Carrier Hunter
Free · play online in your browser, no download
The school sea-battle game set in 1942: send air strikes into open sea, read the scout reports and find the enemy carrier first.
Official site grandpas-game-lab.itch.io, verified Nov 3, 2026. The developer's own itch.io page, linked from the developer's itch.io profile.
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- Play free — itch.ioitch.ioReleasedFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Browser (no download) · Mobile · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Carrier Hunter
A free browser take on the classic sea-battle game, set on a map of the real Coral Sea in 1942 (the developer notes it is not a reconstruction of the battle). Your carrier group and the enemy's are far beyond each other's horizon; you send air strikes into sectors of open water and read the scout reports, every miss stays on the map and every hit is a clue, and fleets sail around their sectors between turns. Classic mode allows one attack per turn; Tactical mode adds a loadout of abilities (sonar, scouting, salvo, torpedo, smoke, evasive manoeuvre and repairs) and defending during the opponent's turn. A hard option lets ships sail through old misses, and there are three board sizes. Play against the bot or online against other people, by quick match or by sending a friend a link; it runs on a computer or a phone in portrait and can be added to the home screen. Free, with no ads and no accounts. The itch.io page says the code was written by AI models, Claude Code and Codex, under the direction of one human designer; the 3D ship models were made with Tripo AI from images made with ChatGPT, and the radio voices and sound effects with ElevenLabs. Built with Three.js; in English and Polish.
How it was built
Partially verifiedThe itch.io page's “Made with AI” section says: “Code written by AI models (Claude Code and Codex) under the direction of one human designer.” The launch devlog adds: “I designed the game, and AI models wrote the code.” On the developer's itch.io profile the developer writes that they invent the game and the rules, and their models (“Claude Code, Codex, Astra 6”) translate it into code and play test rounds that find holes in the rules. The split between Claude Code and Codex is not given.
- DeveloperLaunch devlog: “I designed the game, and AI models wrote the code.” — itch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab)
Named with Claude Code as one of the two AI models that wrote the code (“Code written by AI models (Claude Code and Codex)”). How the work was split is not stated.
- DeveloperDeveloper's itch.io profile: “my models - Claude Code, Codex, Astra 6 - translate what I invented into code”. — itch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab)
One human designer invents the rules and directs; per the developer, AI models (Claude Code and Codex) write the code and also play test rounds to find holes in the rules. The game is rendered live with Three.js; the 3D ship models were generated with Tripo AI from images made with ChatGPT, and radio voices and sound effects with ElevenLabs. Music by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0), visual-effect flipbooks from Unity Labs (CC0), smoke lighting textures by Thomas Iché (MIT), sound effects from Freesound (CC0) and coastlines from Natural Earth (public domain). Online matches run through a game server. In a separate devlog experiment, Claude Code and Codex played a full match against each other from the rulebook alone; that was outside the game, and the in-game bot is a conventional opponent.
- Engine / framework
- Three.js
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer Reporteditch.io
- Initial build time
- Not disclosed
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“I designed the game, and AI models wrote the code.”- Carrier Hunter is out (itch.io devlog)
- Claude Code and Codex played Carrier Hunter against each other (itch.io devlog)
Verification notes: AI use from the itch.io page (“Code written by AI models (Claude Code and Codex) under the direction of one human designer”), the launch devlog (“I designed the game, and AI models wrote the code”) and the developer's itch.io profile, all re-read on 8 Nov 2026. Claude Code is listed first because the page names it first; no split is given. Astra 6, named on the profile, is not a tool tracked on this site. Developer: Grandpa's Game Lab is the name of one person who writes in the first person on the profile (“I invent the game”, “I build small games”) and on the page (“one human designer”), so team size is recorded as one; no personal name or location is stated on the developer's pages (the devlog links a GitHub account with match logs, not used for identity). The same developer also lists SCRIBE: THE ONE. Runtime check: the game script calls only the developer's game server (on Railway) for online play and links reference pages (Wikipedia, US Navy history and similar); it contains no AI service addresses (checked 8 Nov 2026). The devlog's match between Claude Code and Codex was an outside experiment given the rulebook, with prompts and answers published separately; no AI plays in the game. itch.io: published 2 Nov 2026, 05:53 UTC, status Released, HTML5, Three.js, English and Polish, server-based multiplayer; AI disclosure: AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Sounds, Text; no rating or download count shown. The setting is the real Coral Sea in 1942 without depicting the actual battle; the combat is abstract grid strikes, so no maturity notice. The game was not played.
Development history
Published on itch.io (05:53 UTC) with a launch devlog saying AI models wrote the code.
Devlog: Claude Code and Codex play a full match of the game against each other from the rulebook alone, as an outside experiment.
Developeritch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab)
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.
itch.io
Free in the browser with no ads or accounts, on a computer or a phone (portrait); online play uses the developer's game server, and donations help pay for it.
No public metrics recorded for this listing.
Not publicly available: itch.io rating, Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrier Hunter by Grandpa's Game Lab itch.io | Store page | Nov 2, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Carrier Hunter is out itch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab) | Devlog | Nov 2, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Claude Code and Codex played Carrier Hunter against each other itch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab) | Devlog | Nov 2, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Grandpa's Game Lab — itch.io profile (Why I code with AI) itch.io (Grandpa's Game Lab) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
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