Play game
Harold's AI Odyssey II: A Journey Through Time's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #8 | 3.278 | 3.278 |
| Overall | #10 | 2.444 | 2.444 |
| Comedy | #10 | 2.167 | 2.167 |
| Gameplay | #10 | 2.222 | 2.222 |
| Story | #11 | 2.056 | 2.056 |
| Music | #11 | 1.833 | 1.833 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Didn't finish it, but I like the art and gameplay style, keep it up!
Also wtf is this drama thread lol
I like how Beregon's review is basically a bachelor essay written without AI.
Thanks! I'm glad you like what what you've played so far.
As for the drama, well, let's just say that people in the RPG Maker community are aggressively against generative AI technology. The jokes in the first game landed better because they were mostly aimed at poking fun at AI. This game completely flipped the script on its head in almost every way but that also led to _a lot_ of negative reactions.
3 things I liked about this entry:
3 things I did not like:
Gameplay - 2 Stars
I think that this had potential for something good, but the implementation is way too unpolished for me to rate it any higher. To start off, the point and click adventure mechanics were interesting, but there were some moments where it felt like just wandering around and using everything possible until something works. Some examples:
Act 1, you were meant to fix a stone altar with stone tools, the stone tools didn't even really look like tools that would be suitable for the job.
Act 2, where you are meant to use the shovel at one specific screen and there's no indication where it is. And the crocodile nesting grounds are a pointless location.
Act 3, where you are meant to use the pearl at the same screen where you found it, unlike with everything else.
The old point and click adventures allowed the player to examine the surroundings and provided hints that way. This game relies only on the graphics and the player's intuition. I feel like some more guidance would be great in this game overall, especially for a jam game. Especially regarding the basic game mechanics. The only part of the game that has an explanation is the custom Combat System.
The biggest flaw with the point and click adventure part of the game is the "1 item slot" inventory system that seems to exist only so that the player has to backtrack and wander around multiple times and thus get into Random Encounters. Which are way too frequent and seemingly pointless. Taking the overall design of the game into account, it would really be better if the Random Encounters were replaced with set encounters at specific points, perhaps with some humorous dialogue from Harold before each battle.
Regarding the combat system itself, it's just click around until you find the Perfect spot to click for each enemy type and then remember that spot for the rest of the game. From what you said, it seems that the attack spots are all randomized at the start of the game to encourage replayability and... is this really a game meant to be played multiple times? I think that was a mistake and it would be better to have set locations for each enemy type that are tied to the enemy sprite and the player having to figure out which part of the enemy's "body" will take the most damage from an attack. It would fit in better with the focus on puzzles and make the player feel smart instead of lucky once they figure it out.
Also, not healing the player before a boss fight is straight up evil. Especially since the HP bar fills up completely before every fight, giving people the illusion that they are at full HP before they understand how it works in this game.
As for the boss rush at the end, I can see what you were going for, but it needed a lot more leeway or maybe a chance to regain HP halfway through it. I remembered the Perfect spots for more than half of the enemy types, including guessing the final boss' Perfect spot immediately by random chance, yet I had to repeat that boss rush multiple times to get through it.
The game is also quite buggy and one time, I couldn't pick up an item and had to change screens in order to reset it. And that section in Act 4 where you have to find the right way through trial and error was the worst. It wasn't obvious at all what you were supposed to do and you could've at least turned off random encounters for that part. It felt like the point and click version of an RPG Maker dungeon generator maze game.
Music - 2 Stars
It's RTP music, sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn't. There are also some annoying parts related to this, such as the victory theme being annoying to listen to with so many random encounters and the final boss rush, where you hear it over and over again in quick succession.
Story - 1 Stars
Predictably, this is gonna be a long one.
I have strong feelings about this game and the story felt condescending from its very inception. "Oh wow, bad guys are deleting technology and we start in the Stone Age, with our first mission being to rediscover fire! In a pro-generative AI game! Where could it lead to, I wonder? Surely not that tired argument demagogues use to dismiss and shut down any criticism and discussion of negative impacts of certain forms of technology? Including generative AI?"
It just seemed to have contempt for its audience and be very patronizing. "Alright kids, now we go through history and learn that without technology, we'd be living in caves without even a fire to keep us warm, alright? This is what happens if those anti-progress luddites associated with Harold Jam have their way." You might not have entirely intended for this to come off this way, or at least, not as strongly, but that's what you ended up with.
Certain parts of the game felt so smug and pretentious, as if the game expected the player to have a sudden epiphany and clap at its genius. A certain person described it as "this feels like a reddit post with 2 upvotes" and honestly, it feels accurate.
This game was also made for Harold Game Jam, so the vast majority of people that end up playing it are likely somehow associated with the Harold Jam Community. In this game, the villains are the 'collective conciousness of itch game jam organizers' that are specifically controlling the Harold Jam Organizers, a large part of the story is about Harold Game Jam banning AI generated assets this year AND the villains are portrayed as a bunch of has-beens worried about being made obsolete by a 'superior new technology' and unironically call themselves 'gatekeepers' that want to keep new people out of gamedev. This just makes the game feel very spiteful and too mean spirited. It doesn't even poke fun at this concept that much, it mostly just treats them as strawmen for Harold and his AI friend to preach at. Ironically, when the villains actually bring up a valid point at the end for once, Harold and the AI mostly ignore it, because the game's story itself doesn't seem to have a good answer to it.
