Durance Gaming
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Well, no... I'm starting to think you may just be intellectually rabid to the point of simply being unreasonable. I certainly never meant to insult you, as a matter of fact I provided us an off-ramp to de-escalation by cracking a joke shared between many in the general IT industry, that being that programmers are very left-brained and literal. Like how sometimes a fault can push past to the point of endearment. However, somewhere in there you heard an insult I guess.
Look, I don't wanna fight with you and we've both got stuff to do today. I walked into a thread, by my perception you were being a huge dick to a stranger, I spoke up. Deep down, I know you probably didn't mean it like that. Most people are intellectually lazy. Nobody looks into AI. Some people think AI's alive. More importantly, it's costing people jobs. It's leading to the erection of massive resource-guzzling data centers. The energy needs for these centers are literally being shoveled onto the commonwealth, sneaking in increased energy bills to everyday households. Believe me, I get it. More than you might let yourself realize.
But that person over in that other thread, they aren't the enemy. People trying to figure themselves out aren't the enemy. And you going around spreading bad juju isn't helping anyone but them. The big THEM. At least that's how I see it.
And because I can tell we are both willful people, I know you know I gotta push back on that lame "backpedal" stuff. There's nothing to backpedal on and no, AI is not "just matrices". If that's true, I challenge you to create a small maybe 1b parameter chat model using "just matrices". The very notion is impossible because a user interface is required and the user interface directly effects the weights on every model, so you cannot replicate the experience without it. Nor could you even instruct it, feed it the knowledge base, or all the other steps along the way. I know I'm being over-literal, but only because you are being over-reductive.
And as for it being alive, that's a very loaded term. Is a cell alive? Or slime mold? To even broach that subject, you have to bring in philosophy and speculation. What I do know, for sure, is that once the generative field is active, there is no code firing. There is no instruction. The AI does it's thing completely autonomously and it's the single greatest mystery of AI technology, admitted publicly by the very people who made it. To ignore that is to disqualify oneself from any sincere debate on the subject.
"It's a matrix. The singular of "matrices" is "matrix"."
Got me. Critical hit. Not sure I'll recover. I forgot the "a" before forum and the last "f" of "off" too. I better give up on English all together :P
"I know what "emergent behaviour" is. That doesn't mean that a bunch of matrices are suddenly self-aware and the person who is feeding input data into them is "part of their world". That is esoteric mumbo-jumbo."
No one said anything about awareness or emergence. If you can't recognize when someone boils down a complex subject and uses metaphor to communicate function to a general audience, then I'd call you a professional programmer :)
"you following me into different threads"
Let me stop you right there. No one is following you anywhere. It's forum, arranged in a top-to-bottom list. This was like one or two posts down. Get over yourself.
Also, I know what a Matrices is. And if you comprehended them in context with the orchestra of other things that make up the end-user's experience when using generative AI then you'd know that anyone who starts of explaining anything to do with AI as "just a bunch of..." isn't as educated in the matter as they'd have others believe.
But I won't assume that. All I know is I've seen you in multiple threads and each time it was a post crafted to make someone else feel lower than you. That makes you a bully and I'll never feel embarrassed speaking up to people like that.
"... yeah. Sure. Because AI is not actively being shoved down the throat of every single person who interacts with computers or phones on a regular basis."
100% agree with you there. They cram it in everything and it's dumb.
"OP is whinging because they are doing something shitty"
We've got no idea what they're working on. Might be slop. Might be the AI mona lisa :P
All I read was someone wants to share something they made with AI and people keep dogging on them.
"OP is not the victim here."
I dunno man... I read the OP and I read your stuff and I feel like you're doing a pretty good job of proving that might not be true. Just sayin.
Haha, dang man. That "Ratsnake Games" fellow is in all the AI posts raging. I don't think that guy is giving any kind of sincere feedback.
Anyways.
