The AI Sprint Begins: Claude Code + Opus 4.5

January 2026. Armed with Claude Code and Opus 4.5, I started the real build. No game dev experience. No CS degree. Just a laptop, two cats, a dog, and a subscription.

The token usage graph tells the story — 1.3M tokens per day from day one, peaking at 1.5M+. That's roughly 3 novels worth of code generation and analysis every single day.

The first sprint was pure foundation: scripts, assets, data schemas, scene structure. By the end of January, I had the skeleton of every major system. The fight engine, campaign progression, inventory, shop, training, dialogue, lootboxes — all stubbed out and compiling.

Total January output: ~40,000 lines of C# across 100+ scripts. All generated through AI-directed prompts. Zero lines written by hand.