whyd you use ai for the title screen :(
Hi, thanks for checking out the game. The cover is temporary while I look for an artist who matches the style I want. Everything else in the game is hand drawn by me, but I tagged it as using AI because of the cover. The game will stay free and I'm not making any money from it. If you know anyone who creates clean, vibrant cartoony cover art (not pixel art), I'd be glad to take a look. Thanks again for taking the time to comment :)
Why not just make a temporary pixel art cover then? This isn't meant to be an attack or anything, I'm genuinely just curious. It makes it look like the rest of the game is AI generated, even though you drew everything else by hand. I guess using AI is quicker, but it can't exist at it's current state without being trained off millions of stolen art pieces. Maybe at some point AI won't have all the ethical issues it currently has, and if we get to that point I might not even mind if that kind of AI art was used as a permanent cover, but it's nowhere near that stage now.
I really hope you understand where I'm coming from. I love the game and I'm going to keep playing it, but I really wish the cover wasn't AI. And if you do go the route of making a cover yourself I'd be really excited to see it, even if it's temporary, because I find your art style really cute.
Hey, thanks so much for the reply.
That's a great suggestion regarding the pixel art cover. I think I might just do that instead of spending time looking for an external artist. It would keep the aesthetic consistent too.
I really appreciate you hearing me out. I have a main job and a busy life outside of this, so Serenitrove was created literally during whatever scarce free time I had left. My only 2 goals were to bring joy to players and spread awareness for animals that need help. It was never about profit or personal gain. To be completely honest, it does get me down sometimes when I see people ready to bring out the pitchforks the moment AI is mentioned, seemingly disregarding the rest of the hard work I put in. But I continue anyway because I believe in the game's message. I think it's safe to say that Serenitrove is by no means "AI slop" like some other generated games out there, or at least I really hope it isn't seen that way.
Your comment gives me a lot of motivation and I'm going to try to update the cover to something handmade. I can't promise a specific timeline since I have to prioritize fixing bugs with my limited free time, but I'm adding it to my todo list.
Sorry for the long reply and thank you for understanding! This isn't me asking for pity, I could take the game down tomorrow and technically lose nothing but the time I spent, but sometimes I just hope people can try to see things from the creators' point of view before judging immediately. That said, I do try to put myself in artists' shoes regarding the ethical concerns as well. If anyone were to use Serenitrove's art or ideas for any non-profit work or to bring something meaningful to the community, I would genuinely be happy to allow it.
Thanks again for playing!