Publish Your Claude Code or Cursor Game to a Public URL in One Step

At the end of a good vibe-coding session with Claude Code, Cursor, or a tool like Rosebud or Lovable, you have a folder: an index.html, a handful of JS files, maybe a Phaser build, maybe some sprite sheets. It runs fine locally. Nobody else can play it, because a folder on your laptop isn't a URL.

This is a smaller problem than it sounds, but it has more real options than people expect, and the right one depends on what you actually want out of publishing: a link to send a friend, a page that ranks for search, a community that might leave a comment, or a backend behind the game so scores and saves persist. This guide compares the common paths and where Sprixen's Game Creator publish flow fits.

What "publish" means for a browser game

An HTML5 game is just static files (or close to it, if it calls out to an API). Publishing it means three things: the files live somewhere reachable over HTTPS, there's a URL you can share, and, ideally, that URL doesn't disappear the next time you push a change. Everything below satisfies those three; they differ in effort, discoverability, and what happens when your game needs more than static files.

The options, compared

Option	Cost	Custom domain	Discoverability	Backend features	Effort to publish
itch.io	Free to upload; itch takes an optional revenue cut only if you charge for the game	No (itch.io subdomain or itch page URL)	High: real game-browsing audience, jams, tags, community	None built in; you bring your own if you need saves or leaderboards	Low: zip your build, drag it into the itch uploader, mark it playable in browser
GitHub Pages	Free for public repos	Yes	None; nobody browses GitHub Pages looking for games	None; static hosting only	Low if you already use git, otherwise a small learning curve
Netlify	Free tier for small static sites, paid tiers as usage grows	Yes	None; you bring your own traffic	None natively for game data, though you could bolt on their serverless functions	Low: drag-and-drop deploy or connect a git repo
Vercel	Free tier for small projects, paid tiers as usage grows	Yes	None; you bring your own traffic	None natively for game data; you'd write your own API routes	Low: CLI deploy or connect a git repo
Sprixen Game Creator publish	Included in the existing plan; no separate hosting bill	No (fixed sprixen.com/play/<slug> path)	Low today; no dedicated game-browsing storefront yet	Yes: optional Sprixen Live for identity, cloud save, leaderboards, achievements and multiplayer rooms, no setup	Lowest: one call or one click from inside the tool that built the game

A few honest notes behind that table. itch.io wins decisively on discoverability: it's an actual destination people browse, and running a jam or getting featured there can put your game in front of players who were never going to find a random URL. GitHub Pages, Netlify and Vercel are general-purpose static hosts; they're excellent at what they do (custom domains, fast CDN delivery, git-based deploys) but none of them know or care that the files they're serving happen to be a game, so you get zero built-in save system, leaderboard, or player identity. Sprixen's publish flow is the narrowest of the five (fixed URL shape, no custom domain, no storefront yet) but it's the only one where checking a box gets you a leaderboard and cloud save without writing or hosting any backend code yourself.

Publishing through Sprixen's Game Creator

If your game was built inside Sprixen's AI Game Builder (or you want to move a Claude Code project's assets into one), publishing is a single action rather than a deploy pipeline.

Option A: the UI

Inside the Game Creator editor, the Publish action on a finished project generates a slug (or lets you pick a custom one, 3 to 60 characters, lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens) and makes the game reachable immediately at https://sprixen.com/play/<slug>. There's no build step to configure and no hosting target to choose.

Option B: the MCP tool, from inside Claude Code

If you're driving the Game Creator from Claude Code via Sprixen's MCP server, the same action is a tool call: publish_game_project. It takes the project ID and an optional custom slug:

publish_game_project({
  projectId: "your-project-id",
  slug: "my-runner-game"
})

The tool returns the published slug and the live play URL. This means you can ask Claude, in plain language, to "publish this as my-runner-game" at the end of a session, and it calls the tool directly rather than you switching to a browser tab. If a slug is already taken or the project has no code yet, the error comes back in the tool response so Claude can explain what's wrong rather than reporting a false success.

