Month: October 2024

Yesterday a guy in a Slack channel sent the link to his post, shilling that he was showing the true potential of generative AI. The post is this one. Let’s break it down as a simple example of why all this hype is damaging the collective mind and how easy is to trick a brain using the right wording.

Preparation

Claim: “15min with just using GPT-4o and GPT-1o to create a complete game idea & concept“

This guy is looking for something quick and fast, not just getting ideas. He wants a complete concept. I consider myself a fast professional, I like quick and dirty things more than slow and perfect stuff. But 15 minutes is ultra-fast. Creating a complete game concept takes a huge portion of my mind, especially my conscience. How can a chipset have a conscience? Come on.

Prompt: “I want you be my my Lead Game Designer who knows all about mobile gaming, all genres, all mechanics, market trends etc I want you to come up with a compelling idea with USPs. I want you to pick the genre and sub-genre for me based on market data, some where that has high potential and is sorta blue ocean and high chance of success. The idea should be mobile friendly with simple mechanics and at the same time good depth so at first players can easily pass and progress but soon they have improve their skills/characters or whatever in order to progress further“

This man’s role to the machine is “his” lead game designer. This is a pretty common fetiche among game leaders. “My game designer”, “my programmer”. Some people believe that teammates are like pets or something.

The expectation is that this virtual pet knows all about mobile gaming too. That’s the dream, really! You take a selection process anywhere and you can feel that. Now, the good thing is that the machine is connected to the internet so it has access to lots of data. But, does that mean that the machine “knows”? Can the machine actually understand what it’s reading? I don’t think so.

The task given is not well defined, and too generic too. Lots of “sorta” and “whatever”. This happens also in real life, that’s one of the challenges of my profession. And don’t misinterpret me, I love it! It’s part of the beauty of my job to understand what people actually want.

Game concept and generated ideas

– Title: Eden Rising: Rebuild & Survive
– Genre: Hybrid-Casual City Builder with Survival Elements
– Setting: A post-apocalyptic world where players lead a group of survivors to rebuild society

Mechanics Overview
– Resource Management: Start by collecting basic resources (wood, stone, food) through simple taps. As the game progresses, automate resource collection and manage supply chains.
– Building and Upgrading: Construct homes, farms, workshops, and defenses. Upgrading buildings unlocks new functionalities and improves efficiency.
– Survivor Management: Assign survivors to roles based on their skills. Manage their well-being by providing shelter, food, and security.
– Dynamic Events: Random events like storms, raids, or resource booms that require quick decision-making and adaptation.
– Exploration Missions: Send teams to explore ruins, forests, or other settlements. These missions can yield rare resources, new survivors, or story developments.

Why This Game Will Succeed
– High Engagement Potential: The blend of simple mechanics with deep strategy caters to a broad audience, encouraging both casual and dedicated play.
– Market Gap: The unique combination of genres fills a niche with little direct competition, positioning the game for standout success.
– Scalability: Regular updates with new content, events, and features will keep the game fresh and retain players over time.
– Social Integration: Community-building features enhance player retention through social engagement.

I don’t know where to start, honestly. If you read this and think that is good I suggest you to start studying game design for real, because you have no idea of what you’re talking about.

Game design is NOT this, at all. Game design is engaging with an audience and a team, understanding a market, and making micro-choices according to a set of problems to solve. As a game designer, you are invited to lead a process of discovery:

• You may want to give a role to your players and see what happens
• You can explore a mechanic or a set of mechanics
• You may want to discover a new World that you and your team are building
• You maybe want to set up a relationship with your players, thing that happens in live games
• You may want to deliver a concrete experience

A lead game designer is a game designer who leads a team of game designers. So a lead game designer would tackle this issue very differently from the words soup you can see above.

The moodboard

Not happy with the shameful result, our friend added 4 unrelated images:

The first image is a generic and boring village in the middle of a north-European wood. You can see there is no central structure, nothing to drive the eye of the players. Just a generic composition.

The second image is a supposed sequence of upgrades of a building. In this case, it looks like a barrack that becomes a wooden house. The evolution makes the roof change orientation and each evolution is unrelated to the ones before.

The third image is a set of character concepts. Explorers from a utopic past or a dystopic future, I don’t know. Some of them have arrows but no bow, and some others just a bow. There are cool details, probably stolen from some Artstation page. Nothing special, nothing that tells a story about the game itself.

What is most important, these visuals are NOT hybrid-casual style like stated in first place by the machine.

Last but not least, The Last of Us. What does this mean in the game? Can you “conquer” this zone or explore it? And why? It’s just to remind us of TLOU, right?

Conclusions

I am tired of this shit, frankly. Look how many reactions and comments this guy had! Look at the position he covers. And you will understand why the state of games, especially mobile games, is desperate.