Catnip Wars
Up to four Catbots build turrets, walls and windmills on a hex grid and hold a catnip farm against waves of monsters. The developer says Claude Code writes the back-end code.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 7, 2026.
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- View on SteamSteamReleased$9.99
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Desktop · Steam
About Catnip Wars
Catnip Wars is a co-op tower defense game for one to four players on Windows. You and your friends are Catbots defending a catnip farm from waves of alien monsters: place turrets, mortars, walls, catnip farms, windmills and repair stations anywhere on a hex grid, claim new sectors as the farm grows, and balance the economy, since farms grow catnip and windmills power the turrets. There are 14 monster types including elites and boss Necros, an adaptive director that raises the pressure when you hold well, a BFG you can man for the big waves, a 43-node tech tree, more than 11 playable Catbots, a sandbox mode and 100 Steam achievements with global leaderboards. Runs last 5 to 30 minutes and save every wave; play is solo or online co-op through Steam invites. The developer, Ender Knight, says that after downloading Unity in May 2026 they wired Claude Code into the project so it writes all the back-end code, while they did the game design and the art; the Steam AI disclosure adds that AI tools helped produce some 3D models and other assets, and that no AI generates content while the game runs. It was released on Steam on 27 Aug 2026 for $9.99, with a free demo.
Screenshots and art
Catnip Wars key art · Steam store artwork
How it was built
Partially verifiedOn the developer's site (Part 3 of the story page, dated 21 Oct 2026) the developer writes that they downloaded Unity on 23 May 2026, “figured out how to wire Claude Code into the project so it writes all the back-end code”, and networked other computers to do the compiling, testing and debugging, which left the developer doing “the game design and the art”. The page's summary of how the games are made reads: “Code: Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding agent, wired into the Unity project. It writes the back end.” The developer describes making games “with an AI writing the code I used to think needed a team of two hundred”.
- DeveloperVideo description (21 Oct 2026): “In May 2026 I downloaded Unity and Claude Code, figured out how to wire the AI into Unity to write all the back-end code, and did what I actually love: the game design and the art.” — YouTube (Motis_GameDev)
Made in Unity 6 by one developer, per the developer: Claude Code is wired into the Unity project and writes the back-end code, other computers on the home network do the compiling, testing and debugging, and the developer does the game design, the art direction and the play-testing. The Steam AI disclosure says AI tools were used to help produce some 3D models and other assets during development, under the developer's direction, and that no AI generates content while the game is running. The developer says the game went from downloading Unity on 23 May 2026 to Steam in August, about three months. The “adaptive director” on the store page is game logic that adjusts the waves, not a generative AI service.
- Engine / framework
- Unity
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer Reportedmotis.games (Ender Knight)
- Initial build time
- About three months (Unity downloaded 23 May 2026; on Steam 27 Aug 2026)Developer Reportedmotis.games (Ender Knight)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Code: Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding agent, wired into the Unity project. It writes the back end.”- Truck driver to Steam game dev in three months, with Claude Code and Unity (motis.games)
- I Made a Steam Game in 3 Months With No Team (YouTube)
Verification notes: AI use from Part 3 of the story page on motis.games (dated 21 Oct 2026, with a transcript of the video) and the description of the developer's YouTube video of 21 Oct 2026 (read through YouTube's own data on 7 Nov 2026; the video's title has changed over time and now reads “I Made a Steam Game in 3 Months With No Team. Here's How (Claude Code + Unity)”). The developer says Claude Code writes “all the back-end code” and that the developer does the design and art; no share of AI-written code is stated, so none is recorded. Features, price, release date (27 Aug 2026), platform, languages and the AI disclosure from the Steam store page and store API on 7 Nov 2026; the demo app (5501880) was released on 31 Oct 2026. The developer and publisher on Steam are Ender Knight and M.O.T.I.S.; team size 1 is from the developer's description of a one-man studio. Earlier parts of the story page are personal and are not used. The developer's site catnipwars.com now presents a sequel, Catnip Wars 2: Empires (Steam app 5484370, coming soon), which is not part of this record. Steam's generated age ratings (16 in Germany, 14 in Brazil, for violence) are noted but no maturity notice is attached. The game was not played.
Development history
The developer downloads Unity and starts wiring Claude Code into the project, per the developer.
Developermotis.games (Ender Knight)Released on Steam.
OfficialSteamThe developer describes the Claude Code and Unity workflow in a video and on the studio's site.
A free demo covering the first 20 waves is released on Steam.
OfficialSteam
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.
Steam
$9.99 on the Steam store API (cc=us) on 7 Nov 2026. Windows only; online co-op needs a broadband connection. A free demo (Steam app 5501880, released 31 Oct 2026) runs up to wave 20; the main store page says it is now fully 4-player co-op, while the demo's own page still describes it as single-player.
All reviews as shown on the store page on 7 Nov 2026; Steam shows no score until a game has 10 reviews.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players, Positive Steam reviews, Estimated owners, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truck driver to Steam game dev in three months, with Claude Code and Unity (story, Part 3) motis.games (Ender Knight) | Official site | Oct 21, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| I Made a Steam Game in 3 Months With No Team. Here's How (Claude Code + Unity) YouTube (Motis_GameDev) | Social post | Oct 21, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Catnip Wars on Steam Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Catnip Wars Demo on Steam Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
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