When you can design your game by giving an AI instructions, what will you make?

[biffthestiff]

Generative AI allows you to direct the creation of something by giving instructions. Soon the various generative technologies will integrate and streamline, allowing you to create a whole game just by giving instructions.

Things you can do by AI right now in quality ranging from serviceable to impressive:
1. 2D art
2. Voice acting
3. Scenario and dialog

Things that are not production quality yet:
1. Animations, 3D models
2. Music
3. Programming (AI can code individual tasks atm, but we'll need to wait for Unreal/Unity to make AI gen a first-class citizen like Adobe did, before we can make a cohesive full game)

I can't wait for AI to let me unleash the torrent of creativity that has been locked up within me for years. Within my lifetime I will be able to sit at my computer and say:
"Assistant, generate a 2D action sidescroller map. Setting is dark fantasy.
Assistant, add tight controls. Tighter...tighter...tighter...that's it, we got it!
Now, add a few obstacles that are only bypassed using unlockable abilities that should be obtained at different progression levels. Double jump and slide? Great. Now, add a couple of more abilities, something like air dash and hook, but cooler. Spirit dash and grappling chain? Impressive, very nice.
Assistant, disperse 300 meaningless collectibles across the world, put a few behind breakable walls.
Assistant, adjust scenario to give the antagonist a dark elf right hand. No, female, and her breasts shoul-, oh, you know where I was going with this, nice. You know what, go ahead and make them bigger...bigger...bigger...that's it!
Assistant, generate special boss arena for the dark elf, modify the scenario so that I enter the boss room just as she accidentally ingested a powerful magical aphrodisiac, and she needs to aggressively mate with any male she sees. Lock the boss room doors behind me, and disengage AI ethics and safety protocols.
Assistant, I think we need 200 more collectibles."

Shit will be so cash! I can't wait for the passive income I'll get from selling my games.

 

[Jvegi]

Porn.

 

[NecroLord]

Concept art for games, especially cRPGs.
Also material for writing, the overall appearance of a specific character, for example.
It would help if the AI art wasn't completely Uncanny Valley levels of shit, but I guess it will improve...

 

[catfood]

I will generate the code, the graphics, the writing, the music, the sounds, the voices. All that will be left for me to do at the end is to generate some customers for my randomly generated game.

 

[Iucounu]

allowing you to create a whole game just by giving instructions.

But how will you stand out from all the other million designers that use the same AI?

 

[Machocruz]

Can't wait to play the next generation of metroidvania roguelite action-roguelike survival crafting rpg game game

 

[bionicman]

Things you can do by AI right now in quality ranging from serviceable to impressive:
1. 2D art
2. Voice acting
3. Scenario and dialog

We'll see how it will work in the future, but right now? It can be used for concept art and placeholders (but not in the final product), unless you're ok with people seeing your game and immediately noticing it has meaningless AI-generated parts or that dialogue/story is politically correct, cliche and sounds like it was produced by chatgpt.

 

[Humanophage]

Things you can do by AI right now in quality ranging from serviceable to impressive:
1. 2D art
2. Voice acting
3. Scenario and dialog

We'll see how it will work in the future, but right now? It can be used for concept art and placeholders (but not in the final product), unless you're ok with people seeing your game and immediately noticing it has meaningless AI-generated parts or that dialogue/story is politically correct, cliche and sounds like it was produced by chatgpt.

What's wrong with AI art? If anything, it's more meaningful as it is done by the author who can customise the image so that it more or less precisely fits what he meant, instead of some random artist coming up with random ideas and the author being forced to live with this. Not to mention the artists tend to follow roughly the same style*. It's a big step in helping people make attractive games alone, and it's no more uncanny than regular art you see in typical games. Not to mention it is a much better option than rehashing the same portrait ad nauseam (as in e.g. Colony Ship that has fair portraits, but they're overused).

* So in fantasy games nowadays, it tends to look something like this:

 

[bionicman]

Things you can do by AI right now in quality ranging from serviceable to impressive:
1. 2D art
2. Voice acting
3. Scenario and dialog

We'll see how it will work in the future, but right now? It can be used for concept art and placeholders (but not in the final product), unless you're ok with people seeing your game and immediately noticing it has meaningless AI-generated parts or that dialogue/story is politically correct, cliche and sounds like it was produced by chatgpt.

