BASEMENT OS | My Story

C:\BASEMENT\STORY.EXE

Building Beyond My Limits

How I went from zero UdonSharp experience to a 20,000+ line codebase in 4 weeks—using AI as a development partner, not just a tool.

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[ The Inspiration ]

November 2005. The Xbox 360 launches with those iconic blade dashboards. Mountain Dew, Halo system link parties, achievement popups that felt like real accomplishments. Some might call it the golden age of gaming.

The goal: Recreate that feeling inside VRChat.

Lower Level 2.0 is a recreation of my basement growing up—90% accurate with some creative liberty. The 3D space was commissioned from detailed plans. But the soul of the basement? The interactive terminal, the achievement system, the living world? That's what I built with AI.

[ The Challenge ]

"It's like being asked to paint a masterpiece with a toothbrush using only 3 colors."

The obstacle: I didn't know UdonSharp—VRChat's constrained programming language. No generics, no LINQ, strict CPU limits, no real debugging. It's a sealed box that simulates legacy enterprise constraints.

My options:

Traditional Learning 6+ months, trial & error, limited scope

Hire a Developer High cost, black box, no learning

AI Partnership Learn & build simultaneously, unlimited scope

[ The Evolution ]

Week 1: AI-Assisted Development

Complexity Wall Hit

Web-based chat, copy-paste into Unity
No version control, reliant on chat history
80% time re-explaining context, 20% building
Hit ~500 LOC limit before hallucinations

Lesson: Don't tell AI it's a "30-year Unity expert" when the software hasn't existed that long. Prompt engineering isn't flattery—it's context management.

Weeks 2-4: Systematic Engineering

3x Velocity Increase

Context caching with "Project Knowledge" files
Living documentation—AI updates its own specs
8 modular components to bypass context limits
Session-focused prompts with clear goals

Lesson: Stop treating AI like a chatbot. Treat it like a junior developer that needs good specs.

Present: AI-Native Orchestration

Closed-Loop System

Multi-agent swarms with specialized roles
Unity MCP—AI reads logs, validates compilation
AI as project manager: 58 issues, story points, sprints
Pre-commit hooks enforce quality standards

Lesson: I stopped writing code and started designing systems. The AI fixes bugs while I sleep.

[ The Transformation ]

BEFORE AI "Simple visit counter" Scope limited by skill. Compromise vision.

→

WITH AI "Enterprise Ecosystem" Scope limited by imagination. Zero compromise.

"The question changed from 'What can I build?' to 'What should I build?'"

[ By The Numbers ]

20,000+ Lines of Code

365+ AI Conversations

44 UdonSharp Scripts

4 Weeks to Build

[ What I Learned ]

🎯 Be Specific Don't let AI guess. Provide current state or have it find it.

📝 Cache Context Living documentation that adapts. AI updates its own specs.

🔄 Edit Explicitly Guide the changes. Modular architecture bypasses context limits.

[ The Invitation ]

AI didn't replace me—it made my vision possible.

What could it make possible for you?

See The Result → Read The Journey → Learn The Skills →