Ivandur112,
Thank you for your comment, though I’d appreciate it if you’d approach your comment more professionally. Still, I think you raise a point that should be addressed, and I do want to give it careful consideration.
I haven’t had time yet to play anything yet, so I can’t speak to how many of the games are AI slop or not. I CAN speak to the number of AI slop entries I have banned that have shown no effort and/or entries that have been done with AI that, when I play them, just aren’t good games.
Here is my philosophy with AI: Ignore it at your peril, but use it at your peril (especially when used uncritically).
The point of this game jam is to learn through shipping. Make small games that can be done within the span of a week, and then publish them for critical reception. I’m hoping that each entry, the submitter learns something from their submissions.
So lets talk about AI slop for a second - what is it? I have seen people call anything with AI in it ‘slop’, simply because ‘it wasn’t made by humans. I think this is grossly unfair. Consider that there are game engines out there that attempt to remove any type of coding from their engines. Does this make the game developer that uses them less of a game designer? There are tools out there that automatically create human meshes, giving them texture and animations. If someone uses this, does this take away from them being an animator or 3D artist? Use of AI, to me, is use of a tool, no more, no less.
That said, too many people treat AI as the thing that solves all their problems for them. If I asked AI to build me a game, and that game isn’t well received - that’s my fault, not the AI. If I put no thought into the systems, no thought into the UX, no thought into design, I can guarantee that the AI will give you an equivalent level of mediocrity. One of the previous games I made, I took hours in the planning stage being meticulous about what I wanted my systems should look like, how the game should be played, what assets would be used, etc. The result was a product that I think was at least halfway good - it played well, and was far better than I might have been able to do by myself in a week. I know it had issues, especially in the writing (because storytelling is the one thing AI seems to be particularly horrible at) - but even here, I didn’t accept it uncritically, and took the time to figure out what tweeks I needed to make so that a user would still enjoy the game without being taken out of the experience by an AIism. My intro for the game was an AI piece because none of the music I landed on fit the theme I wanted, but then I featured two different artists with original, human made music. The music, in terms of theme, wasn’t particularly congruent with my gameplay, but it didn’t break immersion, and in any case, I gave the player the ability to pick what tracks they wanted to hear while they played to soften tat issue.
If you didn’t use AI in your development, that is fantastic. I think it is very important for a game developer to know the entire process and be able to build things by hand. However, this doesn’t automatically make your game better than an AI generated one. There have been many games that have been made by hand that are absolutely horrible (the original ET game comes to mind immediately - does this unplayable ET game rate as better than an AI game if the AI game is at least playable?).
Ultimately, though, we don’t decide if the games we create are any good - the player does. One of the primary reasons I’ll allow someone who made a game purely with AI entry is that, if it is good, hopefully they have learned something valuable about their workflow. If it is bad and people are critical, I hope they learn what failed and why people are critical. “It’s AI and then therefore bad” is a poor argument. “The stilted writing and clashing of music with the gameplay” is a better critique, and if the developer used AI, that’s a lesson they learn - don’t rely on AI to polish your game for you.
If you have a problem with a specific game for having used AI, articulate what the problem is. Was the writing bad? Were the graphics jarring in some way? Was the music obviously just thrown in without a thought to theme? THAT is helpful information. If your only complaint is “THEY USED AI!”, then I’m sorry, I don’t see what the problem is.
Now, there is an argument to be made that game development is an art, and AI can’t create art because an AI can’t feel. I think this is gatekeeping a bit, but let’s ignore that for a second. Photography did not replace people drawing or painting on canvas. Animating through computers did not get rid of hand animation.
I don’t know where your objection with AI lies, so I don’t know if I addressed your concern. I may not have changed your mind either, and that’s fair. But I will not ban AI from submission simply because people don’t like it - I need reasons. I’ve banned and disqualified Astrocade games (a pure AI engine), because none of the submitters own the rights to anything they produce - Astrocade does. I’ve banned people for obviously low effort swill that is spammed to many jams just because the author is hoping it gets notice somehow. So, I do not abide AI slop in the Jam. But my definition of AI slop has a very specific target. If there is a game that you think is low quality - rate it low quality. Nothing is stopping you from doing so. I have yet to see an obviously low quality game make it to the top bracket because people vote it down.
And at the end of the day, if you don’t like my rules, you are free to not participate - there are other jams. This is a low stakes exercise in game design on a short timeline. I’m not giving anyone cash prizes. My leaderboard is an incentive to participate regularly, and I’ve yet to see slop artists make much progress on it.
Now, I see myself as open to a well reasoned argument. If you think I am wrong, I welcome a discussion. I’d ask that you remain professional in your response - all caps doesn’t convince me to change my mind. Like I said, I think you raise an important question, and one I’ve been meaning to get around to addressing (but I also run a professional studio and have other work that I take care of, so I don’t have all the time in the world to focus on this every week like I’d like to).
I await your response. -Jazhikho