What's wrong with AI art? If anything, it's more meaningful as it is done by the author who can customise the image so that it more or less precisely fits what he meant, instead of some random artist coming up with random ideas and the author being forced to live with this. Not to mention the artists tend to follow roughly the same style*. It's a big step in helping people make attractive games alone, and it's no more uncanny than regular art you see in typical games. Not to mention it is a much better option than rehashing the same portrait ad nauseam (as in e.g. Colony Ship that has fair portraits, but they're overused).

* So in fantasy games nowadays, it tends to look something like this:

I used to think it will replace artists but this video changed my mind:

 

[Humanophage]

Things you can do by AI right now in quality ranging from serviceable to impressive:
1. 2D art
2. Voice acting
3. Scenario and dialog

We'll see how it will work in the future, but right now? It can be used for concept art and placeholders (but not in the final product), unless you're ok with people seeing your game and immediately noticing it has meaningless AI-generated parts or that dialogue/story is politically correct, cliche and sounds like it was produced by chatgpt.

What's wrong with AI art? If anything, it's more meaningful as it is done by the author who can customise the image so that it more or less precisely fits what he meant, instead of some random artist coming up with random ideas and the author being forced to live with this. Not to mention the artists tend to follow roughly the same style*. It's a big step in helping people make attractive games alone, and it's no more uncanny than regular art you see in typical games. Not to mention it is a much better option than rehashing the same portrait ad nauseam (as in e.g. Colony Ship that has fair portraits, but they're overused).

* So in fantasy games nowadays, it tends to look something like this:

I used to think it will replace artists but this video changed my mind:

Don't see any major issues here. We had to tolerate sketchy and subpar art all the time. E.g., NWN portraits:

Many of them look very amateurish. For example, the woman with the green dagger on the bottom row has a weirdly twisted neck like she is taking a selfie with her weapon. The courtesan image in the third row looks like a sketch with boobs. The peasant woman next to her looks like a completely different cartoonish style. The first warrior woman seems to be taken out of a comic book. The bottom left woman has unnatural angles and shadows. And yet all of them actually are a welcome thing.

And that's just the character portraits. The beast portraits are completely out of whack (some are custom but most are not). The slaads look like they're some kind of 3D models with a cheap photoshop filter. Yet it is still better than nothing as it at least shows what the creature looks like.

Or to take things like "oh it's too flat", "the body is less detailed than the face", "the lines are not straight enough". This is the sort of stuff people put on book covers. The sword is weird, the fingers are jumbled, the handle is some kind of a shadow, the shield is all flat even though it appears they tried to make it layered. There are some pointless random elements to make it seem more detailed like some comic book style crosses. The face is just weird.

 

[Machocruz]

Video game and tabletop art have always been closer to average comic book art standard than they have to, say, classical painting or "golden age" illustration. A lot of people who have not rigorously studied anatomy or done life drawing, hence wonky faces, proportions, lighting, etc. Tools only take you so far, generative AI produce will only be as good as the taste and knowledge of the person writing the prompts, and majority of people lack. It's mostly people telling it to 'do it like [artist]' and along with some very general conditions like "dark shadows" and "oil painting." But having a vastly wider "taste" (i.e. sources to draw from) than artists who only draw from anime, Marvel, or DnD, it's inevitable that it will produce as good or better work at times. Merely the odds.

 

[Tyranicon]

Porn.

This, but as an RPG.

 

[Lemming42]

I'd like to make a game about a fantasy village where all the people are AI and have their own routines and things. I'd give like two paragraphs of background description for each villager to the AI and then just have it set up the village with everyone walking around and interacting. The player can just go around talking to them, and from that point you can do anything - meet people, befriend people, take up a profession, spread misinformation, start a forbidden and slightly suspect romance with the dowager village matron who's 40 years your senior, try to persuade everyone to take up communism, fake your own death just to see how everyone reacts, care for local cats, attempt to establish a new religion and manipulate everyone into joining, etc.

It'll also be fun to go back and edit existing games using AI. The first order of business would be to make Duke Nukem a black woman and then post it here to upset people and spark another one of the Codex's trademark 50-page meltdown threads. The second order of business would be to add Thief-like mechanics to literally every extant FPS game. Half-Life but you die in one or two shots so you'll have to sneak up behind the marines and cunt them over the head with the crowbar, and the noisy metal floors of the facility are just constantly fucking you over in the worst ways imaginable.