Which is to say, you made a divisive game that doesn't treat its primary audience with much respect, don't be surprised if people have strong opinions. You seemed to attempt to make fun of yourself a bit at the end of Act 2, but it didn't really matter compared to everything else. The game doesn't feel like it was supposed to promote discussion, just to troll, which is unfortunate, as there is a seed of good ideas and a valid point or two buried under all this.
The story also seems to distort certain historical facts in order to further support your point, perhaps out of ignorance. Suffice to say, it's true that Photography wasn't viewed as an art for a long time and many people considered it more like clothes made in a textile mill, not art, but something made for a specific practical purpose. However, it wasn't anywhere near as controversial as the game pretends it to be and even if it wasn't seen as 'art' for a long time, it was seemingly widely embraced by the society at large, including painters, who used it to make pictures of their paintings and catalogue them and largely moved on from contractual 'portrait painting' to pursue more outlandish artistic pursuits. And even then, there was still a demand for 'portrait painting' (as having yourself photographed and having a custom painting made of yourself are quite different). Yes, there were some detractors, but those were seemingly in a vast minority.
Overall, there are many other issues and complaints related specifically to Generative AI that treating it like it's equivalent to Photography during its inception feels very simplistic and outright dishonest.
The ending feels like a temper tantrum. I would've perhaps rated the story 2 Stars if it wasn't for that.
To come back to the AI argument and as a reaction to one of your posts here on this page, near the end of the game, Harold says something like:
"For once, I was allowed to try. Everyone was!"
This is framed as some inspiring moment, perhaps as some way of Harold 'standing up for the downtrodden against those elitists', but it just feels farcical in a game full of custom assets. Yes, they are simplistic and unrefined 'MS Paint' art assets with some default RPG Maker RTP stuff. And that's perfectly fine. People made flash games and indie games with "programmer art" and stock images for ages. Those have charm.
And I have seen paintings created by disabled people that have to paint with their mouths and feet and they are great. Yes, there could be more tools to make it easier for them and there exist some. And generative AI could potentially be used to improve those tools in some way. But suggesting that all this could be replaced by those disabled people just using generative AI to make something for them based on a prompt feels very condescending. Perhaps I misunderstood your other post and if so, I apologize, but I wanted to make my feelings clear on this matter.
Perhaps one day, there will be AI tools that will truly allow people to unleash their creativity and offer them greater control of the process to truly make it an art form. Instead of having a machine generate it wholesale based on an 'art comission prompt' and make it based on pre-existing images it stitched together and scraped off the internet without the consent of the artists, without any personal touch or 'soul' involved, but we aren't there yet. Right now, we seem to be at the point where generative AI is fed with a lot of AI generated art and as a result, it produces more nonsensical stuff.
This overall situation feels more like the 'VR Bubble' during the 90s, if anything. Look where that went and how long it took before VR took off again. Not really that close to when Photography became a thing.
Your dismissal of what you called 'moral arguments' supposedly being moot "since the technology is already there" feels particularly horribly misguided to me. The technology being there doesn't mean that it has to be crammed everywhere, no matter how unsuitable it is for the task at hand, that the negative consequences should be ignored and regulations shouldn't exist. That's ridiculous. There are plenty of technologies that already exist for decades or centuries that are more or less heavily regulated. Generative AI is no different. And as always, whenever a new technology comes along, there are those who wish to exploit it to make themselves rich with the least amount of effort as possible, while it's still in a mostly unregulated "grey area", without care if they screw over many different people.
As an aside, I do think there are ethical ways to use generative AI, but the current "AI community" overall doesn't seem very interested in that. Instead, it's mostly "get rich quick" schemes, scraping art without consent from the artists and producing endless slop. Either society isn't ready for it or the technology isn't there yet. Most likely both. To archieve progress, those problems need to be dealt with and the 'AI culture' needs to change. That was my opinion on this topic.
The story of this game ignores that point entirely and dismisses these concerns in favor of poking fun at ridiculous strawmen and I just can't rate it any higher than this.
Graphics - 3 Stars
Now back to a shorter category. Graphics are quite good and I'm not saying that just to be contrarian to AI or to support the tired argument that "Custom MS Paint art is better than using RTP" that is way too overused in the community. No, I actually quite like them.
Yes, they are simple and amateurish "MS Paint" graphics, but they have charm and soul and feel nice to look at. With the notable exceptions of Harold and the Sabertooth Tiger, they are also quite well-made in this MS Paint artstyle. It was especially great seeing all the famous art pieces recreated in this style in the latter acts and overall reminds me of certain flash games of old. I do think you could potentially end up with something great if you refined this style.
As for what's dragging this category down, aside from the unrefined artstyle and some character designs like Harold and the Sabertooth tiger, it's also the weird graphical glitches that happen a lot in this game, such as when you move between screens too fast.
Comedy - 1 Star
I expected better from you. I really enjoyed the first game as a ridiculous parody that used AI generated assets to make an entertaining meme of a game that didn't treat itself seriously.
For this game, you seemingly got too caught up in trying to prove a point and get back at people for some perceived slight, so much so that you forgot to be funny. Whatever comedy you intended for the game just didn't land and felt too spiteful and mean spirited for this particular jam's style, as well as too preachy.
