How do you feel about generative AI being included in adventure games?Poll:
You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
In support of generative AI being included
4 (9.30%)
Acceptable only in certain circumstances
8 (18.60%)
Not in support of generative AI being included
31 (72.09%)
Total 43 vote(s) 100%
Hi everyone!
This has been a really interesting read. All the opinions here are valid, and I’m definitely not trying to convert anyone to “pro AI.” I think of it as sort of a grey zone, depending on how it’s used. What I’d like to do is just explain my own personal workflow, and get feedback on that.
What I DIDN’T do: say “AI, make me a picture of XXX” done.
What I did:
1. Start with a very specific visual image in my head of how I wanted each scene to look, including the layout, vibe / atmosphere, elements, exits, color and lighting, etc
2. Make a quick pencil sketch to use in Photoshop as a layout reference
3. Use reference photos (sometimes my own, sometimes from image searches)
4. Make collage references using ideas I liked (this style of lighthouse lamp, that style of window panes, this pot belly iron stove, etc)
5. Using my own pencil sketches as the layout in Photoshop and the photos / collages as “style references”, prompt Photoshop's generative AI as specifically as possible to create my image
6. Refine the image over and over through both prompting and with my own hand painted corrections
7. Feeling “finished” when the image looked as close as I could get it to how I saw it in my head
Here's a link to a google drive with examples from a scene in my game of a temple/library. There’s a rough pencil sketch drawn by me, reference photos (taken by me in a local library that inspired the scene), and the final product.
Again, I’m not really trying to change anyone’s mind. I just want to explain my personal workflow. I had a story that I loved and wanted to tell, and used the tools available to me help me achieve what was in my heart. Also, I would never ever want to be accused of theft. I get that AI can steal artists’ work, but I do not believe in any way that I have done that.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum! I really appreciate this site.
-Jonathan
This has been a really interesting read. All the opinions here are valid, and I’m definitely not trying to convert anyone to “pro AI.” I think of it as sort of a grey zone, depending on how it’s used. What I’d like to do is just explain my own personal workflow, and get feedback on that.
What I DIDN’T do: say “AI, make me a picture of XXX” done.
What I did:
1. Start with a very specific visual image in my head of how I wanted each scene to look, including the layout, vibe / atmosphere, elements, exits, color and lighting, etc
2. Make a quick pencil sketch to use in Photoshop as a layout reference
3. Use reference photos (sometimes my own, sometimes from image searches)
4. Make collage references using ideas I liked (this style of lighthouse lamp, that style of window panes, this pot belly iron stove, etc)
5. Using my own pencil sketches as the layout in Photoshop and the photos / collages as “style references”, prompt Photoshop's generative AI as specifically as possible to create my image
6. Refine the image over and over through both prompting and with my own hand painted corrections
7. Feeling “finished” when the image looked as close as I could get it to how I saw it in my head
Here's a link to a google drive with examples from a scene in my game of a temple/library. There’s a rough pencil sketch drawn by me, reference photos (taken by me in a local library that inspired the scene), and the final product.
Again, I’m not really trying to change anyone’s mind. I just want to explain my personal workflow. I had a story that I loved and wanted to tell, and used the tools available to me help me achieve what was in my heart. Also, I would never ever want to be accused of theft. I get that AI can steal artists’ work, but I do not believe in any way that I have done that.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum! I really appreciate this site.
-Jonathan
Since we're in the dedicated thread for talking about the use of generative AI in adventure games, I'm going to try to explain why I and so many other people are against it. There's a lot of money being poured into trying to normalize it and convince people it's just a tool like any other whose use affects no one but the user, and the business model depends on convincing a lot of well-meaning people. I'm going to try to do this in as arm's-length a way as I can, because I don't want it to come across as if I'm coming after anyone personally. (Apologies to BobVP for how harsh I came off in my post from November. I was posting through a case of shingles at the time and so was quite literally irritated.)
