How I Built a Game Bot That Uses LLM Vision for $0.01/Hour (Not $1/Hour)

Dev.to AI
Generative AI

Most tutorials about using LLMs for game automation show you how to send screenshots to GPT-4 or Claude every few seconds. It works - but at $1+/hour, you'll burn through hundreds of dollars a month. I built a framework that gets the same results for $0.01/hour. Here's how. The Expensive Way Every 3 seconds: 1. Take screenshot 2. Send to Claude: "What should I do?" 3. Parse response 4. Execute action 5. Repeat Cost: ~1,200 API calls/hour × $0.001 = $1.20/hour This is how most LLM game agents work. It's simple, but the cost adds up fast - especially if you want to run 24/7.