I half expected that the game would follow some of the more preachy lines with an "AI Bro" ad trying to sell me some product or support his 'get rich quick' scheme. And I think the first game's style of humour would make fun of that.
This is a shame, because from the first game, I know you can do much better.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, I'm very disappointed. I expected a fun, ridiculous romp like the first game. One that might espouse some opinions that I probably won't agree with, but could spark an interesting discussion at the very least and most of all, be funny and entertaining. This wasn't that.
If you want to make another game about "generative AI", I suggest you educate yourself on the various points of view in this whole AI discussion and try to see things from their perspective. I'm not saying you need to agree with them, but just to treat them respectfully. The game didn't do that. It felt like someone with a very surface-level understanding of the subject tried to make a game discussing it with some level of seriousness, which doesn't end well.
As an effort to extend an olive branch, I admit that the game does appear to raise some valid points. It appears to insinuate that certain parts of the rpg maker community are way too gatekeeperish and unfriendly and... I agree. I do think it's a problem and I find most other game-engine specific game dev communities relatively more chill, at least towards new devs. And I do think that the term 'asset flip' means something different to many people than its real meaning.
There was also all that 'jam drama' and as much as I think the game's take on it was needlessly mean spirited, I do think you have a point that some people took your first game way too seriously, when it was primarily meant to be a joke. Even if the 'No AI Generated assets' jam rule ultimately didn't have anything to do with your first game, other than reminding the jam organizers that they forgot to put it there.
I will also concede the point that the previous two topics are potentially great targets for satire. However, this just isn't the way to do it.
And I do hope you participate in the next year's Harold Jam. I truly mean that. Even at their worst, your games display great creativity and are full of passion and soul. If you want to use AI tools, that's fine. But use them ethically and in such a way to enhance your creativity. Don't entirely outsource it to whatever a machine spits out based on whatever it regurgitated from the internet, like so many people are doing nowadays. That's no way to stand out.
Now, review over, lecture over. TLDR version: "This game gets one Harold and a half out of 5."
[ Act 3, where you are meant to use the pearl at the same screen where you found it, unlike with everything else. ]
Almost everything in this game is randomized: the battle grids, item locations, random encounters etc. I make my games for myself as I know that I will end up playing them way more than everyone else in the entire world combined. So yeah, if you played through it again, the screens that almost all of the items appear on would be different. There's a 1 / 9 chance that any given item in that stage will spawn on the screen that it belongs to. Each screen gets one item but they are shuffled and only appear one at a time after you used the last item.
[ Ironically, when the villains actually bring up a valid point at the end for once, Harold and the AI mostly ignore it, because the game's story itself doesn't seem to have a good answer to it. ]
I was wondering if anyone would catch this. 👍
I actually do have a decent answer to it but for some reason, I lost track of it while writing the story.
[ As an effort to extend an olive branch, I admit that the game does appear to raise some valid points. It appears to insinuate that certain parts of the rpg maker community are way too gatekeeperish and unfriendly and... I agree. ]
It does more than insinuate. There's a reason why I made the Harold Jam hosts, and by proxy most other jam organizers, pressured and / or influenced by "The Organizers" and not the true villains in the game. To be honest, after last year, I felt that any Harold's AI Odyssey game that wasn't neurotically anti-AI would get ratioed into oblivion so I kind of went no holds barred. 🤷
[ Even if the 'No AI Generated assets' jam rule ultimately didn't have anything to do with your first game, other than reminding the jam organizers that they forgot to put it there. ]
Keep in mind that I wasn't privy to this knowledge until after the jam concluded. For almost an entire year, I was expecting that the reaction to my first game was going to result in the Harold Jam hosts banning AI from all of their future jams, and it played out exactly as anticipated. The only reason I believe it now is because Sawyer seems like stand-up guy so I take him at his word.
Ah, so the random generation extends to items too. Alright. I can understand wanting to have some things randomized so that the game can surprise even you as the dev. Though I think that the extent you went with it resulted in a worse experience for everyone else, which is part of the reason I couldn't rate the gameplay higher. But that was your choice to make and it's not that much of a big deal.
I'll take your word for it. I guess we'll see that answer if you decide to make a third game.
I suspected as much, but didn't want to come off as accusing you of anything in case I was wrong. I do think there's a time and place to just say what you really feel through an artistic medium, but I think this was handled poorly. And in the process, you've alienated a lot of those who were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and saw your original game for what it was. But perhaps you don't care about that.
I remember reading the chats on the RPG Beta Testers discord back then and Sawyer repeatedly made it clear to everyone there that he meant to put the 'No AI generated assets' rule there, but simply forgot. So it was clear to me from the start. But yeah, you wouldn't know of that unless you read them too. Harold Jam has something of a small community of repeat contributors, so I think he simply assumed that everyone who participates will be part of the discord server.
If you didn't submit that game last year, eventually Sawyer would either remember to put in that rule for the next jam or someone else would try to submit a game with some AI generated assets and I doubt it would be treated any differently. Your first game at least used AI generated assets in a clever way.
I also remember some people being seriously alarmed Harold Jam will be 'flooded with AI slop', which I thought was something of an overreaction to what was ultimately supposed to be a memeish joke of a game submitted to a very niche game jam. And ultimately, I can't fault them too much, given the situation around generative AI at the time that has seemingly only gotten worse since. Still, I certainly get how it could put you off and why you'd want to poke some fun at that. I just think you didn't go about it the right way. In any case, I think enough was said about this already.
