Building a Mars RTS in Rust with AI Agents: Architecture, Pitfalls, and 400+ Tests
In an experiment to see if one developer can create a full RTS game using AI agents instead of a team, the author built 'Robosoma', a Mars colony RTS in Rust. The game features a 1:1 scale Mars with real terrain, a deterministic simulation, and hundreds of tests. The project is partially successful: the game is playable, but the first hour of content and community features remain a challenge.
The author set themselves an experiment: to build a classic RTS game set on a 1:1 scale Mars using several AI agents instead of a programmer team. The game, named Robosoma, combines RTS mechanics with colony simulation and includes features like continuous zoom from orbit to ground level, realistic terrain, and a unit that can build, mine, transport, and fight. The project is written in Rust using wgpu, winit, glam, and other libraries, but without a game engine like Unity or Unreal. The architecture uses a custom rendering layer to handle a spherical Mars (radius 3389.5 km) with real relief and deterministic simulation for network play. The game currently has 11 building types and a production chain linking extraction, manufacturing, and fuel storage. The author notes the experiment is about half successful: the game is technically playable, but delivering a polished first hour, clear goals, content for dozens of evenings, reliable global online, and a community turned out to be as difficult as the rendering and simulation. The development process includes hundreds of tests, though the exact number (400+) is mentioned in the headline.
Source: Habr — хаб ML —
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