Own product, built with AI
MiniMe SquadYour photo becomes a tiny hero.
Take a photo and the game turns you, your family, your dog or even your favourite mug into a MiniMe character. Then the house fights back: bugs, slugs and ten bosses come for your squad, and you swipe to throw your minis at them.
New course, coming soon: how one founder built this whole game with AI. Join the waitlist- 100
- levels
- 10
- rooms
- 10
- bosses
- 114
- automated test suites
The game in seven screens
Photo to mini
One photo. Two looks.
Players choose a cartoon mini like the characters already in the game, or a slightly more lifelike one. Each example below is one photo and the two minis the game made from it.
Make a mini of anything
People were only the start. A muddy boot, a tea mug, a cactus or the cat: point the camera at it and it joins the squad with a face, arms and an attitude.
The model was tested on bottles, glasses, grass and trainers first, to learn what it can turn into a character and what it cannot.
The squad
Every mini flies differently.
The throw is what a player does hundreds of times, so every character has its own joke in the air. The gag is always the same: they stay themselves while being thrown across a kitchen.
Classic Me
Flies cape first
Nana
Arrives walking frame first
Grandad Ray
Cane out like a lance
Fresh Barry
Rides the duck in
Snoozy Suzie
Sleeps through the whole flight
Captain Kath
Rolls around the tea, never spills it
Biscuit
Still chasing the ball
Mavis
Refuses to participate
Chloe
Never looks up from the phone
And you
Your mini gets its own random signature throw too.
The game
Ten rooms. Ten bosses. One very busy house.
Your minis huddle in the middle of the room and pests come from every side. Drag outward and let go to throw. Anything that reaches the huddle eats one. Each room has its own twist, from bathwater to lights out, and ends with a boss.
Powers
Charged in play, upgraded in the shop.
Weapons and gear
Bombs, boomerangs, magnets and a rally horn that calls in recruits.
In motion
Made with AI
The marketing films are made with the same tools as the game: AI video for the cinematic shots, real gameplay for the rest.
A snail from the garden joins the squad
30 second promo, sound on
How it was built
From one AI image to a mobile game.
MiniMe Squad is James's own product and his test bed for the newest AI tools. The aim was to find out what is really possible now, and what still needs an engineer in the room.
8 September 2026
One photo, one prompt
It started as an experiment: a single photo of James turned into a crowd of tiny versions of himself running around The Utopia Studio. The question was simple. Could this become a game people want to play with their own face?
Two days later
Five game ideas, one winner
Five directions were drawn up side by side with the AI: throw, gate, crowd rush, lanes and slingshot. The throw won, because it is the moment players repeat hundreds of times and the moment people film.
Probing the models
Testing what the AI can really do
Faces, glasses, side profiles, sunglasses, groups, pets and everyday objects were all pushed through the image models to find where they break. What broke, and what finally made it reliable, is a full chapter of the course.
First playable
A real game in a browser, then on a phone
The game was built first as one fast web game that plays in a browser, then wrapped for iOS and tested on a real iPhone through Xcode, change after change.
The toolkit
The newest AI tools, used for real.
Not a demo. Here is the stack that shipped the game. How the characters were made, animated and filmed, and how each tool was really used: that is in the course.
Claude
Wrote, tested and shipped the game code with James: features, test suites, releases and the playbook.
Capacitor and Xcode
One web game wrapped as a native iOS app, archived and sent to TestFlight.
Firebase and Google Cloud
The server: mini generation, purchases, support messages and crash reports.
PostHog, AdMob, SendGrid
Analytics, rewarded adverts and player support email, wired in from the start.
Refining what is possible
Fast with AI. Right with engineering.
AI made the first version quick. What made it a product was the discipline around it: tests, measurement and a written playbook of over 150 lessons, so the next build starts where this one finished.
Inside the course
Photo to character
How a selfie becomes a consistent game character, and the rules that stopped the AI getting it wrong.
A whole game, built with Claude
The working method that took one person from a single image to a game on TestFlight.
Tests that catch what AI breaks
Why AI-written code needs a different kind of testing, and the bug that froze the shop on a real phone.
Art and films with AI
Bosses, creatures and cinematic videos, without burning credits on the same mistake twice.
Payments, adverts and launch
In-app purchases, rewarded adverts, analytics, support and the App Store submission.
The playbook
Over 150 written lessons from the build, so your next one starts where this one finished.
The course
How MiniMe was built. Coming soon.
A short, self-paced course behind the scenes of the whole build: the tools, the prompts, the mistakes and the fixes, from the first AI image to a game on a phone.
Be first in line
Waitlist members hear about the course before anyone else.
Why this matters for your product
The same playbook, pointed at your idea.
- Find out quickly what the latest AI can and cannot do for your product, with real tests, not opinions.
- Get a working version in front of users in weeks, then harden it: payments, analytics, support, crash recovery.
- Keep the build measurable and documented, so it does not fall apart at ten thousand users or when a developer joins.
Got an idea that needs building?
Bring the idea. James brings the engineering, the latest AI tools and the experience of shipping it.
MiniMe Squad is published by Unique Interactions Ltd. Already playing? Help is inside the app, or see app support.