Designing Context: How Claude Plays Pokémon

2025-08-20

It is refreshing to look at context design outside of production systems: Claude Plays Pokémon.

The Challenge

Getting an AI to play Pokémon Red isn't just about recognizing pixels. The model needs to understand:

  • Where the player is
  • What direction they're facing
  • What obstacles exist
  • Navigating across scenes without getting lost

Tricks

Mapping entity ids of Pokemon, items, and tiles so they are readable and more efficient to the agent. (file)

Instead of feeding raw screenshots, the system converts the game state into ASCII art collision maps:

+----------+
|██████████|
|█········█|
|█·→······█|
|█········█|
|█····S···█|
|██████████|
+----------+

This is genius. In a few characters, the AI sees:

  • █ - Walls/obstacles
  • · - Walkable paths
  • → - Player position and direction
  • S - Sprites/NPCs

Benefits

  1. Compression: A 160x144 pixel image becomes a 10x10 grid
  2. Clarity: No ambiguity about what's walkable vs blocked
  3. Directionality: The arrow characters (↑↓←→) instantly convey facing

Collision Map Animation

Eight frames showing Claude navigating through a Pokémon Red room

Check out the original project.