Source note: Local copy of a Summer Into AI 2026 submission originally published on Substack. Screenshots, video, and audio found in the post body are mirrored locally when publicly accessible; profile and avatar images are intentionally not copied. Read the canonical post.
Project: Game of Liberty — a single-file, in-browser 8-bit territory-control game for Theme 1: 8-Bit America. Repel the redcoat invasion and liberate the USA before the clock runs out.
Everyone this week shipped side-scrollers, shooters, and AI videos. I wanted a different shape of thing — so I built a strategy game on a cellular-automaton map. The British have landed on the eastern seaboard; you hold one stronghold in the heartland.
How it works:
A chunky 8-bit pixel map shaped like the continental USA — each cell is neutral land, a blue Patriot, or a red Redcoat.
Redcoats flood inland and keep landing reinforcement waves that ramp up. Do nothing and they overrun the country in ~20 seconds.
You ring Liberty Bells (click/tap) — each fires a surge that pushes the front line into the enemy. Bells recharge, so where and when you ring is the whole game.
A real tug-of-war: live bar, score, a 90-second clock, conversion flashes, shockwaves, screen shake, chiptune.
Win by holding the most land at the buzzer; lose if you’re wiped or behind. Touch-enabled, CRT scanlines, stars-and-stripes.
The fun is the comeback: you start losing badly, then claw the country back front by front before time runs out.
Theme (8-Bit America): a pixel USA, Liberty Bells, minutemen vs redcoats, “the British are coming” as an actual mechanic, a 1776 counter ticking up.
A tip of the tricorn hat to Eric's Megaman 1776 and Adam’s Paul Revere arcade game — they made you a patriot; I let you command the whole revolution.
▶️ Play it: https://myles-mf.github.io/summer-into-ai-2026/week-1/
💾 Code: https://github.com/myles-mf/summer-into-ai-2026
Small shipped work over ambitious unfinished work. This one’s shipped. ★
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://merlinforge.substack.com/p/game-of-liberty-an-8-bit-territory.