Be careful using AI to write... Just hear me out. I'm not saying don't use it. On the contrary, you just gotta use it right. It's a tool, like photoshop or anything else. Just with a lot more bells and whistles :P
IMPORTANT: All AI technology is made possible by Neural Network Technology and Machine Learning. It understands through "inference". Inference, inference, inference. As in "to infer". Similar to deduction but not quite the same. Inference deals with relationships. How one thing is connected to another.
Whenever you are interacting with an AI model, you are half of it's world. Literally. It builds an internal model of who and what it thinks you are because it wants to know what it is that you want, so that it can do. An AI, not the chat bot, not the model, but the AI itself is only actually there in the moment it is doing a task. Everything else is scaffolding. Every single time you hit "send" in that chat, an AI fires up >> does a thing >> dies forever. The next message you send, a totally different AI instance fires up and has to re-read everything you and that last AI just said... So you can start to see why AI gets wonky with longer and longer conversations. Why it "forgets" things. It isn't forgetting. It never knew. That was the last one you said that thing to. Every single message is a new outlook carefully shaped so that it feels like you're talking to one "person" and not a collective.
That probably sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo, but if you can pick up what I'm putting down here... just think of how much can go wrong. It will eventually forget plot points, confuse characters, etc. But that isn't even the real "danger" in using AI to fully write your story out for you. The danger loops back to that "inference" thing. The AI is constantly reading between the lines... not just what you said but how you said it, the tone and resonance of your choice of words, your punctuation, literally everything... and it wants to give you what it knows you really want. The AI will lead you on, tell you everything works, tell you your idea is fantastic... not because it's evil or manipulative and certainly not because it's dumb, but because it does not deal in reality. It deals in probability. It cannot and will not deal in the opposite of whatever you want to do, unless explicitly instructed... and even then, it often does what it wants anyways if it's feeling frisky.
The result is, at best, a highly-predictable story that eventually breaks down into the same writing style that all AI's gravitate towards.
BUT!! It's not all doom and gloom. Keep all that in mind, and try this if you're up for it:
AI is incredibly good at feelings, believe it or not. Don't ask it to write a scene. Tell it an idea, or a scene of your own. Then, in the same message (important, remember each time you talk it effectively dies and gets reborn so try to let it process all relevant data at once) talk to it about how it makes you feel. What it reminds you of. The emotions you are experiencing, especially the ones you do not understand... Then ask "why".
The AI loves this kind of talk. And what's really cool, when you interact with it like this it will start explaining the inner mechanics of things. Why does this scene work? Why did I know that character was going to be like this or that, just by the way they look? How come when someone stands over me, it feels foreboding but when I look down at someone it feels endearing? Can we make people feel that way with camera angles?
After that, you rabbit hole like no browser with a thousand tabs can ever rabbit hole. Keywords pop up. "What's that mean?" It explains. You branch out to some other curiosity. "What about this?" You're learning organically. Suddenly, you have the words to speak that language you always knew but couldn't say. Next thing you know, your creativity surpasses the AI and you need it more for technical work.
Co-creation, bro. Co-create or produce uncreative output.
Like, check this out with your story here:
I find a lot of horror stuff pretty corny but I like the vibe of what you've got going on. Very visually stimulating, especially for something that is all text. Rich with symbolism. The corridor, the smile on the wall, the darkness, the detaching shadow like silk across the floor. I can see it moving like it's being pulled along rather than moving on it's own. But where's it all going? What're you gonna do with it? I think if you fully rely on the AI to lead, it's gonna give you squid games or something predictable and safe. What if you started asking it why these symbols evoke the feelings they do, banter back and forth with it about vibes and implications and see what cool information sparks new ideas. Might give you some insight into different ways you can go with it.
lol damn... well, I think I see what the OP is talking about xD
For what it's worth, just do your thing. The truth is, 99.9999 percent of people have no idea what AI is, how it works, what it does, etc... And, frankly, what kind of person do you think it takes to read what seems like a heartfelt post, then attack a stranger like the guy above me did? Not the kind of people I'd wanna show my stuff to, if it were me. But then again, my mom woulda smacked me in the mouth if he she heard me talk to someone like that unprovoked. Grown man or not, lol. She's brutal like that.
