Tailout
Slot car racing on a table in an '80s basement, played with one analog trigger, solo against bots, four on one screen or online. The one-person developer says Claude Opus 5.5 wrote essentially all of the code.
Official site daddio-retro.itch.io, verified Nov 3, 2026. The developer's own itch.io page (account Daddio Retro), linked from the developer's site tailoutgame.com and in the developer's Reddit post.
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.ioEarly access · A developmental version, still being built per the itch.io page; full release on Steam and the App Store plannedFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Desktop · Browser (no download) · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Tailout
Tailout is a slot car racing game set in an '80s basement. One trigger does everything: squeeze to go, lift for the bends, and push too hard and the tail swings out and the car flies off the track, while the marshal puts it back and everyone else drives away. There are five cars, each with its own feel, to set up on the bench (gearing, tyres, magnet, guide, springs and brake) and paint with an airbrush, masking tape and stencils; ten tracks plus a track builder with banking up to 45 degrees, climbs and bridges; a Grand Prix against seven levels of bots that unlocks the next car; an arcade cabinet with ten games played with the same trigger; replays and more than 80 trophies. Up to four people play on one screen with controllers, and online rooms hold up to eight, four on the track at a time. It plays fully offline, with no ads and no tracking. The developer, Jake of the one-person studio Daddio Retro in Connecticut, a business analyst who made it on nights and weekends, says Claude Opus 5.5 wrote essentially all of the code, the art pipeline scripts and even the trailer, while the developer directed, playtested and made the calls. A name-your-own-price download on itch.io for Windows, macOS and Linux since 28 Oct 2026, in English; Steam and App Store versions are planned for the full release.
How it was built
Partially verifiedIn a post on r/aigamedev (28 Oct 2026, UTC) the developer writes: “Claude Opus 5.5 wrote essentially all of the code, the art pipeline scripts and even the trailer. I directed, playtested and made the calls to get to the final product.” The post names the model but not the Claude product. Early on the developer had Claude build Solo Queue, a project board in the project folder that Claude reads every session: each change is logged against the part of the game it touched and becomes a confirm card that only the developer's own hands-on test can close, and calls on taste, money, prices or anything public come up as decision cards with a recommendation. The trailer is assembled by code from recorded takes. What AI was bad at, the developer says, is feel: the driving and tuning took the most hands-on iteration. The itch.io page's AI disclosure ticks AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Sounds and Text.
- Developeritch.io AI disclosure: AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Sounds, Text. — itch.io
Built in Unity and C#, with a .NET server in Docker on a small VPS for online rooms with four-letter codes, per the developer, who directed and playtested while Claude wrote the code. The cars started as image-model concepts, went through Meshy image-to-3D, and Blender scripts assembled the bodies, wheels and paint masks, with a “style lock” prompt kit keeping the five cars consistent. The trailer is cut by a Python script from in-game takes, with title cards rendered as HTML in a headless browser and joined with ffmpeg.
- Engine / framework
- Unity
- Languages
- C#
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer ReportedDaddio Retro LLC
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Claude Opus 5.5 wrote essentially all of the code, the art pipeline scripts and even the trailer.”Verification notes: AI use and the workflow come from the developer's post on r/aigamedev by u/RocketGruntJake (28 Oct 2026, 20:50 UTC), read from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive because reddit.com did not answer our checks. “Essentially all of the code” is the developer's wording, so no code share is recorded; the post names the model Claude Opus 5.5 but not the product, so the tool is recorded as Claude. The tie between the post and the studio rests on the post linking the itch.io page, the itch.io page and site linking each other, and the site naming the studio's owner as Jake. Team size 1, location and release date come from the studio page and press kit on tailoutgame.com (checked 4 Nov 2026); features, platforms, file sizes, the English language field and the AI disclosure from the itch.io page (published 28 Oct 2026, 17:31 UTC; updated 3 Nov 2026, 20:58 UTC), which showed no rating. The page's browser build, titled “Tailout: Hot Lap” (version 0.1.0), is not described on the page and was not played. See the conflict on online play. Nothing in the sources describes AI used during play (the bots are game logic). The game was not played.
Development history
A devlog on the itch.io page shares an early build with a handful of friends for play-testing.
Developeritch.ioReleased on itch.io for Windows and Mac, name your own price.
The developer presents the game on r/aigamedev and says Claude Opus 5.5 wrote essentially all of the code.
DeveloperReddit (u/RocketGruntJake)
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
Name your own price (free download allowed) for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple silicon) and Linux, about 381 MB each. Per the itch.io page and press kit on 4 Nov 2026, online rooms are free too and tips keep the room server running. The page also runs a browser build titled “Tailout: Hot Lap”.
Not publicly available: itch.io rating, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nights, weekends and Claude: Tailout: basement slot car racing is live. Thoughts and processes of a first-time solo dev. (r/aigamedev) Reddit (u/RocketGruntJake) | Social post | Oct 28, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Tailout by Daddio Retro itch.io | Store page | Oct 28, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Press kit · Tailout and Daddio Retro studio page Daddio Retro LLC | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
- Online play
- The developer's post of 28 Oct 2026 says the game is free but online play unlocks with any payment on itch.io; on 4 Nov 2026 the itch.io page and the press kit said online rooms are free for everyone and tips of any amount keep the server running. (Reddit (u/RocketGruntJake), itch.io, Daddio Retro LLC)
- Platforms
- The post and the press kit name Windows and Mac for the itch.io release; the itch.io page also lists Linux and HTML5 and offers a Linux download. (Reddit (u/RocketGruntJake), Daddio Retro LLC, itch.io)
