Tommy’s morning starts on the same high on which yesterday ended. Yesterday the agent single-handedly played a chess game all the way to checkmate — Tommy had time to go get tea, came back, and the final checkmate was already on the screen. Even now, without really opening his eyes yet, he catches this new feeling: AI finishes without me. Not “I press — AI does,” but “I left — AI finished it.”
And, as if on cue, at the top of the chat with Tom2036 there is a fresh image. A caravan — long, heavily loaded — moves by itself along the rails through the desert. No driver, not a single person nearby. Just slowly, confidently crawling along the rail line toward the horizon. Not a single line of text, as always.
Tommy smirks at the screen.
“Beautiful, boss. It’s just about me. Put it on rails — and sleep soundly, it’ll get there on its own.”
There is no driver, no living soul nearby: it just goes by itself, that’s how we do it. He closes the chat and reaches for the laptop — today’s tasks are more interesting than other people’s caravans.
On the laptop he has an entire showcase of victories. Snake with voice acting. A landing page that lives on the internet at its real address. 2048, Tetris, yesterday’s chess game that the agent finished on its own, an earthquake radar with live blips, a crypto ticker that pulls the rate by itself. Half of it is out in public; any of it can be opened in front of a live person and make them say “wow.” A month ago he would have given half his life for that — and now it’s just his usual tabs.
He clicks one, then another, plays Snake for a couple of seconds.
“Well, Snake. Well, balloons. We’ve already done that.”
Nothing stirs inside. Everything is fine, everything works — and precisely because of that, it doesn’t excite him. Another tidy little toy won’t light anything new inside.
And his hand automatically goes to the very bottom of the bookmarks — to where the video he hasn’t opened for a long time has been lying since day one. Tommy hits play, rewinds to the needed frame, and pauses.
A wish board from the future. A yacht, a car, a row of zeros circled with a marker. And off to the side, a little away from the glossy stuff, a crooked screenshot: a city made of blocks, where you walk in first person, like in a big expensive game, only everything is blocky, made of squares. Back then, the older Tommy brushed past it with a passing remark, without explaining. And for the Tommy of today, that very fact stuck like a splinter from day one.
Because it’s his long-standing, still childhood dream. A hybrid he has assembled in his head a hundred times and never once on screen: an open world like GTA, but entirely made of blocks, like Minecraft. You walk in first person, place, break, build whatever you want. A year ago he gave up even dreaming about it — he realized that something like that could never be built alone. And here it is hanging on the board of his own future, as if already assembled.
“Yeah,” he says to the picture. “‘That’s me, just later.’ Well then, maybe it’s time already?”
A year ago these words from the video would have sounded like mockery: look, me-from-2026, to what you wanted to grow up to, and you have zero behind you. Now it’s different. There is not zero behind him anymore. There is a gallery of his own projects behind him.
“Today,” he says out loud to the empty room. And closes the video.
1. Tony hands over a commercial project
But they don’t let him reach for the dream right away. Tony intercepts him and calls him into the meeting room — and for the first time not with a sketch and not with a “quickly,” but with a real commercial project. A client promo campaign, retro-arcade style: an entire launch portal. A general showcase, reward points, a leaderboard, a bonus minigame inside, separate partner zones, rules, prizes. Not “make something that works and okay” — a large real repository with a project behind which stands a client.
“Here you go,” says Tony and tosses him the repository link. “Client portal. Big and complex, serious project.”
“Why not Oliver?” Tommy glances sideways. “Isn’t that more his thing, the serious stuff?”
“I wanted Oliver.” Tony doesn’t argue. “Experienced, meticulous. Only he’d polish it for a month, comma by comma. Sure, quality is great — but the client doesn’t need it in a month, the client needs it in a week. Sometimes the market dictates its own pace, and there is no time for polishing.”
He turns the laptop toward Tommy — Tommy’s gallery is open on it.
“And you work fast and show the goods. I looked at what you’ve put together, and decided to give it to you. Just listen up.” Tony lowers his voice a little. “I need this portal in a week. At all costs. I put my reputation in front of the client on this. Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t let you down, Tony,” Tommy replies lightly, without a doubt. After all, now he has an entire AI team — in a week everything will be done.
He wanted Oliver — but gave it to him. No wonder he showed the whole office the chess game yesterday. That means he’s already not “a boy with toys” but a professional they trust with a serious project. Tony, with his “in a week,” has nothing to fear, and the reputation on the line too — Tommy and AI will do everything in the best possible way.
Tommy goes back to his desk and opens the repository. Right away Oliver comes over. He sees the repository on Tommy’s screen — the very one he had hoped would be assigned to him — and slows down.
“Oh. So my project got pawned off to you,” he says quietly, to no one in particular, but so Tommy can hear. “Client portal — to the kid who was assembling Snake a month ago.”
And drier, almost to himself:
“A month. One month — and already to a real client. Well, well.”
For a second there is not anger in his voice, but something tired. But he immediately hides it behind his usual dry smirk and walks on.
Tommy doesn’t even slow down at that “was assembling Snake a month ago.” On any other day it might have stung. But not today — today we have big plans.
“Oh, come on,” he tosses over his shoulder, lightly, almost cheerfully. “I can carry it without your old-school methods too. A week — and it’s done, no five-page spec and tests for every sneeze. Times change.”
Oliver looks at him for a couple of seconds — not angrily, more like at someone who himself doesn’t understand what he’s getting into — and silently walks away. And Tommy is already diving headfirst into the portal repository.
And with the very first move he understands: this is not the second landing page. There are many folders, even more files, some pieces are called by unfamiliar names, something refers to something he hasn’t seen yet. In terms of volume, it is an order of magnitude bigger than anything he has touched. You can’t take in the whole project at once with your eyes.