Fair, ethical treatment for a worker of any kind means they must, at a *bare minimum* A) consent to the use of their labor, B) be compensated for it, and C) receive credit for what they've done. A person can cheerfully and enthusiastically waive B or C, of course--like volunteering to write reviews for a fan-run website, for instance--but that's contingent upon A, which is paramount. Generative AI tools available to the public, like Adobe's, are trained on the work of artists who did not consent to that usage, were not compensated for it, and will never see credit for their (nonconsenting, uncompensated) contributions. There is no way to square that circle and make it ethical. The GenAI process is impossible without access to the literal, concrete end result of others' work, and because that work is literally the keystone of the technology--take the image database away and the AI can't produce anything--the workers who produced it should be treated as exactly that, workers, when considering any product it creates, meaning they're entitled to A, B, and C. But the way the tech works, they not only don't receive those things--they *can't.* As it stands it's a technology built around and dependent upon the use of uncompensated, uncredited, nonconsenting use of labor, and no hypothetical "In the future, maybe it will..." argument changes those material conditions that exist right now. If the only way something can exist is by withholding A, B, and C from the people whose work was required to make it, I say we don't need it. That goes for any industry, certainly not just the arts.
All this is leaving aside the questions of art, artistry, and intent I talked about earlier. Those are relevant philosophical/theoretical issues, but my central objection is based on labor and exploitation.
Fair, ethical treatment for a worker of any kind means they must, at a *bare minimum* A) consent to the use of their labor, B) be compensated for it, and C) receive credit for what they've done. A person can cheerfully and enthusiastically waive B or C, of course--like volunteering to write reviews for a fan-run website, for instance--but that's contingent upon A, which is paramount. Generative AI tools available to the public, like Adobe's, are trained on the work of artists who did not consent to that usage, were not compensated for it, and will never see credit for their (nonconsenting, uncompensated) contributions. There is no way to square that circle and make it ethical. The GenAI process is impossible without access to the literal, concrete end result of others' work, and because that work is literally the keystone of the technology--take the image database away and the AI can't produce anything--the workers who produced it should be treated as exactly that, workers, when considering any product it creates, meaning they're entitled to A, B, and C. But the way the tech works, they not only don't receive those things--they *can't.* As it stands it's a technology built around and dependent upon the use of uncompensated, uncredited, nonconsenting use of labor, and no hypothetical "In the future, maybe it will..." argument changes those material conditions that exist right now. If the only way something can exist is by withholding A, B, and C from the people whose work was required to make it, I say we don't need it. That goes for any industry, certainly not just the arts.
All this is leaving aside the questions of art, artistry, and intent I talked about earlier. Those are relevant philosophical/theoretical issues, but my central objection is based on labor and exploitation.
WJAick pretty much nailed it. It was named AI to sway public opinion, but it is not in fact artificial intelligence by definition. It is merely a tool seeking and mimicking. It is a glorified search engine. It does not create, it only researches, stores data, and regurgitates. In other words, it steals, it does not invent anything. At best, it combines data it has acquired with probability math to link things together.
I am working on a walkthrough for a game that currently has none. After it’s posted, I’ll be checking how long it takes the search engine AI to harvest it and provide my puzzle solutions as its own. It’s an experiment to see (1) if Cloudflare will prevent scraping, and (2) if not, to see if my AI-is-the-death-of-online-creativity theory holds water. If I write the only extant walkthrough for a game and then AI is able to provide answers, not only will I as author have been ripped off but my friend’s website will lose all of those hits it would’ve otherwise received.
As regards generated imagery, that’s a little more squishy. The images are more amalgams of many works than a direct theft of a particular work. The problem that I foresee there, which is already happening, is that as more people use generated images, there is less work for human digital artists, who then have to charge higher prices to maintain the same income stream, and then fewer people can afford human artists and instead turn to AI, and more artists go to work at the Home Depot just to pay the bills, and then there’s nothing left of the glorious www except the soulless digital world of the corporate fat cats.
Whatever, though, I know I am less than a microbe in the eyes of the world and there’s not a gosh darn thing I can do about any of it. If I were in charge, though, things would be different. <side eye>
As regards generated imagery, that’s a little more squishy. The images are more amalgams of many works than a direct theft of a particular work. The problem that I foresee there, which is already happening, is that as more people use generated images, there is less work for human digital artists, who then have to charge higher prices to maintain the same income stream, and then fewer people can afford human artists and instead turn to AI, and more artists go to work at the Home Depot just to pay the bills, and then there’s nothing left of the glorious www except the soulless digital world of the corporate fat cats.