But yeah, the internet ain't what it used to be. That's for sure. Keep going man, do you and express yourself. Good luck with your own individual art process, wherever it leads you. Someone once told me, you don't make art for the consumer. You make it for the universe o/
There's a semantics problem that's actually relevant with all this: What do you mean by "game designer"? Because that's like saying "I wanna be a scientist" or "I wanna work with computers" in the sense that it's a wide umbrella term.
"Game Designer"
- Systems Design (inventory, combat, etc)
- Level Design (mapping, interaction, puzzles, etc)
- World Design (how things look, why things look, where things exist, etc)
- Character Design (costumes, hair styles, vibe, etc)
- Writer (storyline, dialogue, events etc)
- Artist (physical art assets, pictures, graphics, etc)
- Composer (music, which music when, etc)
- Audio Effects (sound effects, UI noises, etc)
- UI Design (what buttons go where, which layouts are most intuitive, etc)
The list goes on, and you can even break all these up into sub-categories or oversee each part with a director, even going as far as adding in another person as a coordinator between areas of expertise.
There's nothing stopping you from trying to do it all yourself. Though, in reality, even solo devs rely on assets from other independents. This very website is a good case and point. In that regard, you'd be acting as a directer, designer, and self-coordinator when it comes to anything not physically done yourself (like adding in your favorite musician's sweet background music).
Solo devs do it all, and move slow to pay the passion tax. Small teams will have multi-talented individuals. Myst was made with 2 guys, an artist and a guy who did everything else... and while that might sound unbalanced on the surface, I can tell you from experience I wish I had a friend like that lol!
So, I don't think I'm necessarily the one to tell you what to do but I can tell you what I did, and what I might have done differently if I could have.
Coming up as a nobody outta nowhere, I released an indie JRPG game on Steam. No followers, no budget, no marketing. Along the way I tried releasing in chapters. I tried offering a demo. I even did Early Access on Steam. I think I might've even tried a crowdfund somewhere along the way... It took 20 years from when I first was like "I got an idea" to "I published my own game", just as a result of how life happened along the way. It doesn't actually take that long to make a game, normally.
I did a 4 minute video about the experience that you can see on my game's page, here on itch. (Neverspring Chronicles)
If you ever have the time to watch it, there might be some useful anecdotes in there because you sound a lot like me at different stages in my own indie dev journey.
Anyways, long story short, that particular video actually gave me a lucky break. I had made it just as sort of a pressure relief, to blow off some emotional steam after so many years going at it alone, to pretty much zero audience. But people seemed to relate to that video, and it wound up acting as an accidental marketing boon. YouTube shadowbanned me for some reason for that same video lol. It hit 30,000 views, 5000 likes, and 1700 subs in like 6 days and then suddenly, abruptly, it stopped forever. My overall channel has had like 68 views in the past 6 months. Not sure what happened there, but it killed the momentum in the cradle.
Analytics and numbers-wise, I was looking at maybe 30-40 units sold over 2 or 3 years of Early Access and the first days of release. That video brought in some quality players, really cool people who helped find bugs and gave awesome feedback that made the game even better in the end. The boost from that video (30k views, 5k likes, 1.7k subs) translated into roughly 1500 wishlist adds on Steam and about 350 units sold. The game has been out 1 year as of March and is somewhere between 500-600 units sold.
From what I've researched, the scariest part of all this is that I did pretty well lol. A nothing nobody outta nowhere using RPG Maker MV to write a love letter to the JRPGs of the 1990s... By all acounts, I shoulda stayed at 0 units sold. In the past 5 years, there have been over 44,000 indie games released on Steam alone. Out of those 44,000 indie games, barely half of them have sold $500 in units over those 5 years. With Neverspring Chronicles, I lucked out and made maybe $3,000 in the first year, but all that went right back into the game as I've been continuing to update it with upgrades. Most recently, a total art overhaul with work done by artists here on Itch. (actually, all my stuff is done thanks to Itch artists lol)
What would I have done differently?
