Side Project Spotlight

Mohammad Azam turned a childhood game into Block Bop with AI and three days of work. He joins The Trio to talk expressive blocks, playtesting, and paid level packs, with a detour through a 3,000-line ContentView.swift. Azam and Steve weigh the fun of fast prototypes against token limits and the need to understand your code, while Kotaro makes the case for watching people play. One More Thing: BarCamp Philly is back.

## Chapters

00:00 Introductions & Welcome Mohammad Azam!

03:05 From Childhood Game to Block Bop

07:27 Building with Codex

18:34 Playtesting and Level Design

25:05 App Review and Paid Packs

33:34 SpriteKit, Retro Games, and New Ideas

40:35 AI Dependence and Code Ownership

55:48 Wrap Up and One More Thing...

57:40 Tag

## Show Notes

- Azam returns after episode 44 with Block Bop, inspired by a stone-stacking game he played in Pakistan.

- Codex through Xcode handled the code and geometric graphics, while Azam used ChatGPT for background music.

- Three days of prompting included a 3,000-line ContentView.swift that Codex later split into a few files.

- Azam's cousin flagged unclear onboarding and punishing levels, prompting a longer timer for level 10.

- Kotaro recommends watching people play to spot the joy and frustration that written feedback misses.

- Azam chose one free ten-level pack and $1.99 themed packs over ads or consumable purchases.

- Kotaro pitches holiday packs and iMessage stickers using Block Bop's expressive characters.

- Azam can prototype games quickly, but running out of tokens leaves him stuck on code he hasn't learned.

- Steve argues that cheap code generation doesn't remove the need for thoughtful design and human accountability.

- One More Thing: Kotaro recommends BarCamp Philly on October 17, 2026, with talks chosen on the day and great T-shirts.

## Links

**Mohammad Azam & Block Bop**

Block Bop: https://azamsharp.com/block-bop.html

Azam's website: https://azamsharp.com/ | AzamSharp School: https://azamsharp.school/

Azam on X: https://x.com/azamsharp | Azam on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@azamsharp

Azam's App Store apps: https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/mohammad-azam/id392527683

Previous appearance, #44: WWDC23 with Mohammad Azam: https://podcast.phillycocoa.org/episodes/44-wwdc23-with-mohammad-azam

**Events & Ideas Mentioned**

SwiftCon 2026: https://www.nextappcon.com/swiftcon

Shipaton 2026: https://www.shipaton.com/

Conway's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

**One More Thing**

BarCamp Philly 2026: https://barcampphilly.org

**PhillyCocoa:** https://phillycocoa.org

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.