On a normal day that would have slowed him down. But not now. Now the scale doesn’t scare him — it excites him. If yesterday the agent could finish a game all by itself while I was drinking tea, maybe this beast can be put on autopilot the same way? Not work through every folder by hand, but launch it once and let it finish itself.
2. He opened the portal — got bored — got drawn to his own game
First of all, Tommy honestly sits down to the portal. If they trusted him with it, he should at least understand what’s inside. He opens folders one after another, reads the names, dives into files. An hour goes by. The pieces latch onto each other, half the words are unfamiliar, the map in his head doesn’t come together — the fog only gets thicker.
Another hour later he catches himself rereading the same file for the third time and not understanding a single line. His head is spinning. The portal is big, someone else’s, and boring to the point of a yawn, and prod in a week hasn’t come one step closer.
“That’s it,” he says to himself. “My brain is boiling over.”
He needs to change the scenery, or he’ll fall asleep on the keyboard right here. And then he remembers the morning thing — the wish board, the blocky world. There it is, the antidote. Not someone else’s drudgery, but his own dream, the very one from childhood. Grab a little dopamine — and come back to the portal refreshed.
Fired up, he rushes to Sam. Today he is bolder than usual: he has a gallery behind him, Tony trusted him with the portal, why hesitate. He writes expansively, as he feels it:
Build me a game in the style of Minecraft: an entire world where you can walk around, place blocks, and break blocks.But Sam is being difficult today — he gives not a game, but questions — calmly and directly: what kind of world exactly? Big or small? View from where — top, side, first person? What does “walk” mean — run, jump, fly? How many block types? An endless world or a closed box? Under “in the style of Minecraft” you can build a hundred different things, and which one is Tommy’s cannot be teased out of such a chat.
The first reaction is irritation: come on, Sam, we’ve gone through this a hundred times, what’s there not to understand, blocks are blocks. He’s already ready to push through. But he checks himself — he’s felt this wall more than once: no spec, no result. Back then he got burned on small things — landing pages, Snake. And now the dream of a lifetime is on the line, here making a mistake would sting the most. So he doesn’t start arguing. He closes the chat with Sam and goes to Alex. For the brief.
Alex doesn’t let the dream remain a pretty formula and immediately narrows it down — calmly, businesslike.
“‘Like Minecraft’ is not a goal, it’s a pit. A real Minecraft is something people build for years with big teams. You don’t need the real one. You need a small browser world made of blocks that you can walk through yourself today and show people. First-person view — you walk as if with your eyes. Simple movement. Place a block, remove a block. And a small box-world, not an infinite universe. This can be put together in a day and gives that very satisfying feeling.”
“Well, at least trees?” Tommy bargains by habit. “And ten different block types, and day and night changing. I want it to be just like the real thing.”
“That’s how they drown themselves,” Alex replies evenly. “Each ‘well, at least one more thing’ seems like a trifle on its own. And together they sink you, and by evening you don’t have a world, but a half-assembled pile that’s embarrassing to show. Take the core that definitely gives the wow factor — walking around and placing a block. Build that today, try it out, publish it. Add trees and day-night later, when the foundation is in place.”
Tommy catches the idea and finishes it himself — he’s no longer a rookie in this business:
“So I don’t need the whole Minecraft right away, but one small piece that you can actually walk around in. The main thing is for it to feel like that very thing, not ‘technically everything at once.’”
“You’re thinking. Smaller scope — better chance that today you’ll have ‘wow’ instead of ‘almost done.’”
Alex sketches a short honest spec for this small world. Not “give me Minecraft,” but five clear points: first-person view, movement, place block, remove block, a small enclosed world. With that, he can go to Sam.
Dream → spec: the agent’s questions are the spec. A hundred different games fit “Build a Minecraft-style game,” so the agent sent back questions. The answers became the spec items. View from where? — first person; check: open it — I’m standing inside the world. “Walk” — meaning what? — simple movement; check: press forward — I moved. What to do with blocks? — place a block and remove a block; check: click — the block is placed, click — the block is gone. Big? Infinite? — a small enclosed world; check: walk to the edge — I hit a wall. An item goes into the spec only if without it there’s no “wow.” Cut for now, and why it’s expensive: infinite world — loading in chunks and saving; day and night — light and shadows every frame; jumping and flying — gravity and collisions; many block types — textures and a picker menu; trees and terrain — terrain generation; the real Minecraft — mobs, crafting, multiplayer, years of a team’s work. Later — a queue, not a trash bin: one feature per pass, once the core is in place and checked Dream → spec: the agent’s questions are the spec “Build a Minecraft-style game” → a hundred games fit — the agent sent back questions Agent’s question Answer = spec item How to check by hand View from where? “Walk” — meaning what? What to do with blocks? Big? Infinite? →→→→→ →→→→→ 12345 first-person view simple movement place a block remove a block a small enclosed world ✓✓✓✓✓ open it — I’m inside “forward” — I moved click — block placed click — block gone at the edge — blocked An item goes into the spec only if without it there’s no “wow” ✂ Cut for now and why it’s expensive Infinite world Day and night Jumping, flying Many block types Trees, terrain The “real” Minecraft loading in chunks, saving light and shadows every frame gravity, collisions textures, picker menu terrain generation mobs, crafting, multiplayer — years of a team’s work Later — a queue, not a trash bin trees day & night block types jumps … One feature per pass — once the core is already in place and checked by hand.Tommy takes the brief — and feels the pressure lift. His head, clogged with the portal, has been aired out. The dream, from a blurry “I want it like in a movie” turned into five lines that today will become a game. He can go back to the portal — but first he’ll finish this.