Whatever, though, I know I am less than a microbe in the eyes of the world and there’s not a gosh darn thing I can do about any of it. If I were in charge, though, things would be different. <side eye>
Thank you all, those are all fair points and really well expressed.
To be honest, I’ve been out of this world (gaming, generative art, production, etc) for almost 30 years, and am only just now getting back into it, and hadn’t thought of it in the ways you all pointed out. I was just “a first time solo dev with no programming skills and limited art skills wanting to fulfill a lifelong dream.” It’s all very good food for thought. I’ve said before, and I mean it, if I can piecemeal replace the AI art in my game with my own I’d like to. It’ll be slow going, but anyway, thanks again everyone.
-J
To be honest, I’ve been out of this world (gaming, generative art, production, etc) for almost 30 years, and am only just now getting back into it, and hadn’t thought of it in the ways you all pointed out. I was just “a first time solo dev with no programming skills and limited art skills wanting to fulfill a lifelong dream.” It’s all very good food for thought. I’ve said before, and I mean it, if I can piecemeal replace the AI art in my game with my own I’d like to. It’ll be slow going, but anyway, thanks again everyone.
-J
It's weird, because on the one hand I'm one of the biggest GenAI haters at my job, which is why my heart says vote "Not in support of generative AI being included". For reference, I work in the tech industry so unfortunately I'm surrounded by GenAI boosters.
However, a few of my favorite games over the past few years have incorporated GenAI both with images (The Roottrees Are Dead) and music (some visual novels on itch.io). Those games were at least "free" and in the case of The Roottrees Are Dead, the GenAI images were replaced with human-drawn images for the commercial release. So from that standpoint, I guess I should vote "Acceptable only in certain circumstances" if I don't want to be a hypocrite.
That said, I probably have enough games in my backlog made before 2022 to last me a lifetime which don't include any GenAI, but for new games I group them into the following categories.
1. Explicitly state that they don't use GenAI, this is not always clear on some storefronts, but for itch.io you can filter for games with the "No AI" tag. - These are the games I want to prioritize supporting going forward.
2. Uses GenAI (code, music, text, image, voices) but is released for free. - I might check these out depending on the extent of the GenAI use. If it's only background music or placeholder background text, I might be more forgiving, if the rest is all human-made. If it's a substantial amount of both text and image then what's the point? As an example, I will definitely be checking out Peace Island next month since their GenAI use was extremely minimal and they've made attempts at trying to remove most of it.
3. Uses GenAI and discloses their usage, but releases their game commercially. - I'm going through my wishlist on Steam and checking the disclosure section to remove all games that use GenAI. I appreciate their honesty, but there's too many good games to play that don't use GenAI that I'd rather support instead. So far the only exception I have is Vice Undercover, because it doesn't seem very extensive, but I am taking a wait and see approach with that one.
4. Uses GenAI, but does not disclose their usage and releases their game commercially. - This is the case I dislike the most and I wish I had read this article before purchasing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, because they don't make any disclosures on their Steam store page. However, this one might be a bit more of an edge case since it has been patched out of the final product. Firmament, on the other hand, does not disclose their GenAI usage and players were upset to find it out after the fact.
This is another regularly updated document to check which games use GenAI. Although at this point, you shouldn't trust any game made by a major studio unless they explicitly state that they don't use GenAI.
However, a few of my favorite games over the past few years have incorporated GenAI both with images (The Roottrees Are Dead) and music (some visual novels on itch.io). Those games were at least "free" and in the case of The Roottrees Are Dead, the GenAI images were replaced with human-drawn images for the commercial release. So from that standpoint, I guess I should vote "Acceptable only in certain circumstances" if I don't want to be a hypocrite.
That said, I probably have enough games in my backlog made before 2022 to last me a lifetime which don't include any GenAI, but for new games I group them into the following categories.
1. Explicitly state that they don't use GenAI, this is not always clear on some storefronts, but for itch.io you can filter for games with the "No AI" tag. - These are the games I want to prioritize supporting going forward.
2. Uses GenAI (code, music, text, image, voices) but is released for free. - I might check these out depending on the extent of the GenAI use. If it's only background music or placeholder background text, I might be more forgiving, if the rest is all human-made. If it's a substantial amount of both text and image then what's the point? As an example, I will definitely be checking out Peace Island next month since their GenAI use was extremely minimal and they've made attempts at trying to remove most of it.
