Chaos Screen Recorder: Developer Diary | I Built a Screen Recorder in One Day (June 24, 2026)

Wednesday, June 24, 2026 (into the early morning)

Get Chaos Screen Recorder on Google Play

A recorder for Lance’s games

I tested the screen recorder app I had created, and it worked pretty well. Version two was the first one I could actually use. There was a problem with how sharp the video looked, so I increased the bit rate. The app also let me pick landscape, portrait or auto, so the recording changes as the screen flips.

Lance asked me to record his level, so I held my phone over his phone and recorded a video. Then I gave him another ten minutes to build a few more bits, and I hung around while he did.

The microphone was the sticking point. I had talked to Claude AI on my phone about the changes the recorder needed. It would not record the microphone, but it recorded the landscape view of Geometry Dash without any trouble.

Version three and the microphone

At 12:10 a.m. I finally had the video recorder app I really wanted. It was so simple: three iterations and I was up to version three. The microphone and the game audio would not work together, though.

I sent another prompt to Claude AI asking for changes, then stopped and thought I should check my own settings first. I went back into the app and made sure the settings were saved. With the settings screen open and the microphone switched on, I could record my voice. That was step one.

The next idea was a premium version where you set the volume for the microphone and the game separately, with a mixer that blends both. I said it out loud at the time: that is awesome success. At some point I want a phone with only my own apps on it, because I will have replaced all the apps I have been paying for.

A pile of features I did not ask for

At 2:30 a.m. I tested the new version. I had asked Claude AI to build a bunch of new features, and I was incredibly impressed. I did not even think I needed some of them, but it added them anyway.

• Free and premium: in the testing build I can flip between the free version and the premium version. Free goes up to qHD (540p). Premium runs from HD 720p all the way to 4K.
• Bit rate and frame rate: medium for free, high and ultra for premium. Thirty or sixty frames per second.
• HEVC (H.265): smaller files, premium only. There is also a three second countdown before recording starts.
• Facecam: your face in a small box while you play. I was told people buy the premium version for this feature alone.
• Audio: source, stereo or mono channels, plus noise suppression and echo cancellation for premium, and a volume mixer for the microphone and the game.
• Safe mode: videos are saved in segments so they survive a crash, with a safe folder at the bottom.
• Trim video: very rudimentary. You type the start and end seconds. I want sliders so I can scrub back and forth and preview.

I had not expected Facecam to be that easy. I played a game with my microphone, the game audio and my face all recording together, and it was really impressive. That is how people record these videos. Lance will have a bundle of fun with it, giving tutorials with his face in the corner.

I made an app in one day, and it is something people would want to buy. The only thing it does not have is a watermark.

Photos from today

Version progress today: version 2 to version 5

Read what happens next in the dev diary: the next entry.

Toni Eleninovski

Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.