Games

Nine custom Codex tools run an indie zombie game's entire pipeline

Game developer Nicolas Zullo treats Codex as the engine behind Zombies Per Minute. Each custom tool, like a 3D building generator, opens in a worktree and a pinned thread and gains new buttons by prompting; others localise the game in nine languages and animate procedural zombies.

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Made with
Codex, GPT-5.6 Sol
Role
Game developer
Posted
Nicolas Zullo@NicolasZu

Codex has become a real game engine... If you take the time to make it become one.

You can do EVERYTHING in it.

And I think I've cracked the perfect custom UX?

I'd like to show you how I use it. See video below

4 steps:
- Create a custom tool you need, like one to generate new buildings that matches you game art direction
- Ask Codex to open this tool in a worktree (important)
- Attach the browser view of your tool in the Thread
- Use pinned thread to have easy access to the tool

And there you go: you have what I call a "codex-augmented" tool, which it's incredibly powerful because
- the tool will speed up your development immensely
AND also:
- you can improve the tool as you use it with codex

For example, let's say I want to add a new button to my 3D building gen tool so I can generate a thumbnail of the 3D building.
- I click on "Building Lab"
- I prompt Codex "add a button to generate thumbnails"
- I have my new button
- I can use the tool right away in the pinned Thread

You can then use the /yeet skill to commit, push and create a PR with the changes you made to your tool.

I have tools for everything
- To manage my tasks in Linear
- To do content / social media / steam marketing
- To localize the game in 9 languages
- To manage sounds, musics and voice lines
- To generate and fine tune buildings
- To create and animate procedural zombies
- To tweak environnement/decor and map design
- To manage my analytics
- To simulate late game perf

I'll be honest it's incredibly powerful and easy!

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Still from the video

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