Vibe Coding Mini-Games: A Precise Dopamine Assembly Line
- Core Viewpoint: Vibe coding successfully captures user attention and achieves rapid monetization in the current sluggish cryptocurrency market through extremely low development costs and gamified design with instant feedback. Its essence is a product of "dopamine industrialization," catering to the market's craving for short-term gratification rather than long-term narratives.
- Key Elements:
- The core appeal lies in providing continuous instant feedback, such as the rapid mapping between user actions and market reactions in games like "Rug Pull Simulator," which quickly stimulates dopamine secretion.
- Development barriers are extremely low. Leveraging tools like Copilot and AI templates, an idea can be transformed into a playable demo in a very short time, requiring no long-term commitment.
- Game design focuses on a single gratification point, such as simulating token launch decisions, timing the exit from a meme coin pump, or guessing valuations, stripping away complex economic models and long-term promises.
- This is a product of the current market environment. In the absence of grand, credible narratives, it converts user attention into immediate experience with the lowest delivery cost.
- Such products are easily spread on social media. Their direct pleasure experience is more likely to trigger viral effects than complex long-term strategies.
Dopamine can be released in as fast as 0.2 seconds.
That's why vibe coding is so popular in the crypto space today.
For a long time, the market environment hasn't been great, and I lost interest in new things because of it. For example, some of the "little toys" created by vibe coding, even the "Life K-line" that went viral on CCTV, didn't change my view of being disappointed with industry innovation.
In my original understanding, what vibe coding produces now can only be games at the level of "The Emperor's Growth Plan" made by Flatfish Studio, which has little to do with "doing serious work." They create hype, not accumulation; they generate emotions, not value. I'd rather believe what people who will still influence the world twenty years after their death say, and I'd rather spend my time on products that might still be great twenty years from now, rather than on this noise that seems like it could be drowned out by the next wave of trends at any moment.
Until today, after being educated by Teacher Crypto Skanda and practically having my colleagues force it on me, I played several vibe coding products in a row within a few hours: Rug Pull Simulator (Token Launch Simulator), the meme exit game Rug Pull Simulator (a very coincidental same name) by GMGN boss Haze Chicken Bro's team, and Tykoo Muscle Bro's FDV guessing game Vesting Victim.
It's so addictive.
How to describe this feeling of pleasure? It's like you've been watching long videos on Bilibili and suddenly try Douyin for the first time; or like being used to a slow-burning relationship and suddenly experiencing fast-food romance; or like someone who's been suppressed by life for a long time, tasting the high from that drug for the first time.
Take the Token Launch Simulator, for example. At the start, you take on the perspective of a project team, which is "not exactly moral." You have a limited amount of startup capital, the product is still at the PPT stage, and you decide what to do next, how to manipulate your users and community.
One small operational cycle is a month, and you can only do two things, so resources are limited. You invest your limited resources and money into product development, narrative spreading, community operations, etc. The game doesn't tell you which path is right. Then, various uncertain events pop up: sometimes fundraising goes smoothly, sometimes regulators target you, sometimes the community suddenly spirals out of control, sometimes security risks start to explode.
Screenshot of the Token Launch Simulator game
This is where the pleasure kicks in.
This pleasure doesn't come from eventually winning A9 or A10, but from the continuous, continuous, continuous instant feedback. You just can't stop.
Another example is Chicken Bro's Rug Pull Simulator, which is a testing ground for trading memecoins, a speedrun version of GMGN's game. The pleasure lies in the rhythm of "exiting at the top." Buy low-priced coins, spend marketing points to pump the price. If it rises too fast, you fear a rug pull; if it rises too slowly, you get impatient. Successfully exit at the top, and profits are credited immediately—you feel like you've truly grasped the market's rhythm. Fail, and you can immediately try again.
Dopamine can be released in 0.2 seconds, faster than the feedback from real trading.
Then there's Vesting Victim. While it doesn't have high-frequency clicking or the visual stimulus of price charts, it plays on your intuition about valuations. Based on a project's TVL, user count, and fundraising situation, you judge its FDV, input a number, and the system tells you the deviation in the next second. This second-level validation makes it impossible to stop. You unconsciously want to play another round, thinking, "This time I'll guess more accurately." Your nervous system is directly receiving reward signals.
Left: Exit game Rug Pull Simulator; Right: FDV guessing game Vesting Victim
This is also the most addictive part of vibe coding. It doesn't need grand narratives or long-term investment. Copilot, Cursor, and AI templates have drastically compressed the time from "an idea" to "a playable demo." It also doesn't rely on any future promises. No one expects today's vibe coding to produce great projects; being fun today is enough.
We only need to make choices in the present, get feedback immediately, and experience that pleasure where actions and results are directly mapped to our nerves. And this feeling of pleasure is more direct, more real, and more easily spreads virally on social media than any complex economic model, long-term strategy, or prediction on a whiteboard.
The essence of vibe coding is, in a market where no one believes in long-term narratives anymore, monetizing attention instantly with the lowest delivery cost.
It's dopamine industrialization in a sense—small doses, fast feedback, low addiction, high repeat engagement. It's a form that is more brutal for project teams and more honest for users. It's also a natural product of today's market environment.
So when this era arrives, don't resist it, and don't preach about profound insights and morality. Let's sink together into these fast-food toys, enjoy the pleasure of instant feedback, and enjoy the dopamine.
Even if it may never be destined for greatness.
