Day 20 of an AI-built strategy game: a stone golem that wakes up, and a tavern

How it was made

1. Every unit has a page in his own game wiki. The golem is concept version 64; the sidebar lists 67.
2. Ten directions first, then a second round redrawn to one chosen build: hunched, small head, arms past the knees, short thick legs.
3. The HUD portrait comes from GPT Image 2.5. The 8-second breathing idle was meant for MiniMax H3 Max, but all 8 takes added smoke or a camera move, so a script animates the breathing from the portrait itself.
4. Waking and dying are physics simulations in Blender: the stones really fall, roll and settle.

The details that matter

• Stats live on the unit card: 600 HP, a twin sweep for 32–38 damage every 2.6 s, 1.9 m range, 1.8 m/s speed.
• Test it on the real map. His first golem sat too close to a guard post; the guards woke it and killed it in seconds.
• Judge size next to soldiers. One head taller wasn't enough, so he added another head and a half.

Where it breaks

• Video models asked for a quiet portrait idle tend to add effects nobody asked for; none of the 8 takes made it.
• An ambush enemy in the wrong spot gets cleared by other units before the player ever sees it.

Try it yourself

Pin down each unit with a character sheet prompt, keep portrait, model and animation in line with character consistency, and turn the chosen reference into a model with image-to-3D assets^[1].