Games · Breakthrough Workflows
Max Blade turned his livestream chat into a game studio. Then 50 players joined Kong Royale.
Working with Claude Opus 5.5, a fleet of coding agents and ideas from his audience, Blade built a 3D browser battle royale in three weeks—and brought the community together to play it.
Reporting updated Oct 19, 2026
From the creator
Max Blade's original Kong Royale launch post and gameplay video describing the creator's hive-coding workflow.View original post on X ↗
THE TAKEAWAY
Max Blade has done something remarkable with Kong Royale. He used AI coding agents to build an ambitious multiplayer game, invited his livestream audience to help shape its development, and brought 50 real players together in full online matches. The process, which he calls hive coding, offers a fascinating glimpse of how individual creators could build games with an entire community participating in the creative process.
WHAT HAPPENED
Imagine opening a game-development livestream and finding dozens of people suggesting what should happen next. Someone wants a new vehicle. Someone else has an idea for combat. Another viewer spots something that needs fixing.
Now imagine AI agents collecting those suggestions, reviewing the possibilities and working through the night to turn them into a playable build.
That is the experiment behind Kong Royale.
Max Blade, a YouTuber, developer and creator of the AI coding workspace CNVS, spent roughly three weeks building a 3D battle royale starring heavily armed gorillas. Players fight across a sprawling island, scramble for weapons, drive vehicles and try to survive against dozens of other players.
There are helicopters, a tuk-tuk, banana-themed weapons and plenty of chaotic multiplayer combat.
The game runs in a browser using Three.js. Blade says Claude Opus 5.5 did the programming work, supported by multiple AI coding agents operating through his development setup.
But rather than direct every iteration alone, he brought his livestream viewers into the process.
Their ideas became prompts. The agents worked through changes. Blade reviewed the results and kept developing the game in public.
On October 15, it was time to see whether the experiment could actually support a crowd.
Blade opened Kong Royale for a live community playtest. Multiple 50-player matches filled up, turning the project from a promising AI-assisted prototype into a shared multiplayer event.
According to Blade, the game supported in-game voice chat, reconnection after players dropped out and real-time combat across the island. He reported strong performance during the event, although those measurements have not been independently benchmarked.
The island is currently closed while the next update is prepared.
WHY IT MATTERS
The most exciting part of Kong Royale is not simply that AI wrote the code.
AI-assisted game prototypes are becoming increasingly common. Some look beautiful but never become playable. Others demonstrate an impressive mechanic without the systems needed to support a real game.
Kong Royale takes the idea further.
A multiplayer battle royale needs an enormous amount of supporting technology: player movement, networking, synchronization, vehicles, combat, reconnecting after disconnections and enough performance to keep dozens of players together in one world.
For a small team, those requirements can consume months before the creative work even begins to feel like a game.
Blade used AI agents to attack that production workload while maintaining a constant feedback loop with the people who wanted to play.
That second part may be the more interesting development.
Traditionally, a developer builds something, releases a demo and waits for feedback. With hive coding, the process becomes a conversation. The creator, community and agents can keep moving through ideas, implementation and testing as the game takes shape.
It does not eliminate the need for good creative direction. Quite the opposite. With more ideas arriving and more code being produced, deciding what belongs in the game becomes increasingly important.
Kong Royale also shows why a playable release matters. Blade's claims about the development process are impressive, but seeing full lobbies gives the experiment a tangible outcome.
HOW HIVE CODING WORKS
One creator directs the game.
Blade establishes the creative direction, tests the experience and decides what to pursue. He remains responsible for bringing the pieces together.
The community contributes ideas.
Livestream viewers suggest features, improvements and fixes, making the audience an ongoing part of development rather than waiting for a finished release.
Coding agents do the implementation.
Blade describes running roughly 20 agents overnight, with separate workers and reviewers handling changes. An earlier intensive build involved 24 sub-agents working for 12 hours.
Real players test the results.
Instead of relying on a polished trailer, the team put the game through full multiplayer matches, giving the creator and community a working experience to evaluate.
The audience helped dream up the game. The agents helped build it. Then the audience came back to play.
VEYR ANGLE
What makes Kong Royale memorable is the relationship between the creator and his community.
Blade did not simply ask an AI model to make a battle royale and disappear until it finished. He turned development into something people could watch, contribute to and eventually participate in.
That opens up an intriguing possibility for independent creators.
Imagine a filmmaker developing a series with an audience that helps shape ideas between episodes, or a game developer inviting players to help design a world as AI agents handle much of the technical production.
The creator still needs taste, judgment and a clear vision. But the distance between an idea, a working version and an audience response can become much shorter.
Kong Royale is still an early project, and its long-term future remains to be seen. What Blade and his community have already accomplished is exciting enough.
They built something together, filled the lobbies and played.
