It's interesting that while gamers are pretty critical of games made with AI/LLM assistance there are some game developers really going full steam ahead (pun intended) with coding agents for game development.
The website redesign is incredibly cool too, sure it starts the fans on my potato of a laptop (and stutters a bit) but it runs well enough that it's actually made me interested to give it a go.
I'll save everyone a click and encourage them to check it out too, not just the blog post:
I'll speak not as a professional gamedev, but a hobbiest. I enjoy offloading a lot of the work to LLMs because that's what a game engine did anyway in the before times. A lot of core logic in computer graphics, user input, dialog systems, etc... are incredibly tedious to build and have been built a thousand times over.
>gamers are pretty critical of games made with AI/LLM assistance
I think this is a misinterpretation of this general dynamic.
Gamers are pretty critical of "art" made with AI assistance. That includes not just graphical art, but voice over work, animations, writing, etc. And most of that criticism surely comes from the fact that it's apparent and ruins the willing suspension of disbelief while gaming.
But I don't think most of these gamers care at all if the game's code was made with AI assistance. I don't think they care at all at that level, just like they don't care what language the code is written in, the frameworks and engines used for the game, or even things like the developer environment. I'm sure there are some diehard anti-AI folk who would disagree, but those people are more "anti-AI" than they are "pro-gamer".
I'll add that even on the art front it's really just a matter of survivorship bias. Gamers hate AI art because it looks bad, is clearly low-effort, or is even because its putting real artists. But we're well past the point of proper AI assistance in art looking bad, and the gamers who don't notice it will simply not care about it.
Would Duangle's tale for NOWHERE have made a diversion into making the programming language NONE if AI was involved?
Would Voxel Quest have been nearly as interesting if all the dev blogs were just "I asked claude to do X, Y, and Z"?
I don't doubt that most don't care, same with how most people fairly don't care about most things, but I do think those that like to immerse themselves in the whole journey as well as the result are probably not feeling great. At the very least, this one doesn't feel great.
Sure, but I think I was careful enough to qualify my statements to account for these kinds of "gamers." I'd say the kinds of people you're describing are really game dev enthusiasts. It's certainly the case that almost all game dev enthusiasts are gamers, but it's also certainly the case that almost all gamers are not game dev enthusiasts.
Of course, even for those people, I doubt AI is, in itself, a turn off. You can use AI, even considerably, while still adding important creative elements to the process. Obviously something completely vibecoded and spit out in a cycle wouldn't qualify, but you can still do serious development on top of code that is being primarily written by AI.
The two hypotheticals are difficult to answer because any change in process produce a change in result, but in general, I would say the answer to both is yes, perhaps more likely.
Diversions are one of the most discouraged things ing game development. The most common advice to a starting developer is "Limit your scope" I think that advice might need some recalibration. If a developer has a neat idea for a thing, they might now be able to explore it and integrate it into a game over a few days instead of pausing the core game for several months so they develop an idea while their money runs out.
So based in reality. I don't really understand people enjoying doing stuff with prompts, either they're very mediocre or there must be something else. There's also the question that usually some famous game mechanics existed because of trial and error, line after line of hand coded stuff, and patterns emerging as you see fit from the code to the test, if all you do is prompting and piling slop over slop I'm afraid what we have ahead won't be fun, in any industry really
> Making things for the joy of making them is wonderful to see.
ehm except they're not doing anything really? the real joy was getting to know the processor, write down some assembly and see the result on an emulator, that was real joy, too easy writing a prompt that god know what it generates
Have you ever felt joy watching a sunset? Smelling a flower? Hearing a song? Seeing a child laugh? Did you create any of those things?
You may or may not be right about whether prompting is creation, but it is certainly possible to feel joy without any act of creation being involved. So you need a different argument if you’d like to prove that “making Commodore games using prompting cannot lead to joy.”
