaign has twelve primary endings, with an Endless Swarm mode after Operation 50. The developer, Coyne Studios, says Claude, connected through Cursor, created everything from the artwork and the code to the marketing material over about a month of prompting and testing on and off, and later had Claude fill out the App Store forms and resubmit the app after a rejection. Made with Godot. A free PC and browser development version is on itch.io; the iPhone and iPad version is a one-time US$1.99 purchase with no ads or in-app purchases that plays offline.
How it was built
Partially verifiedIn a post on r/ClaudeAI (9 Oct 2026, UTC) titled “Claude created my dream game, and got approved for Apple iOS store!”, the developer writes: “Claude (connected through Cursor) created everything from the artwork, code, and marketing material. This took about a month of prompting and testing on and off.” The developer calls using Cursor for everything instead of a direct subscription to Claude “a huge mistake” that “costed me literally over $1000”.
Claude was the model the developer used through Cursor. The same post says the developer's current setup is “a max subscription to claude” with access to local files, which “gets most of the job done”, without naming the Claude app; with Apple's App Store Connect API connected, Claude filled out the submission forms and made the preview images, and after a first rejection the developer asked it to “Figure out why it got rejected and submit a new build”. For other assets the developer names Midjourney for images, Suno for music and Meshy for 3D models as options, without saying which were used for this game.
Made with Godot (per the itch.io page), with an HTML5 build on itch.io and an iOS app for iPhone and iPad. The developer says Claude made the artwork, code and marketing material through Cursor over about a month of part-time prompting and testing, and handled the App Store submission through Apple's API. The itch.io page lists 50 campaign operations, 32 decision scenarios with 93 choices, 173 research projects across 8 technology levels, 75 turret configurations across 16 weapon families and 53 enemy and boss definitions. All of this was made during development; the web build's loader script contains no AI service addresses (the Godot data files were not inspected).
- Engine / framework
- Godot
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- Not disclosed
- Initial build time
- About a month of prompting and testing, on and offDeveloper ReportedReddit (u/Caninetechnology)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Claude (connected through Cursor) created everything from the artwork, code, and marketing material.”Verification notes: AI use from the developer's post by u/Caninetechnology on r/ClaudeAI (9 Oct 2026, 18:31 UTC), read from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 8 Nov 2026; the developer did not reply in the comments. The post links the itch.io page. App Store details from the US store page and Apple's lookup data, and features from the Coyne Studios game page and the itch.io page, all re-read on 8 Nov 2026. The post says Claude made the code through Cursor, so Cursor is recorded as the tool and Claude as the model; the later “max subscription to claude” setup is not tied to a named Claude product. The “over $1000” Cursor cost is the developer's statement and is not recorded as a development cost. Developer: the App Store seller and copyright holder is Thomas Coyne; the App Store's developer website is coynestudios.com, which links the itch.io account coyne-studios (display name SLOP STUDIOS, linked to the X account Coyne_Studio); the Reddit post links the same itch.io page. No team size or location is stated. App Store: version 1.1.0, released 27 Sep 2026, 438.2 MB, English, “Data Not Collected”, no ratings yet; the store page shows 16+ and Apple's lookup data 17+. The itch.io page: last updated 9 Oct 2026, 18:33 UTC, status In development, HTML5, Made with Godot, tagged AI Assisted and Violent, rated 5.0 from 3 ratings (observed 8 Nov 2026); its earliest comments date from 31 Jul 2026, so a browser version was public by then. The researcher's note that art was made with Midjourney and Meshy is not confirmed: the post names them only as general options. The post had a score of 98 on Arctic Shift (observed; not a metric). The game was not played.
Development history
Earliest player comments on the itch.io page; the browser version was public by then.
Observeditch.ioReleased on the App Store for iPhone and iPad (version 1.1.0).
OfficialApp Store (Thomas Coyne)The developer posts on r/ClaudeAI that Claude, through Cursor, made the game and that it was approved for the App Store.
DeveloperReddit (u/Caninetechnology)
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
App Store (iOS)
US$1.99 one-time purchase on iPhone and iPad (iOS or iPadOS 16 or later, A12 Bionic or later), with no ads or in-app purchases; offline single-player, designed for landscape touch play. Rated 16+. Seller: Thomas Coyne.
Not publicly available: Downloads, Gross revenue.
itch.io
Free in the browser with keyboard and mouse. The developer's site says player feedback on its page comes from this version and that the iPhone and iPad app is bought separately.
Based on 3 ratings of the browser development version.
Not publicly available: Downloads, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude created my dream game, and got approved for Apple iOS store! (r/ClaudeAI) Reddit (u/Caninetechnology) | Social post | Oct 9, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| ARES OUTPOST by SLOP STUDIOS itch.io | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| ARES OUTPOST App Store (Thomas Coyne) | Store page | Sep 27, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Ares Outpost — Mars Tower Defense for iPhone & iPad Coyne Studios | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Official game page (language check) Thomas Coyne | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
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