What exactly are we doing

Nopes

  • No generative AI in our code bases or art assets. This includes code copied from an external generative source, unit test writing, placeholder art, and/or placeholder audio, and more.
  • AI tools used to create documentation, PRs, automate builds, write unit tests, etc are not permitted.

Sometimes

  • AI tools may on occasion be used to analyze, debug, or lookup ideas (akin to Googling or seeking assistance on StackOverflow) if the model can be run locally* or run within our network.

This means this even this website, and all of its code, the landing art, the text you’re reading, and all the rest is not AI generated. but instead hand crafted. Typoz included.

Even more detail / FAQ

Local models?

We have at our disposal a few build servers that can mint builds of the games we create. If we can find an ethically sourced local model to run on those servers to help us build our games, we will consider it. These models will not, however, be used to write code or generate art.

What about AI in the game?

For now, any “AI” in our games will be in the classical sense of the word, but we may investigate options to add ML and/or local models. They would have to be specifically trained on the game and for the game to power experiences. These models/features/modes will not call out to third party services to perform inference or generation.

But, why?

Yes, we know others will go faster and yes, we know competitors will likely be able to out-pace us. We suspect we’ll be tossed aside or written off for this idea by a subset of the community, and that’s okay.

We’re not doing it for the money (although that would be a nice perk) - we’re doing it for the journey.

We like writing code and creating art ourselves. It’s fun!

We’ve seen first hand in our corporate jobs how AI robs joyful moments from creators, and over time coalesces and converges work into soulless commits. Every PR looks the same, and their puppeteers aren’t going through the struggle of learning. We believe that cognitive atrophy is on the rise, and fast forwarding to the outcome creates a breeding ground of novices operating complicated systems they cannot explain.

There are many allusions drawn to the industrial revolution when it comes to agentic workflows in software development, and we agree. Generative AI is here to stay and nothing we do will change that. But just like artisans during the industrial revolution persisted on and created small corners of hand-crafted goodness for others to appreciate, we aim to do the same. Call us hobbyists, or craftsman, or whatever you’d like.

But also, Generative AI and AI Companies are causing trouble. We see the greed and moral complications of slurping up people’s data and intellectual property and then turning around to sell it back to you with monthly subscriptions, powered by hastily placed data centers. Too much is inhumane. So while it’s hard to avoid in the everyday stuff of life, especially in white collar jobs, we have carved out this little safe haven that in the least, makes our moral hearts feel a little better.

This place is Humanity’s Last Stand.