The making games part, absolutely. I have probably over 20 games that nobody plays. I have updated games at the request of the only person who plays it. I once made a game that I thought that no-one at all played but then got feedback from someone to say that their entire office was addicted to it. Last week I got an email asking for the solution to one of the last levels of a game I made around 2000-2001 (which I really should reply to :-/ ).
There was another thread yesterday about coding for the joy of it, I entirely support that too. I have written a few Dweets in my time, but the author of Littlejs is one of the masters of the form https://beta.dwitter.net/u/KilledByAPixel/top
my guess would be virtually all games are going to made with AI assitance. People are going to have to get over their AI phobia and just judge the quality of the result, there's awful things and good things.
Interestingly, a number of my non coder gamer friends are having a lot of fun lately making their own games using AI.
On the train jumping demo, I'm noticing a lag after pressing space bar before I see my character jump. I remember even with the 8-bit Nintendo, the controller would be polled and my sprite immediately updated every 60Hz screen draw cycle. Despite all the new technology, that simple thing doesn't happen here.
25 comments:
It's interesting that while gamers are pretty critical of games made with AI/LLM assistance there are some game developers really going full steam ahead (pun intended) with coding agents for game development.
The website redesign is incredibly cool too, sure it starts the fans on my potato of a laptop (and stutters a bit) but it runs well enough that it's actually made me interested to give it a go.
I'll save everyone a click and encourage them to check it out too, not just the blog post:
https://littlejsengine.com/
EDIT: And it looks like there's an ongoing jam for it too, mentioned in the blog post:
https://itch.io/jam/littlejs-jam
I'll speak not as a professional gamedev, but a hobbiest. I enjoy offloading a lot of the work to LLMs because that's what a game engine did anyway in the before times. A lot of core logic in computer graphics, user input, dialog systems, etc... are incredibly tedious to build and have been built a thousand times over.
>gamers are pretty critical of games made with AI/LLM assistance
I think this is a misinterpretation of this general dynamic.
Gamers are pretty critical of "art" made with AI assistance. That includes not just graphical art, but voice over work, animations, writing, etc. And most of that criticism surely comes from the fact that it's apparent and ruins the willing suspension of disbelief while gaming.
But I don't think most of these gamers care at all if the game's code was made with AI assistance. I don't think they care at all at that level, just like they don't care what language the code is written in, the frameworks and engines used for the game, or even things like the developer environment. I'm sure there are some diehard anti-AI folk who would disagree, but those people are more "anti-AI" than they are "pro-gamer".
I'll add that even on the art front it's really just a matter of survivorship bias. Gamers hate AI art because it looks bad, is clearly low-effort, or is even because its putting real artists. But we're well past the point of proper AI assistance in art looking bad, and the gamers who don't notice it will simply not care about it.
It depends on how you define "Gamer".
Would Duangle's tale for NOWHERE have made a diversion into making the programming language NONE if AI was involved?
Would Voxel Quest have been nearly as interesting if all the dev blogs were just "I asked claude to do X, Y, and Z"?
I don't doubt that most don't care, same with how most people fairly don't care about most things, but I do think those that like to immerse themselves in the whole journey as well as the result are probably not feeling great. At the very least, this one doesn't feel great.
Sure, but I think I was careful enough to qualify my statements to account for these kinds of "gamers." I'd say the kinds of people you're describing are really game dev enthusiasts. It's certainly the case that almost all game dev enthusiasts are gamers, but it's also certainly the case that almost all gamers are not game dev enthusiasts.
Of course, even for those people, I doubt AI is, in itself, a turn off. You can use AI, even considerably, while still adding important creative elements to the process. Obviously something completely vibecoded and spit out in a cycle wouldn't qualify, but you can still do serious development on top of code that is being primarily written by AI.
The two hypotheticals are difficult to answer because any change in process produce a change in result, but in general, I would say the answer to both is yes, perhaps more likely.