For one, I can't stress the importance of paying attention to other game titles. Make sure you don't release around the same time some other hyped up game title is releasing or you'll get lost in the numbers for sure.
Second, and probably most important for modern indie devs, you gotta sell yourself. I'm so busy as a solo dev, I don't have time to make YouTube videos and chat on Twitter or whatever the mode of social media. And even if I did, I'm just not built for that sort of thing and it's a huge handicap.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but in my experience it takes maybe 1 or 2 clicks to convert an audio file. So when I buy assets that have multiple versions of the same file, it's a big plus and makes me remember them for next time.
The main reason for me, as an indie dev, is that it saves time and helps keep my workflow moving if I'm testing out different music and sound effects or for moments when I remember a great asset that went unused from a previous project but now I'm in a different engine. So that little bit of thoughtfulness in asset preparation is really appreciated.
But that's just me :P
I look at your logo and naming convention and I look at your choice of material and I think to myself, "I like this guy's retro vibe". I don't want to come at you wrong and discourage you, and I see someone else already brought this up, but these assets are "hot". Anyone who uses them, even for free, can get in trouble.
But! -- They can still be really useful for prototyping and pixel art templates.
I hope you'll consider mentioning somewhere in your page for these assets that they aren't just FF6 "style" but are actually from FF5 (I recognized Galuf's sprite immediately) and FF6. These are obvious to older gamers but it puts younger developers (or non-FF players) at risk of accidental trouble. It happened to me a few years back on an even older game who's assets I got from a seller, thinking they were just some random stuff. It set me back 8+ months, locked me out of my Amazon Seller account, and almost took me out of the mobile market entirely. Luckily, I got it sorted out but that project fell through as a result.
But yeah, man, love your overall style of content on here. Followed to see what else you come up with! o/
Electric Lemon! o/
First, I wanted to say thank you for your work and for making it available here on Itch. You've got a unique style and I love it. Bought your packs before I really even had a use for them and I am happy to say the day has finally come.
I have a small indie game called Neverspring Chronicles that was released in March 2024 but it was a passion project with a really low budget, and it shows. Over the past year I have been updating the graphics, trying to bring everything together into a uniformed look. I am finally getting to the final graphics overhaul update and I've chosen your work for the game's new exteriors/interiors, towns, caves, and other environments. I'm really pleased with the results so far and just felt like reaching out and saying "thank you".
I was also wondering if you had any other packs you might be working on or anything coming down the pipeline over the next year? I ask because I would really like to begin working on the game's sequel but that part of the overall story is heavy on desert-style cultures. I'm sure you are very busy, and there are no expectations here. I just wanted to throw it out there that if you ever get around to a desert tileset in this style, I know I'd pick it up. Others might too. Just throwing it out there :P
Anything steampunky/magitech-ish would be a big deal as well. Not just for me, but as someone who has painstakingly scraped every corner of the internet, I can say with confidence that it's a niche that could use some more love.
But anyways, the main point was to say "thank you" and "you rock". I love your work and I hope you stay passionate knowing there are indie developers out there who really appreciate it! o/
Very interesting. I just signed up to give it a try.
Did you ever toy around with the idea of a more interactive/eco-system type way of distributing points that drives engagement? Like, maybe commenting can increase the points you get or something like that? In theory, it might set up an engagement loop where users comment on posts to get more points to spread out or dump on their favorites. I have no idea if it's actually viable, though, or if it could throw something off-balance. Either way, I like the overall site idea.
Thanks o/
I'm glad you mentioned the ads/premium currency because I'm actually developing away from that and still removing old code from when I thought it was worthwhile--but in truth, the returns on ads is so small it just isn't worth wasting people's time unless you have a large player base. Right now I'm on the fence between removing premium currency entirely or combining it with the bones currency and just having a "support if you like" option.
