R&D breakdownP401
i2 OS 2000
A browser computer from the year 2000, a game console inside it, and a kids' OS beside it. Built by one director and a team of AI agents in 20 days.
- 127original games across the i2 GENPLAY-1 console and the PC
- 68desktop programs, plus i2 miniOS with 70+ kids' games and apps
- 4,459local ComfyUI generations: 1,577 images, 773 videos, 369 3D models, 1,740 voice and music clips
- 118Klines of game and OS code across 155 files, written by Claude Opus 5.5
- 35documented agent builds, up to 4 running at once
- 115commits in the last 3 days alone, deployed live many times a day
- 864achievements across the disc, saved locally per player
- 4players at once on USB gamepads, tested live by real kids
What was made
222box covers and game logos
88full-motion video intros, each with a 2-shot animated open and end card
115original title themes, plus 56 generated score cues and synthesized in-game scores
1706announcer and character voice lines
258 + 22rigged 3D characters and vehicle props, image-to-3D
251world textures
160back-of-box gameplay screenshots, captured by bots
10calm original tunes for i2 miniOS
Labels and lines on the disc: KAGEMORI CLASSICS Vol. 1–3 (an invented Osaka arcade maker), the i2 Quest Collection point-and-click adventures, the i2 Pinball Pack, VENTURE Ø: RED SWARM, a mature-locked horror comedy, and an OS that emails, IMs and phones the player.
20 days
- ≈ Oct 12A single-file kids' OS for the founder's son on an old laptop. It becomes i2 miniOS, white-labeled and offline.
- ≈ Oct 15–24i2 OS 99: a retro browser OS. The local ComfyUI art pipeline comes online. i2interactive.com's TV boots it on channel 4.
- Oct 25Moves to cloud agent sessions with a private repo. KAGEMORI CLASSICS begins: one agent per arcade board.
- Oct 26Renamed i2 OS 2000. 4-pad play, a full sound pass, the mature lock, OS reach-outs, an offline download, and 10 new games.
- Oct 27Adventures, the pinball pack, Vol. 3 and the PS2 model pass. A teletext channel change goes live on the main site.
- Oct 28–31A generated 3D model for every character, voices for every story game and title screen, GUARDIAN: TECHNOMANCER, RIVET HELL, phone controls, online play and the trailers.
Compute
Cloud: Claude Code cloud sessions. One lead agent plus up to 4 builder agents share a 2-CPU, 8 GB container.
Per game: each title goes from brief to a playable, tested build in days, with the director reviewing every pass.
Local GPU: one RTX 3070 Ti (8 GB), Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 32 GB RAM. No paid generation APIs.
Hosting: GitHub private repos + Vercel.
Stack
Build: Claude Code (cloud) with Claude agents. HTML, JS, three.js. Python, Pillow, numpy, trimesh, ffmpeg.
Test: Playwright and headless Chromium, with bot players and simulated gamepads.
Generate (ComfyUI): Qwen Image 2.1 Turbo, Z-Image Turbo with a PS2-graphics LoRA, Pixal3D and Trellis2, MiniMax H3 video, MiniMax Music 3.
Bridge: the Claude desktop app links the cloud session to i2's local machines, so agents drive ComfyUI there and pull the outputs back.
Ship: GitHub → Vercel (Next.js). Single HTML files for offline use.
Method
One brief, one agent, one game. A lead agent reviews, wires in, builds, tests and deploys.
Feel first: real numbers for speed, jump and hit-stop before any content.
Gates: zero page errors, screenshots reviewed by eye, difficulty tested with deliberately imperfect bots.
Originality: every invented name is web-searched. Dozens were renamed to avoid existing IP.
Fallbacks: every game runs with no AI art at all. The classic edition is pure code.
ComfyUI, by the numbers
Every cover, intro film, theme, voice and 3D model in i2 OS 2000 was made in ComfyUI on one desktop PC with local models. Counts are every file ComfyUI saved for the project from Oct 19 to Oct 31, rejected takes included. GPU times come from ComfyUI's own run log.
- 4,459generations for i2 OS 2000 in 13 days, every take kept on disk
- ~78 hof GPU time, mostly queued overnight while nobody was at the desk
- ~$14of electricity: about 31 kWh at about 400 W, at SDG&E's 45.5¢/kWh average
- $680–1,880what the same output would cost on paid generation APIs at October 2026 list prices
- 1,391jobs in the last 36 hours alone: 12.5 GPU hours measured in the log
- 8 GBof VRAM on one RTX 3070 Ti. No cloud GPUs, no paid generation APIs
- 7.1 GBof outputs, all owned and kept locally
- 50–130×cheaper per run than the API route, before the cost of the PC itself
| What | Made | Local GPU time | Paid API rate used for comparison | API cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Images (covers, logos, textures, references) | 1,577 | ~5 h · 12 s each | $0.04 per image, the going rate for a production-quality 1024² image | $63 |
| Video (5-second shots with sound) | 773 | ~20 h · 92 s each | $0.12/s (Runway Gen-4.5 API) to $0.40/s (Veo 3.1 with audio) | $464–1,546 |
| 3D models (image to 3D) | 369 | ~25 h · ~4 min each | $0.30 (Trellis 2 hosted) to $0.60 (Meshy, textured) | $111–221 |
| Voice lines | 1,518 | ~7 h · 16 s each | $0.10 per 1,000 characters (ElevenLabs v3 API) | $6 |
| Music (themes, score cues, miniOS tunes) | 222 | ~22 h · ~6 min each | $0.30 per minute (Eleven Music API) | $40 |
| Total | 4,459 | ~78 h | vs. ~$14 of electricity | $684–1,876 |
Method: per-job times are medians and means from ComfyUI's log of Oct 30–31 (1,391 jobs), applied to the project's full file counts; 3D time is estimated from the model's run steps. Power is whole-PC draw under load, estimated. API prices are pay-as-you-go list rates and change often. Sources: SDG&E average rate · image API rates · Runway API · Veo 3.1 on Runway · 3D API rates · ElevenLabs TTS · Eleven Music.
What worked
- Playable, tested games in days, not months, with several built side by side.
- Shared engines (3D framework, pixel arcade kit, adventure engine, pinball kit) make each new title faster than the last.
- An in-house art pipeline: covers, FMV, music, voices and 3D made on our own hardware. All original IP.
- Always shippable: live on the web the whole time, with real kids playtesting on 4 pads.
- Automatic regression tests caught real bugs before the players did.
What didn't
- Bots aren't players. Feel, difficulty and music still need human hands and ears.
- A 2-CPU cloud box caps the studio at 4 builders; overloading it caused one restart.
- An 8 GB consumer GPU runs hot. Long queues led to a crash and a pause.
- AI art drifts toward real brands and look-alikes, so every take is reviewed and some are rejected. Voice takes are often unusable.
- Frequent deploys eat free-tier hosting storage. Licensed-character work waits on reference packs.
Where this goes next
- AdvertisingPlayable ads and product-drop "demo discs": a branded arcade game, mascot and FMV spot per campaign, built in days, not months.
- Website experiencesSites that behave like a TV or a computer, like the i2interactive.com channel set. Brand microsites people play rather than scroll.
- TV guides + broadcastTeletext-style programme guides, channel idents and switches, and interactive companions for FAST channels like VENTURE Ø's.
- Wearables + ambient screensTiny-screen OS shells and glanceable teletext UIs for watches and glasses (concept stage), generated and tested the same way.
- Kiosks + installationsWhite-label, offline touchscreen experiences for museums, retail and events, on the i2 miniOS base.
- Kids + learningA safe, ad-free play-and-learn computer for families and schools, with original music and characters.