Diversions are one of the most discouraged things ing game development. The most common advice to a starting developer is "Limit your scope" I think that advice might need some recalibration. If a developer has a neat idea for a thing, they might now be able to explore it and integrate it into a game over a few days instead of pausing the core game for several months so they develop an idea while their money runs out.
So based in reality. I don't really understand people enjoying doing stuff with prompts, either they're very mediocre or there must be something else. There's also the question that usually some famous game mechanics existed because of trial and error, line after line of hand coded stuff, and patterns emerging as you see fit from the code to the test, if all you do is prompting and piling slop over slop I'm afraid what we have ahead won't be fun, in any industry really
Since assembler was released, 99% of "computers" didn't need to make punch cards anymore.
Since compilers were invented, 99% of "programmers" didn't need to write assembler anymore.
Since agentic harnesses were invented, 99% of "coders" won't need to write code anymore.
The current revolution of AI is not about writing code. It's about (re-)designing workflows so that they're reproducible and testable.
Shitty workflows always led to shitty outcomes, they're just way easier to spot now.
An interesting phenomenon that I have noticed is that there has been a proliferation of Commodore 64 games.
This shows people are using AI to make games that they know hardly anyone will play.
Making things for the joy of making them is wonderful to see.
> Making things for the joy of making them is wonderful to see.
ehm except they're not doing anything really? the real joy was getting to know the processor, write down some assembly and see the result on an emulator, that was real joy, too easy writing a prompt that god know what it generates
That is for them to decide. You may choose to use different methods. I don't think you are entitled to decide what brings joy to others.
No i'm not entitled, but there are facts based on reality: prompting isn't creating, it's a slot(or slop) machine
You still don't get to decide what "the real joy" is in absolute terms.
What are you the lawyer of the prev poster? Anyway I can rule out what it isn't, you're not creating anything what it isn't then? how can it be joy?
Have you ever felt joy watching a sunset? Smelling a flower? Hearing a song? Seeing a child laugh? Did you create any of those things?
You may or may not be right about whether prompting is creation, but it is certainly possible to feel joy without any act of creation being involved. So you need a different argument if you’d like to prove that “making Commodore games using prompting cannot lead to joy.”
In the end you are moving a bunch of electrons. With or without AI. You are just annoyed by AI. But creativity has nothing to do with AI or no AI.
> This shows people are using AI to make games that they know hardly anyone will play.
People have always done this tbh, I've probably built like a dozen+ games at game jams that even I barely remember.
The making games part, absolutely. I have probably over 20 games that nobody plays. I have updated games at the request of the only person who plays it. I once made a game that I thought that no-one at all played but then got feedback from someone to say that their entire office was addicted to it. Last week I got an email asking for the solution to one of the last levels of a game I made around 2000-2001 (which I really should reply to :-/ ).
There was another thread yesterday about coding for the joy of it, I entirely support that too. I have written a few Dweets in my time, but the author of Littlejs is one of the masters of the form https://beta.dwitter.net/u/KilledByAPixel/top
my guess would be virtually all games are going to made with AI assitance. People are going to have to get over their AI phobia and just judge the quality of the result, there's awful things and good things.
Interestingly, a number of my non coder gamer friends are having a lot of fun lately making their own games using AI.
It’s fun to build some small games with the kids for kicks. I’m definitely going to explore LittleJS for sure
On the train jumping demo, I'm noticing a lag after pressing space bar before I see my character jump. I remember even with the 8-bit Nintendo, the controller would be polled and my sprite immediately updated every 60Hz screen draw cycle. Despite all the new technology, that simple thing doesn't happen here.
probably because space bar does not jump during that demo.
I love LittleJS so much!
And I invite everyone to join their Discord: https://discord.gg/zb7hcGkyZe
The author is very welcoming and helpful.
It will be mindblowing if the Youtube demo and screenshots were replaced with actual playable games.
why's it even needed? AI seems really good at doing it without any supporting libraries / frameworks.