The 4 Best Games Made with Astra (2026)
Our four picks for the best games made with Astra: Void Explorer, Chess Cubed, Hollowflux and Sunwake. A universe you can land in, chess that goes round corners and a dungeon where the water can kill you.
· Cellsior Signal · 5 minute read
Original AI-generated illustration. This is not a screenshot of any game featured below.
Someone looked at chess, a game already capable of ruining an otherwise pleasant evening, and decided it needed six sides. Then they used Astra to help build it.
This is the end of the AI conversation worth spending a Saturday on. People with oddly specific ideas are turning them into things you can open, move around in and argue with. You do not have to care about a benchmark to understand the appeal of landing a spaceship on a planet you spotted from orbit.
Often called AI-generated games, these four projects were built with GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI's large language model, or LLM. Here, that means people using the model to help create the game: code, assets and successive fixes. Each has a creator's account and a link to the game. Our selection favours a distinctive idea, a documented build and a public game link. These are editorial picks based on those sources, not a scored gameplay review. The creators remain part of the story.
1. Void Explorer: that light in the distance is somewhere you can go
Gameplay screenshot: Void Explorer. Credit: Thomas Ricouard / OpenAI. Image source
Thomas Ricouard's Void Explorer joins spaceflight to planetary exploration. You can approach a world, descend, land, leave the ship and walk around before taking off again. His development account describes 2,048 star systems and more than 10,000 procedurally generated planets.
The attractive bit is the continuity. A distant planet becomes a destination, then a landscape, then the place beneath your feet. That is a much better use of scale than a large number in a trailer. It gives the player a very simple reason to keep going: what is over there?
The published build sequence also makes clear how much happened after the first version: navigation, rendering, the spacecraft and the connection between flying and walking all received further work. A nice premise still needs its awkward joins fixed.
Open Void Explorer · See the build
2. Chess Cubed: the threat is round the corner
Official Chess Cubed promotional artwork, not a gameplay screenshot. Credit: Chess Cubed. Image source
The creator posting as digitalml says Chess Cubed took four days with Astra in Codex. The board wraps across six connected faces of a cube. Familiar pieces acquire a rather unfamiliar problem: the opponent's next move may arrive from a face you were not looking at.
In the creator's account, Astra helped make the 3D assets in Blender and the browser version with Babylon.js. They also describe plenty of testing and iteration. Four days is their reported build time, rather than an independently measured result.
This is the most appealing sort of small game idea: immediately understandable, slightly unreasonable and specific enough to have a personality. You could explain it to a friend with a sugar cube. Whether the extra geometry produces great chess is something players get to find out.
Visit Chess Cubed · Read the creator's account
3. Hollowflux: mind where you put your feet
Gameplay screenshot: Hollowflux. Credit: Thomas Ricouard / OpenAI. Image source
Ricouard's Hollowflux is a dungeon crawler built around reactive water. Electricity spreads through connected water while stone provides safety. Currents carry loot and debris. The documented build expands into equipment, bosses and different floor themes.
That is an inviting design choice because one material does several jobs. Water gives the cavern its appearance, moves things around and changes where it is sensible to stand. The surroundings become part of the decision you are making, instead of wallpaper behind it.
The build notes include passes on attack animations, readability and difficulty. Those are exactly the unglamorous details that decide whether a promising little game keeps your attention. An impressive screenshot cannot tell you whether getting hit feels fair.
Play Hollowflux · See the build
4. Sunwake: a small boat is enough
Gameplay screenshot: Sunwake. Credit: Thomas Ricouard / OpenAI. Image source
Sunwake, also by Ricouard, sends a boat across rough seas towards lighthouses. Its build notes follow the work on buoyancy, wakes, spray, changing weather and a more detailed boat made in Blender.
It is an appealing counterweight to the temptation to ask for an entire universe. A small boat, convincing water and somewhere to reach can carry an idea perfectly well. The interesting question is how the boat feels when a wave meets it.
There is a useful lesson in that modest scope. One interaction that feels right gives a player a reason to stay. Adding another hundred features is a separate decision.
The good part is how specific they are
These projects have recognisable ideas: a continuous journey from orbit to ground, chess wrapped around a cube, water that changes a fight and a boat that belongs to its sea. You can describe each without mentioning AI. That seems a useful test.
They also make the phrase "made with AI" more useful when you leave the people in the sentence. Someone chooses the premise. Someone decides what looks wrong, what feels sluggish and what deserves another attempt. Ricouard's account describes repeated play, targeted feedback and tests; the Chess Cubed creator describes iteration too.
For anyone using LLMs to build something less entertaining than a dungeon, the practical lesson travels well. Start with an experience you can describe clearly. Get a small version in front of someone. Watch where it breaks. Our guide to custom AI agent development looks at the business version of that question.
For now, though, there is a boat to sail. The strategic implications can wait ten minutes.
A strange little idea with a working link is a good use of this technology.