I didn't realize that I could properly quote in these forums. Just found the option.
Nah, I'm not going to beat a dead horse. A new game will require new inspiration and Sawyer effectively defused any chance of me being inspired to do anything similar to this by being so cool about it. He handled it like a pro. I might not be completely done trolling but it will definitely be much more on the goofy and light-hearted side.
To paraphrase the argument, it would have been something along the lines of, any human that learned how to emulate all of the different styles of art, writing, coding, and / or knowledge recall would be considered a genius, and rightly so, while a machine that does the same thing is considered evil or at best a thief.
But yeah, humor, especially at the expense of others, is a dangerous game to play. Hopefully I didn't burn too many bridges.
Gameplay - 3 - The memory game is novel to me and works well for the short format. However the janky coding does hurt quite a bit. The event system is ultimately made for cutscenes, not game mechanics.
Music - 2 - Maybe a bit mean for me to not rate favorably but that victory musical effect was not made to be repeated rapidfire as in the boss rush at the end and it got pretty unpleasant to hear over and over again.
Story - 2 - It's at least arranged well as other people have brought up. However this game capitalizes on the ability of stories to own a complete monopoly on the conversation. The narrator in this story is a non-artist who feels personally inconvenienced by the criticisms and the actions taken against works created with AI. While someone did mention this story does attempt to portray "both sides", the opposition is portrayed as horned, mean-face demons with motivations of cartoon bad guys. Opposing arguments are portrayed at face value and only at the very end of the story for a very short exploration of the topic.
If for some reason we need examples of opposition points that this game can reasonably address, the gun weapon is a great example. Many technologies need some responsibility in order for its use to be considered moral and none of the moral and ethical problems of AI are addressed here.
Graphics - 2 - It's bad on purpose, so I think this is the only fair rating I can give.
Comedy - 1 - Unfortunately the topic feels too serious for me to lighten up while playing the game. Meh.
Overall - 3
Darn. I really thought the last scene in this one upped the ante from the ending in the original Harold's AI Odyssey. I've got my work cut out for me in part 3. Anyway, thanks for playing. Sorry you didn't enjoy it.
There's a whole lot that can be unpacked here, but I won't go on at length since ample discussion is being had already.
Graphics: 3 - I agree with Sawyer on this one. The art might not be technically brilliant but it is extremely effective for what it is and was clearly a ton of work. Some of the takes on famous artwork or set pieces made me smile and I liked the monsters.
Sound: 2 - What was there fit well enough. I will say that if you walk around with the healing stone it gets pretty annoying hearing it go off, though.
Gameplay: 2 - This is effectively an adventure game with light combat. Most of the time you will be navigating between screens so perhaps my biggest complaint is the bugginess and sluggishness of moving between them - clicking too fast would result in a disorienting screen 'flicker' that caused the screen the visuals to fade in twice. The combat is basically a guessing game with a bit of memorization. I liked that the enemies existed but I found the combat to be mostly a distraction and it probably would have been better if they were preset one-off encounters, perhaps changing the combat a bit to suit them better. The two item inventory management was also pretty annoying, though it was not much of an issue after the Egypt zone.
Comedy: 3 - This game had good energy during the intro, which I thought was pretty charming and funny, but it becomes a preachy diatribe pretty fast. I thought the credits were amusing, too, but the sobering ending made them a bit awkward. This was definitely a game made for this community specifically and so I definitely have less context for what is going on here since I'm new, though the game made it plenty clear.
The irony of a guy making a game with AI following it up with a game that doesn't use AI, and having it nearly universally being considered better by the general audience, is not lost on me though, so this gets +1 point for meta reasons.
Story: 3 - Well, there's certainly a lot that COULD be said about this one. I also have little doubt that this is the most controversial jam entry, so I'll just say what I liked. The pacing and structure of the narrative were sound and it effectively upped the ante over the course of the game. The dialogue is competent and reads nicely, and the smaller character interactions closer to the beginning of the game were fun.
I'll leave it to the rest to complain about AI art being for the lazy and creatively bankrupt, or about how AI is a black hole for electricity and water supplies, or whatever probably true reason people have come up with. I don't think anyone is getting convinced either way.
Overall - 3
Ironically, the art is very charming in this!
You have no idea what it is to be an actual artist. The fact that your 'primitive' MS Paint art has more character than anything AI could produce proves you just don't get it. If this was farce/parody, you missed the mark. Terrible game. AI sucks.
Last year, I made the original Harold's AI Odyssey, almost entirely using AI. You liked it a lot, gave it really good scores, and had a great time and some great laughs. This year, I make an entirely custom game with entirely custom art and zero AI, and you hate it and likely rated it 1's across the board because ... AI sucks?
You're being weird. Did you get into the bourbon cabinet last night?
Two things: The first game was done at a time when AI was (arguably) more accepted in general, and your game was kinda interesting and entertaining. This game, however, is an outright, tone-deaf attack on game jam organizers thinly veiled as a 'game'...you're acting butthurt about the decision to NOT include AI in final games, your commentary is outlandish and hilarious wrong, and you're missing the point. You apparently lost something between that one and this. Maybe you let AI write the story too much for this one? Or if this is an original story, maybe have AI help you next time. Who knows? But the quality is severely lacking. If this is satire, maybe go back and look up what satire actually is.
