From Dot-Com to Dot-Dog, the Games Tibo and Poteto Made in Reply

What Tibo and Poteto worked on before the games

Tibo is Thibault Sottiaux. According to his OpenAI Forum bio, he was a software engineer at Google, then led human data work for Gemini at Google DeepMind, where he also built research infrastructure for AI and machine learning. At OpenAI he led Codex, an agent that helps developers work with codebases and carry out engineering tasks. OpenAI’s June 2026 Ona announcement calls him its Core Products Lead, and his X bio lists Codex and ChatGPT. OpenAI Forum bio · OpenAI announcement · Tibo’s X profile

Poteto is Lauren Tan. Her personal site says she started in UI design and became a software engineer, and that she worked as an engineering manager at Netflix and a software engineer at Facebook. In 2020, she wrote that she was leaving Netflix to go back to hands-on software engineering. Lauren’s post about leaving Netflix

She helped build React Compiler, which automates some optimizations at build time. Lauren wrote the 2024 beta announcement, then co-wrote the 2025 stable release announcement with Joe Savona and Mofei Zhang. Her X bio lists Cursor as a previous employer and Grok Bot at SpaceX as what she's working on now. Lauren’s personal site · React Compiler beta · React Compiler stable release · Lauren’s X profile

In April, Lauren asked for Subway Surfers in Codex

On April 16, Korea time, Tibo announced that /compact was coming to Codex. Lauren quoted her own post about a hidden feature in Cursor 3 and asked, “when will you add subway surfers?” Tibo had announced a developer feature, and Lauren's reply went straight to games. Later, a game would do the replying. Tibo’s post · Cursor 3 post · Lauren’s reply

In October, the challenge was to ship or reset

On October 5, Tibo said that for the next 28 days, each day would bring either an improvement for Codex or Work users or a full usage reset. Quoting that pledge, he told Lauren, “I challenge you to do the same.” She replied, “only you can win this battle.” On October 8 he wrote “Goodbye Grok models,” and she answered, “I think we might need more resets.” Here a reset meant a usage limit reset. In the second game, it'd be a button on a roof. The pledge and challenge · Lauren’s reply · The Grok models joke · The reset reply

If dot-com is too expensive, how about dot-dog?

On October 28, Tibo wrote “poteto.com has landed.” Lauren replied, “i cant afford tibo.com.” The next day she posted “day 28.” And early on October 30 in Korea, Tibo replied “Bring it on.” Tibo announces the domain · Lauren’s reply · Day 28 teaser · Tibo’s reply

Early on November 2, Tibo joked that autocorrect kept turning dot into dog. That same morning Lauren launched tibo.dog with “Day 28/ tibo's game has landed.” She said she paid $5.99 for the domain and made the game with Grok Bot and Cursor. She quoted the launch under the autocorrect post and added “i swear this was not planned.” So the number from Tibo’s shipping pledge showed up again, this time in Lauren’s game announcement. Autocorrect post · Game announcement · Quoted reply

The engineering behind the flying potatoes

In tibo.dog, the potato weapons fire on their own. You steer Tibo, dash away from enemies, let stray dogs join the pack and pick upgrades as you level up. Story mode has a short introduction, and the game supports Korean. Game and controls

After launch, Lauren wrote that she'd started the game as a side project four days earlier, which puts the “Day 28” headline in context. Her development notes also show what was going on behind the playful graphics. When she found a code issue, she asked the bot to create a lint rule so it would be caught next time. She used TLA+ to look for bugs in the state machines behind the story and cutscenes. And when you submit a high score, she wrote, the server replays the entire run from its inputs to verify it. In other words, the server checks the score by running the game again. Lauren’s development notes

Then Tibo got locked in a basement

On November 7, Tibo posted “Get me out of the basement” and linked to poteto.com again. The address opens Rooftop Reset, a game that starts in a basement and has you jump and dash your way upstairs. The reset button's on the roof. A month earlier, reset meant restoring the usage limit. Now Tibo had to get to it himself. Tibo’s post · Rooftop Reset

Lauren replied, “where’s my guest appearance?” In April she'd wanted to know when a game was coming to a coding tool. Now, in November, she wanted to know when she was getting into his game. Lauren’s cameo reply