How to Make a Platformer With AI (Step-by-Step)
Make a platformer with AI in minutes: hero and mechanic, jump feel, levels, juice, playtest, publish — the complete beginner walkthrough.
Jabali Team
Aug 7, 2026
6 min read
How to Make a Platformer With AI (Step-by-Step, Playable in Minutes)
Quick answer: To make a platformer with AI: (1) prompt a hero with one signature mechanic ("a fox who can't stop running"), (2) tune jump feel above everything — gravity, coyote time, jump buffering, (3) generate three levels that teach, test, and then challenge the mechanic, (4) add juice (dust, squash-and-stretch, sounds), (5) playtest and iterate, (6) publish. With an AI game maker like Jabali Studio the first playable version takes minutes; the craft is in the tuning, which this walkthrough teaches step by step.
Why a platformer is the perfect first game
Platformers are the genre where game feel is most of the experience — which makes them the best teacher in game design. A platformer with great jump feel and three levels is more fun than a 40-hour RPG with dead controls. Celeste began as a three-day jam prototype; Hollow Knight was born at a Ludum Dare jam. The genre forgives small scope and rewards polish — exactly the shape a first project should have.
Step 1: Prompt the hero and the signature mechanic
Give your AI game maker a hero, a constraint, and one twist — not a feature list:
"A 2D pixel-art platformer: a mail-carrying fox who can't stop running. Slide and throw are the only two player verbs. Windy canyon setting, sunset palette."
Why this works: one mechanic (auto-run) forces interesting level design, two verbs keep controls learnable in seconds, and the constraint gives the AI (and you) a clear design spine. In Jabali Studio, Bali returns a playable hero in minutes — run, slide, throw, camera, collisions — which is when the real platformer work begins.
Step 2: Tune the jump (this is 60% of a platformer)
Ask any platformer designer what matters and they'll say the same word: feel. The four invisible ingredients:
| Ingredient | What it is | Target feel |
|---|---|---|
| Coyote time | Grace period to still jump after leaving a ledge | 0.08–0.15s — players should never feel "robbed" |
| Jump buffering | A jump pressed just before landing still fires | 0.1s — makes controls feel "tight" instantly |
| Variable jump height | Release jump early = shorter hop | Essential for precision play |
| Gravity ratio | Fall faster than you rise | Snappy, arcade feel (floaty = cheap) |
With AI production, each of these is a sentence: "Add coyote time, make falls 1.4× faster than rises." Play after every change. You'll know the jump is right when you stop thinking about the jump — when the controller disappears and you're just being the fox.
Design insight — juice first, content second: The cheapest fun in games is feedback. Before building level two, add: landing dust, a 2-frame squash on landing, a stretch at jump apex, a soft fwip on throw, and a 60ms hit-stop on impacts. Players rate games with juice as "more polished" than games with ten times the content and none. This is why Celeste — a game about climbing one mountain — feels infinite. Spend your first hour on feel; it pays back the entire project.
Step 3: Build three levels: teach → test → challenge
The platformer difficulty curve that never fails:
- Level 1 (teach): Safe pits, generous platforms. Introduce one idea at a time — the slide, then the throw, then both together. No text: teach by placement (a gap that requires sliding teaches sliding).
- Level 2 (test): Combine taught ideas with mild pressure — moving platforms, a timer, wind gusts. Difficulty should make players retry, not restart.
- Level 3 (challenge): The exam: remix every idea with consequences. End with a moment that feels like mastery (a fast descent where every skill fires in sequence) rather than a boss with more HP.
Prompt these as design intents, not just "make level 2 harder": "Level 2 tests sliding under wind pressure; add moving platforms over safe ground; keep checkpoints every 30 seconds." Bali builds levels as structured game content — placement, hazards, checkpoints — so difficulty edits are surgical ("move the third checkpoint earlier") instead of rebuilds.
Step 4: Enemies and hazards that teach, not annoy
- One behavior per enemy. Patroler, jumper, spitter — readable in one look. Composite enemies confuse; families of simple enemies combine beautifully.
- Telegraph everything. A 0.3s wind-up before an attack is the difference between "fair" and "cheap."
- Hazards are level design, not decoration. Spikes should guard something worth wanting (a shortcut, a collectible) — risk without reward is just rudeness.
Step 5: Playtest, then publish
Watch three people play. Note where they die twice in the same spot (your fault, not theirs), where they put the game down (your pacing's fault), and where they smile (do more of that). Fix, regenerate, re-watch. Then ship: itch.io and Jabali.ai are instant and free; Steam costs $100 and rewards wishlists (open the page weeks before launch). Platformers are the best-performing beginner genre on itch.io because they're instantly understandable in a GIF — make that your capsule art strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can AI make a full platformer game? A: Yes — hero, movement, camera, collisions, enemies, levels, UI, and assets. The AI handles implementation; your job is tuning feel and level design, which is where platformers are won. First playable: minutes; polished three-level game: days of iteration.
Q: What makes a platformer "feel good"? A: Jump tuning: coyote time (~0.1s), jump buffering, variable jump height, and faster falls than rises — plus juice (landing squash, dust, sound). Players can't name these, but they feel every one of them. A platformer with great feel and three levels beats a long one with floaty controls.
Q: How many levels should a first platformer have? A: Three to five, each with one new idea. A tight three-level game that teaches, tests, and challenges is a complete experience — and it's the scope a first-timer can actually finish and polish.
Q: Pixel art or HD art for a first platformer? A: Pixel art. It's faster to produce, more forgiving of AI generation quirks, beloved by the platformer audience, and it ages well. HD 2D is beautiful but multiplies asset and animation work.
Sources
- Jabali.ai product documentation: platformer production workflow, pose/animation tooling, level iteration.
- Public postmortems and press: Celeste jam origins; Hollow Knight's Ludum Dare origin (Team Cherry, 2013).
- Industry-standard platformer feel parameters (coyote time, jump buffering) as documented across GDC talks and design literature.