Seat
Sweeper
A case study
A movie lover’s reskin of the classic PC game Minesweeper. The gameplay engine is the same as in the original, but set in the now ubiquitous interface for selecting your seats online for a movie.
The premise is simple: get points by selecting as many empty seats as possible, but encounter an inconsiderate patron on their phone and you break Nicole Kidman’s heart. This is, of course, a reference to the 2021 AMC Theatres commercial spot “We Make Movies Better.”
The Game

The Spot
The original AMC spot went viral in 2021. People still clap for it in theaters today when it plays before a showing. The pinstripe suit became a Halloween costume, Saturday Night Live parodied it, and when a shorter cut lost the heartbreak line, fans petitioned and AMC brought the full version back.
It arrived as theaters were trying to win audiences back after the pandemic, and it celebrates going to the movies with an almost uncomfortably straight face. It’s cheesy. It’s grandiose. It’s easy to chuckle at. But I think part of the reason it made such an impact is that all of that was in service of saying something true. Going to the movies is a little bit magic.
an affection for this contrived but endearingly bleeding-heart display of love for the movies is built into the DNA of seat sweeper.
“Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.”
Nicole Kidman
Endlessly quoted, the spot’s best known line is name-checked on the game’s lose screen. Encounter a phone and the movie is ruined.
Heartbreak


Christopher Nolan is a towering figure in modern cinema and a noted cellphone hater. Find his seat and every phone in the house is destroyed.
The win condition refers to both the magic of landing on one lucky seat and the AMC spot’s second most quotable line.
Magic


The high score screen is a nod to AMC’s A-List, the ultimate badge of honor for modern moviegoers.
Anyone who plays can make the A-List by besting an existing top 10 score.
The A-List


Game build
Built in Claude: One file – HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Layout
Built from actual reference of AMC’s online seating charts.
Cutscene Assets
Generated with Nano Banana and GPT Image 2.5, then cut out and animated.
Song
Made in Suno: A simplified chiptune version of the AMC spot’s actual score.
The Process

Individual generated elements


