An interesting read! I've used AI a little myself for 'coding' or rather scripting as I was attempting to build on an example bash script I had found to create a wallpaper swapper that would scan through certain directories based on the time of day and pick a random wallpaper. I managed to get it basically working myself, and then used (I think Gemini) to add some bells and whistles.
I didn't mind doing this for several reasons. First it was just a script, secondly I'm still not super comfortable with Linux stuff yet, and finally I only really cared about it working. There was some joy in that initial success, but after that I just wanted efficiency.
For a game however I think I would lose the enjoyment of the process if I wasn't handcrafting it. Sure I could get it done, but would I appreciate the end product as much, or would I have created something just a bit more 'disposable'? I'm dangerously close to veering into the age-old "are games art" discussion here, and maybe AI makes that a more stark talking point.
Like you suggest however, knowing how to do something is an important aspect, but even then I think automating my thoughts through a mechanism somehow feels like they matter less?? Are they still my thoughts and ideas then, or my inner self just reflected back via the mirror of genericness... A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
I could see myself writing another post about this now, lol.
I love AI for Linux, too. Squirt and I both have been using it to get more comfortable with it and I've never had to "live" with it long enough to lock it all in my brain. Most of my scripts at this point where written by ChatGPT because it's just faster.
For the game creation I had similar concerns but I'm finding it to be completely "my" game still. I'm designing the interface, the rules, the loop, and where the random elements are and where it will be balanced. I'm translating all the stuff on my graph paper into instructions, and I'm thinking about mechanics while I'm doing other things. I'm just not writing the code to implement it all. It's still my "art" in the same way that if I'd supplied printing instructions to a printer for game tokens, or had iterated on the iconography on my board game with an artist and a printer.
It doesn't feel generic to me, it feels like I've had my bonds loosened because now I can conceive of things and implement them much more quickly because I'm not using hand tools for everything. So an example from last night when you were writing this -- I left Claude to generate glyphs for me and then when I came back I hated them so we chatted about how to tweak them and how to implement them with code and we're getting closer to what I like. What will "ship" for these will be my decision and my design, only the code implementation of them will not be mine.
Consider also that something like a AAA game already has a zoo of people working for it. What "ships" will have decisions from all sorts of folks. In this case it's just me and Claude but...I'm not sure that detracts from the value of the game for me any more than the fact that a large studio already leans on all sorts of people for whatever it might be doing.
An interesting read! I've used AI a little myself for 'coding' or rather scripting as I was attempting to build on an example bash script I had found to create a wallpaper swapper that would scan through certain directories based on the time of day and pick a random wallpaper. I managed to get it basically working myself, and then used (I think Gemini) to add some bells and whistles.
I didn't mind doing this for several reasons. First it was just a script, secondly I'm still not super comfortable with Linux stuff yet, and finally I only really cared about it working. There was some joy in that initial success, but after that I just wanted efficiency.
For a game however I think I would lose the enjoyment of the process if I wasn't handcrafting it. Sure I could get it done, but would I appreciate the end product as much, or would I have created something just a bit more 'disposable'? I'm dangerously close to veering into the age-old "are games art" discussion here, and maybe AI makes that a more stark talking point.
Like you suggest however, knowing how to do something is an important aspect, but even then I think automating my thoughts through a mechanism somehow feels like they matter less?? Are they still my thoughts and ideas then, or my inner self just reflected back via the mirror of genericness... A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
I could see myself writing another post about this now, lol.
I love AI for Linux, too. Squirt and I both have been using it to get more comfortable with it and I've never had to "live" with it long enough to lock it all in my brain. Most of my scripts at this point where written by ChatGPT because it's just faster.
For the game creation I had similar concerns but I'm finding it to be completely "my" game still. I'm designing the interface, the rules, the loop, and where the random elements are and where it will be balanced. I'm translating all the stuff on my graph paper into instructions, and I'm thinking about mechanics while I'm doing other things. I'm just not writing the code to implement it all. It's still my "art" in the same way that if I'd supplied printing instructions to a printer for game tokens, or had iterated on the iconography on my board game with an artist and a printer.
It doesn't feel generic to me, it feels like I've had my bonds loosened because now I can conceive of things and implement them much more quickly because I'm not using hand tools for everything. So an example from last night when you were writing this -- I left Claude to generate glyphs for me and then when I came back I hated them so we chatted about how to tweak them and how to implement them with code and we're getting closer to what I like. What will "ship" for these will be my decision and my design, only the code implementation of them will not be mine.
Consider also that something like a AAA game already has a zoo of people working for it. What "ships" will have decisions from all sorts of folks. In this case it's just me and Claude but...I'm not sure that detracts from the value of the game for me any more than the fact that a large studio already leans on all sorts of people for whatever it might be doing.