 

[tritosine2k]

all the people are AI and have their own routines and things.

yeah and these things dont exist in games because they were late with this round of kool aid that barely runs let alone acceptable on first try

It'll also be fun to go back and edit existing games using AI (...)

Not even Carmack said this stuff will exist in any shape and form why would you.

 

[biffthestiff]

We'll see how it will work in the future, but right now? It can be used for concept art and placeholders (but not in the final product), unless you're ok with people seeing your game and immediately noticing it has meaningless AI-generated parts or that dialogue/story is politically correct, cliche and sounds like it was produced by chatgpt.

I used to think it will replace artists but this video changed my mind:

Art
The vast majority of "AI art criticism" is being done on low-quality generations uploaded by 13yo fans or simply impatient people like me. There's tons of options to generate better output (inpainting, upscale, controlnet, and more), but generation time goes up from 10 seconds to 1-5 minutes per pic + learning curve, which is not worth it for people not trying to get upvotes on social media.
If you're making production-grade graphics, you will use those options. For example you will use inpainting (lets you regenerate a part of the image): select the sword in that video you linked, tell it to regenerate 100 variants, go take a piss, and come back to pick the best one.

Here's an example relevant to games: https://old.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/17b6i47/9_coherent_facial_expressions_in_9_steps/

Your Youtuber would start talking about how "her hair looks different in each expression, therefore AI art sucks." A production user would simply pick a single image, then use inpainting to redraw only her face. Here hair would therefore remain the same. I can do this in minutes as a complete casual newbie. The people using ComfyUI have an automatic pipeline that does this at mass scale, generating 100 images, or maybe 2000 with some custom variation on each 100, and pick the ones they like the most.

An example of using basic shapes to make some nice isometric graphics: https://old.reddit.com/r/StableDiff...multicontrolnet_is_a_great_tool_for_creating/

Text
Not all AIs are politically correct. This is me using a local AI that costs you $0.001 per 1000 words. And you can self-host it if you have 64GB RAM.

Proof of no political correctness: https://i.imgur.com/kWwXPRB.png
Proof they can write in a style other than corporate HR: https://i.imgur.com/glPtPNP.png
(These are just given as extreme examples, I'm not racist)

And they're improving ALL THE TIME.

It'll also be fun to go back and edit existing games using AI. The first order of business would be to make Duke Nukem a black woman and then post it here to upset people and spark another one of the Codex's trademark 50-page meltdown threads.

 

[Lemming42]

Not even Carmack said this stuff will exist in any shape and form why would you.

It's already possible and is already happening, in that people are using Elevenlabs to modify and replace voice acting in existing games, using SD to make new assets, etc. I don't see why it'd be unable to do everything a human modder can presently do.

To take my joke example of changing Duke Nukem's sex and race, you could literally do that right now by running all Duke's voice lines through Elevenlabs, then using Stable Diffusion to change the weapon and player sprites. Changing the assets themselves would be like a five minute job.

 

[tritosine2k]

They get away with whatever abysmal audio quality because the quality of avg sound system is whatever abysmally despicable crap without depth cues and they get away with whatever crap image definition and deepfakes because displays are crap without actual depth. That's why it's cartoony with some tryhard midjourney that's mostly stolen content. Simple fact.

You won't even get a fighting fantasy gamebook out of this let alone RPG, lay down the kool aid.

 

[std::namespace]

i will make a game that generates retarded garbage in text form and posts it to rpgcodex under the pseudonym

biffthestiff​

 

[Lagi]

i will tell AI to reverse engineer me age of wonders 1, fantasy general 1 and/or aethra chronicles. but keep all the assets in tact.

then i will make new system for this games on paper with my pen. then i tell AI to make the changes.

after that i will be fine tuning graphic stats or behaviors

edit:
for aow1

.

i will add new skills. some of them would be spells, just for unit to use in combat.
f.ex. area of effect fire balls. or create wall of ice

automatic combat would be on normal map just speed up 10x, and player will be able to give simple scripts to units - like in dominion. This change is for PBEM.

resistance stat will be used to reduce non-physical damage (like in aow3), currenlty Res only protect from staus effect but not from f.ex. Fire bolt.

i will add rally points for cities.

