Post by Quiescent Works in the Cellarer comments

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Thanks for your feedback. If the game made my own intentions and sensibilities feel invisible, then that is a failure on my part.

AI has assisted me with parts of the implementation, writing (which I review and rewrite extensively), sound, and visual production, but the game’s systems, direction, and design decisions are mine. I have spent a great deal of time designing, testing, tuning, discarding, and rebuilding its different systems until they matched what I had in mind. Still, I understand that none of that matters if the result feels machine-made.

I don’t agree that the creative process was simply outsourced, but I take the underlying criticism seriously.

morsesans3 days ago

right, as a game designer you understand that the first impression is everything, that the first five seconds and first minute and whatnot are everything, and currently the message being blared is "a person did not write these words and arrange these visual elements", and the immediate impression is that there is no intentionality here. it's immediately going to turn the audience off -- in a way that whatever ramshackle roughshod copy you wrote and visual elements you put together wouldn't. it's a big, bright alarm flashing "low effort endeavor", which is not the message you want to send.

Quiescent Works2 days ago

Regarding the visuals, much of the game’s identity currently relies on its icons for buildings and items. My plan is to replace these with hand-drawn icons in a style inspired by old maps, later. Since the game is still at an early stage, and doing this properly will require both time and a more consolidated list of icons, I haven’t begun that work yet.

As for the writing, I understand the criticism and will take another careful look at it. Just to confirm, you were playing with the English localisation, correct?

morsesans2 days ago

Yes. The in-game tutorial tooltips and the game description here on this itch page are clearly in Claude's voice. They are not merely AI translation, they are AI constructions. I am being told by Claude about how to play a game Claude made. Why? Did Claude have something it wanted to share with the world?

Quiescent Works16 hours ago

Understood. I’ll spend some more time on the intro text and game description while working on the next updates.

itch.io

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