3. Uses GenAI and discloses their usage, but releases their game commercially. - I'm going through my wishlist on Steam and checking the disclosure section to remove all games that use GenAI. I appreciate their honesty, but there's too many good games to play that don't use GenAI that I'd rather support instead. So far the only exception I have is Vice Undercover, because it doesn't seem very extensive, but I am taking a wait and see approach with that one.
4. Uses GenAI, but does not disclose their usage and releases their game commercially. - This is the case I dislike the most and I wish I had read this article before purchasing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, because they don't make any disclosures on their Steam store page. However, this one might be a bit more of an edge case since it has been patched out of the final product. Firmament, on the other hand, does not disclose their GenAI usage and players were upset to find it out after the fact.
This is another regularly updated document to check which games use GenAI. Although at this point, you shouldn't trust any game made by a major studio unless they explicitly state that they don't use GenAI.
(01-24-2026, 01:38 AM)Estória Wrote: Again, I’m not really trying to change anyone’s mind. I just want to explain my personal workflow. I had a story that I loved and wanted to tell, and used the tools available to me help me achieve what was in my heart. Also, I would never ever want to be accused of theft. I get that AI can steal artists’ work, but I do not believe in any way that I have done that.
-Jonathan
I can understand that - you're using AI to help you achieve things that would otherwise be out of your reach financially or logistically. I voted 'not in favour' in the poll here though because I was thinking of larger development teams using AI in their workflow when they should have staff to do it really, but for single person devs the situation is of course different.
My own rule is that I don't use AI to create things I can do myself. I am, amongst other things, an artist and designer and wouldn't dream of using AI to make images or drawings for me. The only things I have used it for is to discuss developing ideas (not coming up with ideas; just which direction to take them) and for coding, because those are things I find particularly challenging personally.
This post was last modified: 01-24-2026, 10:04 AM by Piero.
(01-24-2026, 12:25 PM)Wild Boar Wrote: I just want to play a good game, whether it was created by E.T., an AI, or a human being, I don't care. Maybe I'm being naive, I don't know.
Even if an AI wrote the story?
If so, I have a hard time understanding that. Art is fundamentally human. An AI doesn’t actually have anything to say. Therefore it is artistically not relevant, and to me at least, completely un-interesting.
In this day and age, art is one of the last truly human things we’ve got left. If we surrender our need to create art, and leave *even that* to AI, we are kind of giving up as humans. I find that thought to be quite depressing.
(EDIT: Just realised I repeated some points I wrote earlier in this thread. Sorry about that, but to my defence it was several months ago)
This post was last modified: 01-25-2026, 12:33 AM by EirikMyhr.
I've created three presentations with Gemini over the last few days. The ideas were still mine, but the execution was better than I could ever have achieved myself. (Not to mention that anyone else would have thrown in the towel with all the change requests I had.)
Why shouldn't anyone have an idea for a game if the AI implements it? Of course, the AI will also have its own ideas—ones that are unusual by our standards. And it will be a new gaming experience.
I remember reading a newspaper article along these lines a long time ago: Scientists commissioned AI to develop ways to repair foreign planets. It took them years to understand what the AI had developed. They only knew that it was ingenious.
The development will come, whether you resist it or not.
And let's be honest: what people deliver is mostly standard fare. I don't want to deny any developer, including those present here, their creativity and pride in their product.
But which game really stands out from the crowd? Mundaun comes to mind, and even Prim is only different in terms of its graphic style, not its design. It's always the same thing in different packaging. Why not try something new for a change?
Why shouldn't anyone have an idea for a game if the AI implements it? Of course, the AI will also have its own ideas—ones that are unusual by our standards. And it will be a new gaming experience.
I remember reading a newspaper article along these lines a long time ago: Scientists commissioned AI to develop ways to repair foreign planets. It took them years to understand what the AI had developed. They only knew that it was ingenious.
The development will come, whether you resist it or not.
And let's be honest: what people deliver is mostly standard fare. I don't want to deny any developer, including those present here, their creativity and pride in their product.
But which game really stands out from the crowd? Mundaun comes to mind, and even Prim is only different in terms of its graphic style, not its design. It's always the same thing in different packaging. Why not try something new for a change?
This post was last modified: 01-25-2026, 11:07 AM by Wild Boar.