Nightshade Mercenaries
A Traditional Chinese tactics card game on an 8×8 board where every mercenary moves like its own chess piece; the solo developer says Claude Code wrote almost all of the code.
Official site qkangber.itch.io, verified Nov 3, 2026. Linked as the online trial from the developer's own blog post and from the portfolio on aiqkangber.com; the itch.io author is qkangber.
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.ioReleased · itch.io status: Released. Browser (HTML5) build, single player against the computer only; first load is about 72 MB and the developer recommends a desktop browser. The developer calls it an online trial ahead of an Android releaseFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Browser (no download) · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Nightshade Mercenaries
A single-player tactics card game that runs in the browser. On an 8×8 board each side fields 16 pieces drawn from 16 mercenary types, and every type has its own chess-variant movement: a royal guard that can move two squares on its first move, a crab that moves three sideways and one forward, archers that need a friendly piece on the line between them and the target. Your hand is not built by hand: the 35 skill cards come from the pieces you bring, and lose their cards when those pieces die. Each turn gives 8 action points for moving, attacking and playing cards, and holding the crystal tiles in the centre adds more. You win by destroying the enemy's castle (300 HP) or killing their commander, who moves like a chess queen. The computer opponent uses a look-ahead search with a scoring table, not a language model, and the developer says it cannot see the secret orders you seal on your commander. The solo developer, Q kangber, built it in Godot 4.7 and says Claude Code wrote almost all of the code; portraits and some card art came from GPT image generation and the music from Suno. Free on itch.io with no purchases or ads; the text and interface are in Traditional Chinese. Online play works only in the native builds, and an Android version was waiting on Google Play's closed-test requirement.
How it was built
VerifiedIn the developer's blog post on the game, Q kangber writes that almost all of the code was written by Claude Code, and that most of the developer's own time went into explaining what the developer wanted clearly enough that the AI would not misunderstand, and then judging whether the result played right. The split of the work, as listed: Claude Code implemented the rules the developer described, and the developer play-tested and reported problems; the engine is Godot 4.7 with GDScript; the interface, lighting and effects are generated in code; portraits and some card art were made with GPT image generation and cropped by hand; music came from Suno; sound effects were synthesised from waveforms in Python. Before starting, the developer wrote a project guide for the AI and a design notes file (which grew to 2,900 lines) that every new session reads first, and set a rule that the AI decides small, reversible parameters itself but stops to ask about design direction. The project has more than 800 tests. The developer asked Claude whether the computer opponent should call a language model and kept a traditional search instead; no AI runs in the game. No model version is named and no exact code share is given.
- DeveloperThe itch.io AI disclosure ticks AI Assisted: Code, Graphics, Sounds and Text. — itch.io
- DeveloperThe developer's portfolio says the game was built with Claude Code and Godot, with the rules first written as data and then implemented by the AI. — Q kangber (aiqkangber.com)
Solo project in Godot 4.7 (GDScript). The developer described rules, Claude Code implemented them, and the developer play-tested and reported back; a project guide for the AI and a design notes file carried decisions across sessions. Balance weights for the computer opponent were tuned with a self-play arena (32 games per comparison), which the developer later judged too noisy to trust single results from. Art from GPT image generation, music from Suno, sound effects synthesised in Python. The web build is a Godot HTML5 export; online play uses ENet over UDP, so it is only available in native builds.
- Engine / framework
- Godot 4.7
- Languages
- GDScript
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer ReportedQ kangber (aiqkangber.com)
- Initial build time
- 5 days from an empty project to online play (developer's portfolio)Developer ReportedQ kangber (aiqkangber.com)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“程式碼幾乎都是 Claude Code 寫的，我花最多時間的地方是把「我到底想要什麼」講到 AI 不會誤解”- 戰棋卡牌《夜影傭兵團》開放線上試玩 x Claude Code 做遊戲心得分享 (developer's blog)
- Trailer (YouTube, linked from the developer's blog)
Verification notes: The AI-coding claim, team size, tools and build details come from the developer's own blog post (17 Sep 2026; republished on vocus on 18 Sep 2026), which links the itch.io page as the online trial; the portfolio on the same site gives the 5-day build time and also links the itch.io page. The developer says almost all of the code, not all of it, was written by Claude Code, so no code share is recorded. Free, no purchases, no ads, single player only in the browser, the 72 MB first load and the Traditional Chinese interface come from the itch.io page; itch.io shows the status Released but no publication date, so no release date is recorded. The computer opponent is a look-ahead search with a scoring table, not a language model. The itch.io page says the background music is separately licensed for commercial use; the blog says the first tracks were made on Suno's free plan and would be regenerated under a subscription. Online play and the Android build (waiting for Google Play's 12-tester, 14-day closed test) were not checked. The portfolio speaks of playing online with friends, while the blog describes LAN play in the Android build. Location is not stated.
Development history
The developer announces the online trial on itch.io in a blog post about making the game with Claude Code.
DeveloperQ kangber (aiqkangber.com)The same post is republished on vocus.
Developervocus (qkangber)
Game performance
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itch.io
Free, with no in-app purchases and no ads, per the itch.io page and the developer's blog.
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Not publicly available: itch.io rating, Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
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Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 戰棋卡牌《夜影傭兵團》開放線上試玩 x Claude Code 做遊戲心得分享 Q kangber (aiqkangber.com) · Chinese (Traditional) | Devlog | Sep 17, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| 戰棋卡牌《夜影傭兵團》開放線上試玩 x Claude Code 做遊戲心得分享 (vocus) vocus (qkangber) · Chinese (Traditional) | Devlog | Sep 18, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| 作品集 — Q kangber Q kangber (aiqkangber.com) · Chinese (Traditional) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| 夜影傭兵團 Nightshade Mercenaries by qkangber itch.io · Chinese (Traditional) | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Official game page (language check) qkangber (itch.io) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
