Pink Monster Hero A game from when I was 13

Finished the platformer I started in Game Maker at 13, seventeen years later, with Claude Code.

2 min read

Pinko mid-jump between floating platforms, past coins and a stunned mushroom, towards the open portal

Pink Monster Hero is a tiny platformer: jump across the platforms, collect every coin, and a portal opens to the next level. I started it at 13 in Game Maker and called it Jumping Monster. The idea was ultra simple, platforms, coins and one pink monster, and my coding knowledge was ultra limited, so it never got finished. Seventeen years later I got bored one day, the memory came back, and it became one of my first projects in Claude Code.

Client
Pink Monster Hero
Role
Designer
Team
Solo, with Claude Code
Timeline
2008 – 2025

01

Play it

Pick a monster, collect the coins and stomp the mushrooms. Arrow keys or WASD to move, Space to jump, and jump again in the air for a double jump. Hold Shift to sprint.

Arrows or WASD to move · Space to jump · Esc to leave

Every level is generated: eight platforms in three layers, six to eight coins, one power-up and two mushrooms. There’s no ending. Levels just keep coming, and the game remembers your level for next time.

02

Jumping Monster

I drew everything in Windows Paint on my grandparents’ PC, because they had a printer. I remember zooming in as far as Paint would go to draw a big monster. When I printed it, it was about 3 mm tall. Nothing from then survived, only the memory.

A Paint drawing of the pink monster zoomed to 800%, and the printed sheet with the same monster about 3 mm tall under a loupe
A reconstruction made in 2026. The originals are gone.

The game now uses free assets that are very close to my original ideas. The original was never pixel art; my drawings were far too bad for that. Claude added the sounds.

From Jumping Monster to Pink Monster Hero
17 years

Not everything made it. Leaderboards, more levels, bigger levels and more mechanics are still waiting. Maybe again in 15 years.

03

Feel like 13

I tuned everything by hand: the animations, the movement, the platforms. I just wanted the game to feel like my memories of being 13. The jump force went back and forth between 600 and 700 several times before it stayed.

Walk and sprint
200 and 400. Hold Shift or double-tap a direction to sprint at twice the speed.
Jump
600, and a double jump in the air at 65% of the force.
Power-up
20% faster and higher for three seconds, and the mushrooms can’t hurt you.

The mushroom took the longest. Stomp it once and it’s stunned, stomp it again and it’s gone. The code kept not working correctly: each time I thought I was there, I found a new bug.

Idle and run
It waits, then patrols its platform.
Stun
The first stomp stuns it for three seconds, and you can push it.
Gone
The second stomp kills it, for 50 points.
A mushroom running, a stunned one with Pinko coming down on it, and a flattened one for +50
Pinko, Owlet and Dude on three platforms with their lines from the character select, Pinko picked

04

Looking back

It gave me a moment of feeling 13 again, making a useless piece of stuff, and it was so much fun. Having Claude as a buddy made it a very different experience: I could focus on the creative stuff while my buddy did the tech.

The characters, tiles and music are free asset packs. The game runs on Kaboom.js.

More case studies

munzar.dan@gmail.com

Open mail app

Interested in working together? I’d love to hear about your project or team.