Chris First builds a playable police chase for Epic AI MegaJam in five hours

• A playable police chase came together in roughly five hours, by Chris First's own estimate, with pursuing cops, a countdown, and a finish line.
• His city-building workflow replaced gray boxes with almost 4,000 buildings and about 28,000 props, according to his Day 1 thread.
• An overnight rebuild stopped during a Claude outage, he reported; he subsequently scaled back to one island and rebuilt.

The best gag comes from an ElevenLabs-voiced director: “Easy on the Rat. We just got that door to match.” First also picked his map from ten AI-drawn island options, choosing Herringbone Reach with a drawbridge big enough for a helicopter to fly underneath. He is making the game through a paid Epic Games partnership.

By Day 2 of the Epic AI MegaJam, First's stunt-driving game had a working mission:

• Lose the pursuing police.
• Beat the countdown.
• Reach the finish line.
• Drive with a helicopter following overhead.

Asked how long the work had taken, First answered “Five hours, probably” in his progress thread. That is his estimate for the work shown, rather than a measured development-time benchmark.

Epic Games' @mikerconnelly joined the first two hours of the session. Together, they added:

• Road names that appear as the player drives.
• Sound effects from Fab.
• Fire hydrants that explode when hit.

First worked in Unreal Engine 5.9 MegaJam Preview, connecting Claude Code to Unreal Assistant. An admin-privilege problem on a second account delayed the initial connection.

Epic's Unreal MCP documentation describes an experimental server inside the editor that exposes engine operations to AI agents over a local HTTP connection, including spawning and editing scene objects.

First built the city in two passes:

1. Blockout: The assistant inside Unreal created a gray-box layout and saved it so it could be rebuilt.
2. Asset assembly: AI replaced the placeholders using Epic's City Sample buildings and street props from Fab, reaching almost 4,000 buildings and about 28,000 props.

His MacBook issued memory warnings as the city filled out.

First said a Claude outage stopped the multiple agents he had sent to rework the city overnight, leaving the map broken.

He reported that the agents were back at work, and his Day 2 recovery involved scaling the map down to one island and rebuilding.

The Director's Cut theme became a movie-set premise: the player is a stunt driver, and each mission is a take. First used AI across the game's art and audio:

• The Rat: He generated car concepts, picked a favorite, then requested more wear, a blue door, and an “01” on the side.
• The director: AI wrote dialogue for a tough older woman speaking over the radio; ElevenLabs supplied her voice.
• The menu: He generated Director's Cut menu artwork, which remained concept art rather than an implemented menu.

After the chase worked, he added a night treatment:

• Headlights, brake lights, and glowing police lights.
• A helicopter spotlight that follows the player.
• ElevenLabs-generated sirens and helicopter sounds, plus new director lines triggered by crashes.

First confirmed that he was streaming on X. The official MegaJam page lists the entry details:

• Dates: November 12–15, 2026, with submissions due November 15 at 5:59 PM PST.
• Format: Unreal Engine or UEFN, solo or teams of up to five people, with unlimited AI agents.
• Prizes: $65,000 in cash prizes, plus development continuation grants of up to $50,000 per team.
• Tool access: Registered entrants receive partner perks, including $25 in Claude API credits.
• In person: Digital Jungle in San Francisco, November 14–15, with separate registration required.