I’m currently developing a short indie horror game for itch.io. I went to school for 3D animation and I’m fully capable at modeling, animation and all that. But I’m incompetent when it comes to programming. I tried Sololearn to see if I could learn c sharp, but I barely made it past the intro section. I also bought playmaker and Emerald AI hoping that would make it easier. But the documentation for playmaker is either limited or outdated. Emerald AI I do have a grasp on though. I wanted to code it myself, but based on my struggles, it seemed more and more likely that I’d have to get outside help.
I’d like to work on indie games with other people, but I’ve learned no one wants to take you on unless you can prove your skills in an already existing game. Which is a big reason for why I want this game made. I’ve signed on for many game jams only for my teams to flake out every time. I’ve met multiple coders on discord who were willing to help on my game in exchange for assets, who then ghosted me. I don’t have much money these days, so hiring is both unrealistic and excessive for a game that I need for portfolio reasons (wish I had spent that playmaker money on this instead.)
The game itself isn’t very complicated: player needs to flip four switches to unlock an escape door while avoiding patrolling enemies. So I don’t think these coders were turned off by the offer, especially when I was willing to make all the assets for an open world game.
At this point, I just want to have a completed game. I loathe the idea of resorting to AI (especially as an artist) but if I can’t find any other options, I may just have to go with it. I’d really rather it doesn’t come to that, so I need advice.
How should I proceed from here? Would it be unethical to use AI to just do the coding and correct it here and there with what little coding knowledge I have? What should I do to get this game done?
Edit/PS: I could spend the years it would take for me to learn coding, but that’s not my end goal. I want to be a game artist and learning to code seems like it would be a distraction from that. Is it wrong to think that way?
Disregard ethics for a second. I would argue it is much more unethical to use AI generated art in a game than it would be to use AI generated code. Here’s why:
AI art steals the role of artists because it uses algorithms to produce a product that has never existed before, like an artist does with colors instead of math.
AI code isn’t great. That’s why so many experienced coders are being hired to come fix the nightmare code that companies used AI to generate after firing all their coders. But that’s because AI only knows how to put together code that has already existed, which means all an AI is really doing is interpreting your input and producing an output - just like you would do if you thought of what you wanted your code to do, spent countless hours pouring through search results, forums, textbooks, etc., slapping some shit together, and running it through a validator. Most applications have validators built into the workspace, meaning if you write something that doesn’t work or make sense, it’s going to tell you (and probably even tell you how to fix it). So, just think of AI as a slightly smarter validator. You write some really bad code (what you want the code to do in English) and the validator goes “this English code makes no sense, here’s what it should look like.”
There’s no guarantee the “corrections” it makes will actually work, fit into the code you already have, be organized in the most efficient way, or be the best way to handle that particular task. But, a huge chunk of a coder’s time is thinking about things like that anyway. So let the AI fix your English code into whatever language you’re actually trying to speak, and you deal with the other half: is this how I want it to work?
But that’s just me. 🤷🏻
Edit: If after all that you’re still not feeling very ethical, then show a coder your product and see if they’ll use their brain’s LLM to validate better code.