In celebration of the AI Gaming Festival that's on now, and this game is a part of, I thought it'd be a good time to talk on the subject of AI usage.
What a hot-button topic these days, isn't it. AI usage. Some people reading this are no doubt already trembling with intense emotions at the thought of even thinking thoughts about this subject!
I've been into tech since I was a little dude. I've always been into seeing what the latest and greatest in tech was all about. So, the first week that first at-home LLAMA model was released, I was running it. I couldn't believe how amazing AI tools were.
Then when I first published the store page for this game, I was so excited to use as much AI as possible: live AI NPC's, an unlimited AI-powered drink making robot, and daily AI-generated live service; that I went full-bore AI-is-amazing.
Well, that didn't last long ĖsteamhappyĖ
Honestly it was a surprise to me that so many people are so against the usage of AI. But you're the audience, so I dialed back as much AI as I could.
I decided to only use AI when there was no alternative available.
I'm a solo dev. One dude. Whenever possible I make stuff by hand. When that's not possible, I buy a human-made asset that will work, if available. The third and last resort: I use AI tools.
My game is so much better for using AI. For example, over the course of a month, I made a 120 songs for the game using AI tools. There is simply no way I could afford human artists to do this, or spend years making these songs. And I like them. They are way better than silence.
My main goal with this dream of making a big Steam game is to make a great game that some people find fun, that has never been done before, in design or approach.
Making this game is costing me tons and tons of money. It is unlikely to make next to no profit. So, knowing this, I decided to use any tools that would make my game better.
If you don't like AI at all, that's fine, no worries. Just know that I would have spent and lost tons of money making this game and over 10,000 hours of development whether I used AI or didn't use AI. It's just that using AI made the game WAY better than it would have been had I wrote this game's code by hand and used stickmen for art or whatever.
So hopefully you can roll with that.
Not as much as some people would probably guess. Look at typical store page screenshot:
NOTHING in this screenshot was made by AI. (Ninja edit -- except for the bottles. Just the bottles.)
What is made by AI includes: music and sound effects, including voice acting. (Damn I'd love to hire voice actors but I don't have the money for that.)
Some 2d art, like the beer logos, signs around the board. All the bottles where made with AI because I couldn't buy these or make these myself (like I said.) Many of the bar upgrade 3d models were AI made, also because I couldn't buy these as assets.
All the map/overworld is human made. All the characters, 2d and 3d are human made.
Some other roadhouse games are just reskinned templates of completely non-inventive done-to-death game designs.
Not this roadhouse!
My game design document is near a 1000 pages. Ya. 1000 pages, written by me. I know, I know, it's ridiculous. But I put a lot of thought into this, and spent literally years naturally developing the gameplay. This is a labour of love, AI or no AI. And that's the truth.
Thanks for reading this!