Ambitious Projects Are the Framework for Success. The Artisan of the Day Is Will King.
If you need proof that Laravel is truly "the framework for ambitious projects," look no further than Will King.
With just one week to build a full playable game for React Miami, Will chose to bet on Laravel, a framework he'd never shipped to production before. Two days later, he had a working game deployed to Laravel Cloud. When bugs surfaced, the community helped him fix them in a day. More than saving his conference talk, that experience completely transformed it.
One of Laravel’s Community members building games, Will is a design engineer at Snowflake, co-host of the "Riff and Refine" YouTube show with Josh Cirre, and living proof that ambitious projects can chart a path to the future you actually want. His journey from industrial design student to tech acquisition happened through a decade of saying "yes" to projects that scared him, starting with a simple "App designer wanted" flyer in 2014.
Laravel Roguelike: Redefining Ambitious Projects
At Laracon US 2025, Will debuted Laravel Roguelike, a device that generates unique dungeon levels from live audio input, built entirely with Laravel, React, and Tailwind. The audience watched in real-time as their collective shouts of favorite code editors were transformed into a playable game level using procedural generation algorithms.
What made it possible:
- Laravel's mature ecosystem: Over a decade of strong opinions meant every question had one answer, not 100. No decision fatigue.
- Community support: When Will hit bugs, the Laravel Community helped him get back on track within a day.
- Batteries included: From getting started with a single command to comprehensive packages for real business needs.
- Modern infrastructure: Laravel Forge, Cloud, and Nightwatch provide everything needed for ambitious projects.
- AI-ready foundation: Well-documented, decade-old framework makes for incredible AI assistance experiences. (And if your current AI code generator feels a little underrwhelming, you can always give it a Boost.)
Will's technical deep-dive covered binary space partitioning trees, entropy calculations, and browser audio APIs, but the real message was simpler: "Laravel is undeniably the framework for ambitious projects."
The Philosophy Behind the Build
Will's story resonates because it’s not so much about the technology, but more about the mindset that ambitious projects (even the ones that don't "succeed") can find success in unexpected ways. His “failed” Elm podcast landed him a job. His willingness to help design an app as a student created a decade-long relationship that led to his current role at Snowflake.
As Will put it: "No one can be ambitious for you. If you're excited about something, don't just sit around waiting for somebody else to tell you to do it. Get out there, start building, and explore."
Your Story Belongs Here
You don't need to have a course, a talk, or a big launch. If Laravel has been part of your journey (a pivot, a side project, a moment of growth), we'd love to hear about it!
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