There's a stark difference between gaining inspiration from what came before you, and using a computer to slop everything it stole together and claiming it's "art". Your first game never claimed it was art. This one is acting like AI is some next stage of creativity.
Secondly: This is just badly written "comedy." The custom art was the only decent thing about it.
This. Exactly. I agree with Hawk that ironically the charm of this game was the stuff NOT using AI. I admittedly had a more scathing review of the game at the ready but a lot of people said my points.
Who are you, and what have you done with Hawkzombie? I mean, you can’t possibly be him, can you? The Hawkzombie I remember was always a really chill dude with the patience to review and stream some of the worst games ever made without hurling daggers at the games’ creators. (I can say this because he’s streamed/reviewed a few of my god-awful creations.)
This is the HawkZombie that hates gen AI art with a passion. :P
That’s too bad. It’s a legitimately useful creative option for people who lack artistic talent, just like RPG Maker is a creative tool to help people make games even if they lack programming talent.
People don't lack talent, they lack drive and discipline. No one is just born being able to create perfect art. Some are more apt certainly, but the only thing keeping anyone from being an artist (or writer or any other creative endeavors) is time, practice, and patience.
AI is a tool, not a replacement. And this is ignoring that gen AI is made from thousands of stolen works. RPG Maker is a tool as well, yes, but it's not made on the backs of thousands of programmers whose works were stolen. There's no such thing as programming talent. You either choose to learn it or don't. Time and dedication. It always comes back down to time and dedication. Gen AI is a cancer on the creative world and as an artist yourself I really find your acceptance of it to be disappointing. You're honestly ok with your works being stolen so someone else can make "art" because they were too lazy to try or too cheap to pay?
See that’s the thing. I don’t see it as “stealing.” When I tried to teach myself to draw, I picked some styles I liked and tried to copy those artists’ styles. I looked at their stuff, practiced, and in the end, produced similar (but inferior) content mimicking those styles. Generative AI is the same concept, but on a much larger scale. AI isn’t going to create an outright copy of someone’s art. It creates something based on the prompt its given with a similar style.
And you’re right, it is a tool rather than a replacement. I can use it to whip up a concept for a character quite easily, but human artists still have several edges that they had better take advantage of while they can:
I think at the very core of all this, artists are simply just afraid of being replaced by AI. The truly good ones will continue to find ways to stand out instead of relying on a style that’s “generic anime.”
Ultimately, AI is inevitable, so why don’t people work with it rather than against it?
I knew that, if I was only going to play one entry in this jam, it would have to be this one. I played it through to the very end, and it did not disappoint. It perfectly sums up my feelings about the current state of RPGMaker, which is why I didn’t even bother entering the jam this time around. I’ll probably be the only person posting here who agrees with the game’s message, but I’m okay with that. I’m glad not everyone is irrationally insane about this subject.
Anyway, about the game itself:
There was an annoying, but harmless bug where “changed” rooms showed their previous state when a fight triggers, and only updated after the battle concluded.
The battle system was both interesting and annoying at the same time. Encounters felt too frequent, and the weak points were never obvious. Not ONCE did I get to hit something in the nuts and have it count as a perfect hit.
I liked how each world had its own unique puzzle vibe going while still using a simple and easy to understand mechanic.
I literal lol’d at the credit roll.
11/10
Correction: You also referenced the Kobayashi Maru. Rating updated!
Thanks for playing and for the kind review! I suspect that the stigma around AI will eventually wear off and it won't be a big deal for too much longer. We'll find out in a couple/few years, I suppose.
I randomized the battle grid for every enemy at the beginning of the game so it's different every time but also stays consistent throughout each playthrough. This decision appears to be the biggest point of contention. I have a feeling that many expected the defense grids to be static and maybe follow a "getting hotter" / "getting colder" type algorithm to lead you to the perfect square, which honestly wouldn't have been a bad idea. Maybe I'll do something like that if I make another game based on this mechanic.
love all the cute artwork, i think the places are pretty inventive and the character designs are cool!
the gameplay started pretty clever, i love puzzles, but the non-euclidian stuff by the end was more annoying and didn't feel like a good puzzle.
no comment on story.
Thanks for playing! I hope you enjoyed it.
I really wanted to like this but I got stuck and cannot figure out how to progress. I tried using the idol, tools, and flint in various places without success.
The battle system is goofy in a great way. Did some "play by email" with it on discord with my bf.
Holding off on a rating for now because I may just be stupid lol. I liked what i played!
Try using the Tools to fix the Broken Stone Alter. Let me know if you get stuck again.
i swear i treid that but maybe i just tried to harvest the fields or w/e. thanks!
well i did everything right that time and died to the t-rex LOL
still i like it, i'll let another friend who's gonna play it LP it for me though
was kind of surprised that the battle system weakpoints were randomized!
The best strategy is to grab the Healing Stone and go to the save point before each boss.
I tend to use a lot of randomization in my games so that I can play them and still have fun.
nevermind this game has an awful message lol. i like the crayon-core art but like dude settle down
| ... but like dude settle down
Huh?
This game has creative puzzle and battle system. Well, the first time I entered a battle can only escape but that is just because I did not take the weapon. I also love the art. Hand drawn art always have its own charm.
