John IV

I've been building Confluence on @spawn for almost a month now, and I am getting close to publishing. After a lot of iteration and polish it is almost time to get some actual player feedback. I can't wait to see what crazy combos people pull off.

This was obvious from the very beginning. If any of the people in the anti-AI movement were actually gamers they would have been able to see from the perspective of their peers. No random dude playing call of duty gives a fuck about whether or not the games they enjoy are made with the help of AI. Gamers care if what they bought is fun and entertaining and that is as far as their opinions on it will go.

Anyone else tired of seeing every industry pander to the mentally ill?

All this controversy around AI in game dev is exhausting. I'm about to take a big walk off the side of a building if we keep having to go through this.

We've really hit rock bottom huh? These devs made a game that sold millions of copies and is beloved by the indie community, but now that it's come out they leaned on AI for less than 0.1% of their new game to fix some code, it's a terrible game and they're terrible people. If that's not the pot calling the kettle black then I don't know what is. You really have to be a miserable person to completely switch up on something you've held in high regard and loved because the devs didn't pass your little purity test, especially at such a small scale. Shame on anyone who behaves like this.

I finally finished all the icons for every spell in Confluence. Seeing them together on a sheet feels nice.

So, using AI is "stealing" because it is trained on data from thousands of artists. It is also becoming the consensus that a lot of artists are expensive and unreliable. Then, is it not the case that by using AI I am commissioning the ultimate most reliable artist that there is? 🤔

You don't need anyone's permission to create things. If you are passionate about an idea and you start working to bring it to life, it does not matter what tools you use to make that happen. There will be those who scoff and turn their nose up at you for using AI, but that's ok, their approval has no bearing on what you can or cannot create. Anyone who has worked with AI tools knows that they are still far from perfect. Just like any other creative endeavor you will sit with them working on the most menial things iterating over many hours to get things just right. This is no different than any other artist meticulously pecking away at their art in order to improve it, same iteration process, different delivery mechanism. Do not allow others to sway you away from creating things that bring you joy. Rather, find other like-minded people and build together. There will be a time in the not too distant future where all of this bickering has completely vanished and something new will be stirring up their outrage. Be productive, make cool shit, and do it unashamedly.

I have been working on the UI for Confluence the past couple of days. First the spell icons for fire, and now we have wind.

With all the staff members @spawn hinting at the release of v7, I cannot contain my excitement. The platform is already something that is tremendously innovative and the team behind it are so helpful and supportive of the community. If v7 releases, performance issues are remedied, and Fable 5.5 drops so Jacob can upgrade the engine with it, when they start marketing it's GG. Spawn as a concept is leaps and bounds past any other in this space. It is a sandbox of creativity that dwarfs anything that you can do in Roblox, the monetization structure is more favorable for creators, and you have access to extremely powerful AI tools at no personal cost to you. That is only the game dev side of things, you can create anything you want in spawn, educational tools, benchmarking tools, mods for the community etc. Then, ON TOP OF THAT, without a doubt it will become a social hub for players and creators. We are so early, but this announcement is a step toward this platform BLOWING THE FUCK UP.

I'm bout to bust

Now that I have my core elements worked out (fire, water, wind and lightning) in Confluence, I finally began working on the UI today. I started with the fire spell icons for the action bar. It took a lot of iteration, but I think I have found a consistent style that I like.

Steam's review queue being backed up is not an AI problem. It's a lazy dev problem. People have been so quick to point the finger at AI, but the reality is that Steam is having to reject more submissions because devs are not putting in their due diligence. AI may be responsible for a larger quantity of submissions, but by Valve's own admission, the queue is backed up largely because games are being rejected for never being launched on Steam, features being listed but not implemented, vague store pages, and other things that just boil down to the negligence of the creator. This is resulting in devs that have done everything right being forced to wait in the same line as the ones who are holding it up. Some devs are waiting weeks longer than the 3 to 5 business days Steam promises, and some are missing their launch dates because of it. Whether you are building with AI or not, test your game properly before submitting. Make sure it launches on Steam, don't make promises about features that aren't there, and be clear and concise on your store page. It's that simple.