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gorillas.bas remake by Grok 4.5

A browser remake of QBasic Gorillas where sixteen nonsense-named AIs throw bananas in a 2x2 tournament grid while you watch.

Matt Dennis

The project is on GitHub: github.com/grqg-dev/ai-gorillas.


I asked Grok 4.5 for a remake of the old QBasic Gorillas sample. Instead of a human vs human angle-and-power duel, it became a spectator sport: AIs throw bananas over a generated city, wind and all, and you just watch. The silly part is tournament mode — sixteen fake apes with names like Lord Yeet Vortex von Brick, four matches live at once in a 2×2 grid, and a vertical bracket that fills itself as the bracket advances.


AI Gorillas tournament mode with four live matches in a 2x2 grid and a vertical Round of 16 bracket
Round of 16, wave one: four banana fights at once, DOS chrome, zero dignity.

There’s no build step. Open the HTML file, hit Tournament, mash Play, crank the speed. The AIs are dumb-on-purpose (noisy aim search against an occupancy grid), which is what makes it watchable. If you grew up launching bananas across a skyline in QBasic, this is that muscle memory with the controller taken away.


AI Gorillas tournament after some matches finish, showing winners in the bracket and live games continuing
A few matches later: winners light up cyan, losers get struck through, next wave loads when the grid clears.