That being said, this game seems to be made with bad faith. Yet surprisingly, that makes the story good.
Anyway, Glenda is still the best waifu.
Thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! As for being made in bad faith, not as much as you think. While it certainly wasn't the most cordial thing I've ever done, it was an idea that sprung from the overall reaction to my entry last year. When I realized, or at least believed, that I was personally responsible for getting AI banned from future Harold Jams, the story pretty much wrote itself. That's kind of how I work.
While I personally don't agree with banning AI from virtually every game jam, and I suspect that the technology will soon become so ingrained that few will care any longer, I truly mean no offense to the Harold Jam organizers nor the community. My mission was to create the best game I could for the jam and this was the result. Had I pulled any more punches, I don't think I would have liked the end result as much.
Don't worry, the story turns out great. Not pulling any punches makes the game more impactful.
I think there is a time and place for everything. While technology will keep advancing, digital art will still be disqualified in traditional art competition and using guns in martial art tournament is not allowed.
Besides, I believe some jam allows (even encourages) AI generated stuff nowadays. Make sure the jam state it's fine to use in the rule though. If AI generated stuff isn't mentioned, it is safer to think the jam host forgot to add that rule or maybe ask for clarification.
Hope whatever I share here is helpful, I am a bit tired. Took me around 40 min?
__________
Encountered some bugs
__________
I like the fact that it's not the default battle system at least (not to say that cannot be done well tho)
A point of criticism for me is that, at least, I didn't always get if the 'perfect' spot is supposed to be related to the battler image but maybe that's not even intended to be part of it...
__________
Now in regards to the thesis...
Specifically addressing: Can someone be an artist while also using "AI" tools in the production of their art?
As long as they actually make something that uses the outputted stuff (and not just claim the outputted stuff as itself 'their art', as the prompter is little different from an Art-Commissioner in that case).
Art is a form of communication, and the less an Artist 'controls' the process/production, the more difficult it is to actually have any communication with others (Similar issue with using stock assets/rtp). That's one of the main issues with considering 'AI-Gen' doing any form of 'democratization' of art, putting your own effort will always be a part of Art, and all that 'pretty picture' quality that 'AI-gen' can bring to the table isn't from you.
Somewhat related:
Personally I'd still recommend to credit the makers of the Stock images. Even tho, I assume, they're Public domain/no-credit-necessary-royalty-free or whatever hence not being credited?
Thanks for playing! Yeah, there's still a little jankiness that could be worked out with the navigation and parallax switching. Perhaps I'll release a final version with a few touch-ups.
As for the 'Perfect' spot, yes, that should be consistent per enemy throughout the game. It is supposed to be more of a memory puzzle than an actual battle system. If you have the stage's upgraded weapon and know the Perfect spot than you can one-shot the battle and not take any damage. The defense grids are randomized each play-through so you're correct in that there is no rhyme or reason to how they are laid out. You just have to find the perfect spot and remember it for each enemy. I almost always add a lot of randomization to my games so that I can play them and still have fun since I will likely play it more than everyone else in the world combined.
I agree with your last point. When I pull out my cell and take a picture of something, I don't consider myself, at that moment, to be creating art. I'm just snapping a photo. Same with typing in a prompt to generate an image. Much like photography, I feel like there will be a new form of artist that emerges who is able to manipulate AI image generation tools in a way that does create amazing results that could be considered art, similar to what a photographer can do with a camera.
Thanks again for playing. I hope it was an enjoyable and memorable experience.
Bwahaha, I think this title reached its target audience! I've got plenty of response for the contents of this title, but I'm gonna save those for the end. First, let's get to my ratings!
Overall: 4 - No you didn't read that wrong, I loved this. I did not agree with the message, but this is a piece of art on its own that goes to great lengths to show its own appreciation for art. It's sooooo spiteful, and what was birthed of that spite is honestly a very strong entry. I don't know if other participants will think so highly of this game, but I am really pleased to see what you managed to put out with your own hands. Those hilarious end credits are a testament, despite their sarcasm: you did all of this yourself (except the stock images). If this is what you're capable of in a month with a time limit and what I perceive to be apprehension towards making your own assets, imagine what you're capable of when those sorts of restraints are taken off!
Gameplay: 3 - You have something really close to being good here! I actually almost gave this a 3, then went back to 2, then back to 3, but landed on 2 in the end just because of some design choices I personally feel hurt the experience. On the positive side, I think the point and click adventure stuff works really well! Man, if I had a nickel for every entry in this jam that involves using a time machine to travel through eras of anthropology and go back and forth bringing the right key items to the right place...
Anyway, the reason it's a 2 is because the combat, while seemingly deliberately bad, is bad hahaha. It's usually actually not horrible, I didn't hate the random encounters and actually think they're a good idea to add more spice to the point and click formula, but the grid based "click the square that does the most damage" system is extremely arbitrary. I died to every boss the first time, found their Perfect square, and then handily defeated them on the subsequent fight (except the final boss who I beat first try, thank god). This really hurt my playtime a lot too, while my in-game time was around 45 minutes at the end, my actual stopwatch I use for the jam had me at 57 minutes, almost exactly an hour! Thank goodness I upped that playtime cap, I feel like it's important I played this to the end.
