Fluttermind

So, AI skeptics: do you really believe that it’ll all vanish in a couple of years leaving nary a ripple? You do know there’s space between ‘nothing’ and ‘accurate, generalized AI’, right? I don’t think you have to be a ‘credulous noob’ to think things will change, permanently.

Will everyone be wandering around talking to their really lifelike AI butler? Probably not (for various reasons). Will your doctor be using an AI system to help diagnose you? Almost certainly. Will the world be filled with shit AI art and novels? Yup!

It’s so funny. I fell in love with videogames at a time when they were intentionally predatory amusements: arcades were, ironically,the equivalent of F2P. Nickel and diming, addiction-reliant, 100% focused on the coins-per-hour. Buuuuuut…

Not all indies are perfect. There are clones galore. There are those chasing the previous zeitgeist. There are those who are in it purely for the imaginary money (people have to eat, you know). But if you look past all that, there are people making decisions based on passion for the medium.

It’s so funny. I fell in love with videogames at a time when they were intentionally predatory amusements: arcades were, ironically,the equivalent of F2P. Nickel and diming, addiction-reliant, 100% focused on the coins-per-hour. Buuuuuut…

…most of the folks *making* them wanted to be experimental, artistic, weird, original, novel, and - most of all - entertaining. At some point the people *making* them and those *deciding* what got made diverged. And that’s where the rot set in.

As someone who has done a lot of game writing, I have ‘opinions’ about AI. We’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Nobody complains that NPCs have too little dialogue. They do complain that they *hear* the same inflection of ‘Hello Hero!’ A gazillion times. And thats not a *writing* problem.

At the moment, NPCs can’t use a player’s *chosen* name, or comment on anything the player feels is important without significant cost in recordings. In addition, getting ‘angry’ or ‘whispered’ versions of things starts to double or triple the recording costs. Again: not writing.

As someone who has done a lot of game writing, I have ‘opinions’ about AI. We’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Nobody complains that NPCs have too little dialogue. They do complain that they *hear* the same inflection of ‘Hello Hero!’ A gazillion times. And thats not a *writing* problem.

The more variants of ‘don’t go there!’ you force, the more you risk ending up with super detailed lines you’ll *really* notice repeating (and tell the player ‘prod here more’, or end up writing weird stuff nobody would ever say *just for variation*.

As someone who has done a lot of game writing, I have ‘opinions’ about AI. We’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Nobody complains that NPCs have too little dialogue. They do complain that they *hear* the same inflection of ‘Hello Hero!’ A gazillion times. And thats not a *writing* problem.

I really don’t understand the appeal of cannibinoids. Perhaps it’s my body chemistry or some other element, but as a sleep aid they may make my muscles relax, but my general experience is one of jittery, vibrating tension. Yuck.

This is the look I plan to rock into my sixties. :-)

Okay. I’m not really an artist. But! I’d like to create super rough hand-drawn stuff a la MÖRK Borg. If you had to teach someone to do that in, say, a week, what would you do?

I think that growing up with the original D&D has shaped a lot of my thinking around games and what I want from them. I want: novel imagery, atmosphere, fear of consequence, interesting ways to use/abuse items and rules. I don’t want: social situations, conversations, interpersonal dynamics.

I think that growing up with the original D&D has shaped a lot of my thinking around games and what I want from them. I want: novel imagery, atmosphere, fear of consequence, interesting ways to use/abuse items and rules. I don’t want: social situations, conversations, interpersonal dynamics.

Today’s wanky thought-bomb: I envy the malleability of other arts: works of the novelist, the director, the music producer. I envy the ease with which their forms can be deconstructed, challenged, ripped and pasted to create ‘art of worth’. We, as game devs, are burdened with being ‘fun’.

There was a point when reading Kafka where someone said ‘He taught me that writing doesn’t have to BE like this (the usual form)’. I’m kind of hoping we discover our own Kafka, because this endless churn of novelty nothings of varying shine is getting very dull.

Today’s wanky thought-bomb: I envy the malleability of other arts: works of the novelist, the director, the music producer. I envy the ease with which their forms can be deconstructed, challenged, ripped and pasted to create ‘art of worth’. We, as game devs, are burdened with being ‘fun’.

Our nearest equivalents seem merely to strip back the bloated tropes that have infected every game genre to reveal some thing pure and simple… but that we also saw 30+ years ago.

Today’s wanky thought-bomb: I envy the malleability of other arts: works of the novelist, the director, the music producer. I envy the ease with which their forms can be deconstructed, challenged, ripped and pasted to create ‘art of worth’. We, as game devs, are burdened with being ‘fun’.

I know there are games which are not fun. They’re largely irrelevant though, as player agency offers infinite opportunities to mistake meaning and intent and see the ‘unfun’ element as a mistake. And ‘not being fun’ isn’t a goal in itself.