What you get once it's live

A stable URL under sprixen.com/play/<slug>, reachable by anyone with the link, no account required to play. If you also want persistence and competition, Sprixen Live is available on the same project: turn on cloud save, leaderboards, achievements or multiplayer from the project's Live tab, and the published game's injected SDK (window.SprixenLive) already knows how to call them. See this guide for the actual SDK calls if you go that route.

When itch.io is the better call

Publishing through Sprixen gets you a URL fast, but it's not trying to be a distribution platform, and you should treat it as one path, not the only one. Reach for itch.io instead when:

• You're entering a game jam. Jams live on itch.io. That's where the judges, the voting, and the other entrants are.
• You want organic discovery. itch.io has browsing, tags, and a real audience of people looking for games to play, something a standalone URL anywhere doesn't have.
• You want to charge money or take donations for the game itself. itch.io has a mature "pay what you want" and paid-download flow built in.
• You want a community page with comments, devlogs, and a following for future releases.

Nothing stops you from doing both: publish through Sprixen for a fast internal link (to show a friend, embed in a portfolio, or test with a small group), and also package a build for itch.io once you're ready for a wider audience. They're not mutually exclusive, and a static export is a static export regardless of where you eventually also list it.

When GitHub Pages, Netlify or Vercel make more sense

If you want a custom domain, more control over routing and headers, or you're already deploying other projects on one of these platforms and want your game to live alongside them, they're a fine choice. The tradeoff is what they don't give you: no save system, no leaderboard, no player identity, no discovery audience. You're getting a URL and nothing else, which is exactly right if that's all you need, and via a git-based static hosting workflow that many developers already know from other projects. Any AI coding agent, Claude Code included, can walk you through connecting a repo to Netlify or Vercel or setting up a GitHub Pages branch; that part of the flow isn't Sprixen-specific.

A quick decision guide

• Just want a link to send someone today, and the game already lives in Sprixen's Game Creator: publish through Sprixen.
• Want a leaderboard or save system without writing backend code: publish through Sprixen and turn on Sprixen Live.
• Entering a jam, want an audience, or want to charge for the game: itch.io.
• Want a custom domain and full control, don't need any backend: GitHub Pages, Netlify, or Vercel.
• Building assets in Claude Code but not using Sprixen's Game Creator for the game logic itself: generate the art with Sprixen's MCP server, then host the finished game wherever makes sense for the engine you used, see the Phaser and Cursor setup or the Rosebud and Lovable workflow for the two most common paths.

FAQ

Can I use a custom domain with the Sprixen publish flow?

Not currently. Published games live under a fixed sprixen.com/play/<slug> path. If a custom domain matters to you today, GitHub Pages, Netlify or Vercel all support one.

Does publishing through Sprixen cost extra on top of the plan?

No. Publishing a project you already built in the Game Creator is included; there's no separate hosting fee.

What if my game project has no code yet?

Publishing requires the project to actually have generated code (either a single-file build or a multi-file project). An empty or in-progress project will return an error rather than publish a blank page.

Can I republish under a different slug later?

Yes, you can pass a different custom slug on a later publish call, as long as it's available and meets the length and character rules (3 to 60 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens).

Is Sprixen a replacement for itch.io?

No. Sprixen's publish flow gets a game a working URL fast and optionally wires it to a hosted backend for saves and leaderboards. itch.io is a distribution platform with an actual audience, jams and community features. They solve different problems and work well together.

Can I publish a game built entirely with Claude Code, without using Sprixen's Game Creator UI at all?

Yes, if the project lives inside Sprixen's Game Creator, since Claude Code can drive the whole thing (including publishing) through the publish_game_project MCP tool without you opening a browser. If your game was built as a standalone project outside the Game Creator entirely, the Sprixen publish flow doesn't apply, and one of the general-purpose hosts above is the right target.