How it all started (again)

This is the post and message I sent to my old coding partner when I kicked things off, and why I decided to bring the project back to life. Back then we were a classic two-man team: I was the designer, he was the coder.

“A few days ago I was cleaning up my computer and stumbled across Buildom. I remembered how much we loved it and how I always felt it was such a shame we never continued working on it. And what can I say — I sat down and started building a brand new Buildom with ai. It’s so much fun and all the old feelings are slowly rushing back. Recorded a quick video for you. It doesn’t look as polished as it used to back in the day, but I’m just getting started.”

That exact moment and motivation marked the beginning of rebuilding a 15-year-old dream project from scratch with modern AI workflows.

But to really understand why this moment hit so hard, you have to know where Buildom came from in the first place. Years ago I spent days and nights pixeling the world and everything in it. Every block, every item, every little detail was hand-drawn, sprite by sprite, pixel by pixel. I’d lose track of time completely, fully absorbed in bringing this tiny universe to life on screen.

The painful part? So much of that work never made it past the status of an image. I’d pour hours into a building, a character, or an animation, full of ideas for how it would behave and interact in the game, and then life, other projects, or simply the limitations of the tools at the time got in the way. The assets sat there, frozen as static pictures, never reaching the point where they’d actually become part of something playable.

That’s exactly what makes this revival so meaningful to me. With modern AI workflows, the gap between a nice picture and a living, interactive piece of a game is finally closable. All those ideas that were trapped in pixels for years now have a real chance to come alive. This time, they won’t be left behind.

If you’re into pixel art games and want to follow along with the journey, check back every now and then. I’m documenting the whole thing from day one to a playable game. I’ll share honest, behind-the-scenes insights into how it’s all coming together, and how much I’m learning along the way.