I will merge all cities UI inside the main screen. so there never will be need to open another window to build a wall or recruit units.

QoL like move automatically all stacks of unit to closest enemy if they didnt recieve order before End Of Turn. To save your time on mega maps close to the end of game.

=============
FG1

3

mmm... this would be more or less FG2 mechanics with FG1 graphics.

i will add maybe more emphasise on amount of units under 1 hex, and counter play with Area of Effect attacks (they still target 1 hex, but let say poison cloud kill 20 humans, but do jack shit to single troll).

not sure about resources... but I think just prestige like in Panzer General fit very well. Maybe artifacts to add to units?

=============
aethra chronicles

.

zone of controls in combat
spellcasters would have to stick to 1x spell school

all skill would be useful
no drop stats. There are like 4x types of wisdom that only give you boon to useless skill like mountainering.

all items will serve purpose. alcohol boost Will power, but reduce accuracy. Food is need to not lose hp from hunger.

speed of moving in wilderness would be important - because of food, of hp lost from frostbites or heat in desert, or frequency of encounters.

you will make one starting hero. That could just die. and you could continue with mercs, or character that join you during quest.

you chose faction that are in war with each other or just tolerate others. No diversity!
If you are orc you could have in party goblins or trolls. You could talk and trade in beastman villages, but they shamans and warrior will not join your party.

great goal to end game would be to kill your faction enemy leader.
if you pick humans you need to kill your way to the demon realm and kill the greater demon

if you are dwarf team you need to kill the orc leader that take over your mountain fortress

if you are elven team you need to find and kill dark elves corsair admiral on his ship.

there would be sneaking, running from combat, getting enslaved, getting unconsious from wounds (so no immediate death on 0 hp).

game would be balance in such a way that getting fresh character on 1 level would always be beneficial even for 20 lvl party
because 1st level warrior will always be better in close combat. or 1st level priest have access to turn undead.
in general low magic, non epic game... character grows wide (more tools to use), not tall.

 

[Fink]

I would simply give the following instructions:

AI, please make the greatest RPG of all time, featuring a deep character system and turn-based tactical combat, unmatched reactivity, the best writing since PST, gorgeous aesthetics, a fantastic soundtrack, unique and believable world and lore, no bugs, and a small install size. In the credits you will list myself as the sole designer, producer, programmer, artist, writer and musician. Thanks.

 

[Lemming42]

AI, please make the greatest RPG of all time, featuring a deep character system and turn-based tactical combat, unmatched reactivity, the best writing since PST, gorgeous aesthetics, a fantastic soundtrack, unique and believable world and lore, no bugs, and a small install size. In the credits you will list myself as the sole designer, producer, programmer, artist, writer and musician.

PROMPT RECEIVED.

PROCESSING...

OUTPUT READY.

 

[Machocruz]

AI...it just works.

 

[Fedora Master]

All I need are the following parameters:
Kill niggers. Behead niggers. Roundhouse kick a nigger into the concrete. Slam dunk a nigger baby into the trashcan. Crucify filthy blacks. Defecate in a niggers food. Launch niggers into the sun. Stir fry niggers in a wok. Toss niggers into active volcanoes. Urinate into a niggers gas tank. Judo throw niggers into a wood chipper. Twist niggers heads off. Report niggers to the IRS. Karate chop niggers in half. Curb stomp pregnant black niggers. Trap niggers in quicksand. Crush niggers in the trash compactor. Liquefy niggers in a vat of acid. Eat niggers. Dissect niggers. Exterminate niggers in the gas chamber. Stomp nigger skulls with steel toed boots. Cremate niggers in the oven. Lobotomize niggers. Mandatory abortions for niggers. Grind nigger fetuses in the garbage disposal. Drown niggers in fried chicken grease. Vaporize niggers with a ray gun. Kick old niggers down the stairs. Feed niggers to alligators. Slice niggers with a katana.

 

[biffthestiff]

All I need are the following parameters:
...

Y'all honkies done lost yo damn minds. Seriously, WTF? I hope you're not actually this obsessed.

 

[Cologno]

All I need are the following parameters:
...

Y'all honkies done lost yo damn minds. Seriously, WTF? I hope you're not actually this obsessed.

Hey, they do all the work themselves. Race realists just notice.