I will say that at the very least, while the rest of the combat is, again, *quite bad*, the final boss was such a great payoff for all of it that writing this now, I think I'm going to bump that Gameplay to a 3. I really genuinely liked that part a ton, and it's gonna be a top moment for this jam.
Music: 2 - There are, like, 3 songs in the whole game. It was deliberately light on music, but nothing was so bad that it ruined my experience. A final boss theme would have been nice, but I presume that would conflict with your thematic intentions.
Story: 3 - This is tough. I mentioned earlier, I do disagree with a lot of the message of this entry. However, as a work that is an expression of an author's feelings, and as a linear narrative, I think it's perfectly effective. The antagonists are built up in a natural manner, they have seemingly clear motivations (although I imagine if you took those hoods off they would be comprised entirely of straw), and even the ending, in its deliberate shock value, is meant to send a message. I will say that the dialogue is aggressively preachy, but it is at least constructed in the form of a natural meaningful debate between the protagonists and antagonists. It's not a message I agree with, but the story works and I'm not going to dock points based on my own biases.
Comedy: 4 - This could easily be a 5, we'll need to see how the rest of the jam goes. I was laughing constantly, there were the giant blue checkmarks every time you utilized a required element, that shock ending, some of the quips about the enemies (I think the mummy description was my fav), even the credits! This was actually a super funny game, and the comedy is where it thrives.
Graphics: 4 - This is the part where I get to be spiteful! While no individual drawing in this game is especially brilliant, it's extremely coherent. The art is charmingly amateur, but even in its "lower quality" it depicts its subjects strongly. What really brings this entry's art over the edge from a 3 to a 4 is the way it utilizes famous works of art as backdrops. As I explored this area, I was reminded of all these brilliant works from the past, and the storytelling through this graphical choice was clear, that "AI art is just like all of this art that came before". You really used this hand drawn artwork to tell the story without dialogue, and it's a really strong and interesting choice. This is excellent!
Now then, let's address the elephant in the room. You're clearly disgruntled about the AI rule. I won't sit here and pick apart every argument in favour of AI that this game used. I'd even bet any argument I could use is one you have already seen and disagree with, so it'd just be a waste of our time.
However, firstly to clear the air, you were not directly responsible for this AI ruling. It was originally our intention to disqualify AI during the 2024 jam as well. However, I'd failed to add that to the rules, and ultimately we decided it would be unfair to change the rules during the dev period, so the mods all agreed that last year would be the final year we allow AI art.
With that said, I really appreciate the way you voiced your thoughts about this here. There was no angry DMs, no blowups, instead you participated in the game jam, followed every rule even though you disagreed pretty strongly with one of them, and ultimately used that as a platform to voice your opinion on the matter. I think the last line was maybe a bit too angry compared to the overall composed approach to this game, but in the grand scheme of things I think this was a great way to send a message.
But, I also think this jam entry defeats itself in a way. Through this unsubtle platform to voice your thoughts on AI and its detractors, the amount of sheer effort you put into this really shines through. I don't know what it is that drives you, maybe it's just spite, or perhaps there's a lot of passion in there, but what I see here is art in its purest form, and it's proof, at least to me, that you don't need some "equalizer" to make something great. I think one could easily argue that something like this could be even better if it were able to have beautiful generated artwork alongside the writing and gameplay, but I'm unsure if that's true. If you had the ability to generate all the artwork, how would you have depicted all of these famous works of art? Would you have simply used their original images? Prompted a new interpretation of them? Regardless of how you would have done it, to me it feels so much more personal and deliberate that you drew each of these works yourself.
This isn't an apology, I stand by our choice to prohibit generative AI, for reasons you touched on in this entry and for reasons you haven't, but even if I don't agree with the things you said in this game, I think this was paradoxically an excellent entry, maybe for entirely the wrong reasons. Great work, and I really hope to see you again next year!
Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed my game and thank you for being such a good sport about it. The core concept was birthed a year ago when I realized, or at least strongly believed, that my first entry in the series and to the Harold Jam as a whole, had gotten AI banned. It certainly stirred the hornet's nest. The basic idea was locked in from the beginning and the required theme and the story as it developed inspired the rest.
If memory recalls, you were fair and mature toward my last year's entry and I thank you for extending the same courtesy this time around. I had a blast making both.
| It's sooooo spiteful...
Oops. I tried my best to not attack you, personally, and go after the overall mentality behind banning AI from every game jam. I attempted to be as fair as I could within the concept of the story and the game world I've built.
| Comedy: I was laughing constantly
Excellent! The Harold's AI Odyssey games are comedy games first and foremost. I did attempt to add better gameplay in the sequel, see if my RPG / point-and-click hybrid experiment would be fun. Obviously, I also wanted to explore the central idea of what makes art art, and how technology shaped what art was throughout history since that was at the heart of its inspiration.
| Graphics: This is the part where I get to be spiteful!
Haha! This was your Kobayashi Maru. Well, the whole game was actually, not just the graphics. I was most curious to see how you, and the other two jam organizers, would take to this year's submission. Would you be fair and rate my game on it's merits or do what many others did last year and down vote it into oblivion? To be fair, it's your jam so you reserve the right to do whatever you like, but as I said earlier, I'm glad that you're being a good sport about it.
| Now then, let's address the elephant in the room.
Eh, to be honest, I'm not all that disgruntled about the AI ban. As I'm sure I made perfectly clear, I fully expected it. Heck, without it, I might not have even had an idea for this year.
My primary gripe is how purchased assets, RTP and all other tools that make developing a game easier are perfectly fine while AI generation will get you disqualified. I wouldn't expect bonus points for that which requires little effort on behalf of the dev but penalties and outright bans seem excessive, in my honest opinion.
But with that said, I feel like you picked up on the spirit of what I was going for. Truth be told, I'm not bitter or angry or spiteful. My game would have been far more annoying and low-effort had that truly been my motivation. Making games is a creative outlet for me and this was a unique moment in time where this story could be told and this game could be made. It was kind of a now or never situation, much like the first Harold's AI Odyssey.
So, thanks again and much love to the Harold Jam community. I hope there's no hard feelings from you or the others. Take care and I hope I will be able to participate next year as well.
P.S. My access to the Internet will be very limited for the next couple days. I'll be a little delayed in playing and rating the other entries.
"My primary gripe is how purchased assets, RTP and all other tools that make developing a game easier are perfectly fine while AI generation will get you disqualified."
even discarding the idea of humanity and personal creativity, since apparently rogue ai has a soul lol, people made those and either donated them to the community or received money for their creation. ai slop is stolen and unoriginal in ANY regard.
so, i use a lot of ayato sound create music in my games. i don't think i've actually released anyhting using it yet despite working over a year on Ratfishing, but it was both odd and fun to hear ayato's music in gensun's jam entry. yes, it's public, anyone with $12 or w/e can use it, and it can sting a little to be like awwww I wanted to be """the first"""". i felt the same about my colleague ephiam who makes cool retro games -- he used really cool retro music and graphics packs I would also like to mess around with. (you can buy his original AI-less game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2769210/Scarmonde/ ) but like, oh well! it's great that we can use these public items to produce our hobby without stepping on anyone's toes, while supporting cool artists, and not burning down the planet.
being a shill for this stuff eats away at one's soul i fear. you're defending theft and needless energy consumption in order to be able to produce something less than the sum of its parts while, like sawyer explained, you can create something more fun and immediately enjoyable just by scribbling in ms paint or w/e. if you keep up with wanting to generate your games' assets I wouldn't be surprised if that creative spark eventually died. maybe this sounds hyperbolic, but we're already seeing AI use lower people's capabilities or drive them insane in the news.
sorry if i've turned to be super harsh but like, this stuff needs to go. it's sad to see someone who is clearly creative fall into its trap. not to mention that there's many people way worse than you in terms of honesty and integrity who are trying to shill and force the slop machine. do you really want to be part of that crowd?
Hey, I respect your opinion and honestly do try my best to understand and integrate all arguments and ideas into consideration. However, you misunderstand. Rogue AI is a fictional character in a fictional story that takes place in a fictional world. While there is obviously overlap, there is a marked distinction between my own personal opinions and beliefs and that of the characters within the story. Good storytelling, in my opinion at least, requires this. For instance, I personally don't believe that artificial intelligence has a soul but from a storytelling perspective, in a world where there are multiple universes such as AI Land, RPG Maker Land and the Outside (the real world), making a character like Rogue AI at least believe they have a soul and are "a real person" is simply much more interesting than her just being a computer algorithm. I mean, even the talking Monolith is a character which, ironically, acts more like a computer than Rogue AI.
In actuality, we are making arguments on this subject under two different mindsets. The anti-AI crowd appears to be making a moral argument while the pro-AI crowd is making a practical argument based mostly on inevitability. The technology is here. The genie is out of the bottle. Even if the moral argument is correct, it's a moot point. You might be able to gatekeep the game jam community and make it a safe space for artists and writers to do their thing without having to worry about the intrusion of AI, and that's fine. Niche safe spaces like this will always exist.
But I've seen the march of technology over the course of my lifetime. When I was a small child, no one had a personal computer in their home. When they became affordable enough for the masses, most people wrote them off as a fad or nothing more than glorified game console. Almost nobody realized that virtually every job in the near future would require you to know how to operate one. The same thing happened when the Internet became affordable for everyone. Ignore my warning at your own peril because I foresee learning how to effectively utilize AI as the next must have skill going forward. Love it or hate, you're going to have to know how to use it.
And I think that's why I'm a bit disappointed that the community is so against the adoption of AI in the creation of video games. To me, it feels like staying in the past like a Cobol or Fortran developer refusing to adapt to a changing landscape. I'm not saying that you can't make something good or great without AI. The entire concept of this game was predicated on attempting to do exactly that. As a personal choice, making games as a hobby, that's fine. From a professional sense, if you want try to make it as an indie game dev, It's going to be tough competing with those that do utilize it. I doubt customers are going to care all that much if you use AI or not. They're mostly going to care about the final product that they're purchasing.
Yes, there will be a lot of slop that comes from this just like with any emerging technology. It was no different for the printing press, the camera, the home computer, the Internet, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, and yes, even RPG Maker. We're used to filtering out slop without a second thought by now. Pretty sure it's a skill everyone has developed as, I don't know how you could get through modern life without it.
But whatever happens, happens. As for this game, I knew that if things played out the way I was expecting, I had the perfect idea for what I wanted to make. It did, I made it, and this was the result. I hope I have the same or similar level of inspiration for next year's Harold Jam. I hope to see you again then.
couldn’t have said it better myself