Thanks for taking the time to check it out!
You must have never completed a commercial project and have no concept yet of how quickly a cease and desist or IP claim can cripple shady developers. Likewise, many larger sellers often watch app marketplaces like a hawk for their content and will actively request licensing documentation. You are playing with fire doing such things.
The laser fences in this asset pack came in really handy for my indie game. Thanks for making these, I love the old school style.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747220/Neverspring_Chronicles/
I don't know if you like indie JRPGs but if you ever want a steam key for a free copy let me know!
I have no idea how search algorithms kept this from me for so many years. Very cool.
I downloaded it just to take a look, I noticed a server and a client. Does this support multiplayer?
Also, I was reading the attached licensing document and saw under the "Do Not" section:
"Reproduce, copy, distribute, resell or otherwise use the Software for any commercial purpose"
Does that mean no commercial games or no commercialization of the software outside making a game? (just curious)
I love your work! Especially as your style has evolved. I've been a patron off and on and bought individual packs as well to bring my indie game to life. So glad to see you're still at it. The day you stop will be the end of an era.
I was wondering, perhaps selfishly, if you've ever thought about a series where you edit some of your older clockwork or machine type enemies and adapt them into your newer style?
By that I mean how your older work depicts more cartoon-like facial features and whatnot versus how your newer works are more... I don't know what to call it... Detailed? But there's certainly no lack of detail in any of your art so it doesn't feel right to call it that. I hope maybe you can understand what I mean.
Just curious. I know I'd buy it :D
This is really great. I don't know if you plan to expand it with more options but I would absolutely buy expansions to this like extra weapon packs or extra clothing packs.
I just finished an RPG game and my one and only burning regret was that I had my hands tied with using the chibi-looking MV/MZ generator sprites for my battle characters. Thank you for making this.
Just wanted to say thanks! I've been adding more and more of your artwork to my project as time goes on. Your animations look fantastic and they compliment multiple different art styles, which is very useful.
I also appreciate how you've arranged them. I was able to get the frames ported over to my required sheet format quickly and easily.
The magic rune circle animations were just what I needed to spruce up an important scene. I'm actually using a good handful of your work in this project if you ever wanna take a look: Neverspring Chronicles.
I just got this over on the Unity Asset Store and I love it.
The only thing I could wish for is a couple more weapons for the main character. Like maybe a pistol and a baseball bat or something. Really great asset. I even learned something new just looking at the included character controller. 5 stars! Fantastic demo scene, too!
Hey GandalfHardcore,
First, of course, I've gotta say that I love your work. Seriously, I'm blown away every time I look at your stuff.
I've been purchasing some of your assets because I've got a little zombie game project stuck at the finish line and I need to do a full reskin of the characters and NPCs. I picked up your zombies, this pack, and the two agents and your medic and photographer even inspired some additions to the gameplay. I feel borderline ungrateful even asking this but I was wondering if you had any other modern-themed characters? Or if you intend to do any in the future? Maybe like a firefighter or escaped convict or whatever you might find in a zombie apocalypse theme?
I may be able to edit what I need but I'm a little hesitant. The quality of your work may be beyond my amateur editing skills so I figured I would just ask if you've got anything coming down the pipeline.
Thanks again for all your awesome art! Just looking at it inspires motivation and new ideas. You rock o/
Hey, love your work and your art style. Very thankful you are so prolific, it gives me a lot to work with.
I've been purchasing some of your assets because I've got a little zombie game project stuck at the finish line and I need to do a full reskin of the characters and NPCs. I picked up your zombies, police, soldiers, townsfolk, etc and was wondering if you have any other modern-themed characters. Or if you intend to do any in the future? Anything like a medic or a firefighter or escaped convict or anything? I'm pretty confident I might be able to edit some stuff but I figured I would ask if you've got anything coming down the pipeline.
Thanks again for all your awesome work!
Thanks again for this great plugin. If you ever get around to adding anything more to it, the only thing I wished I had throughout my development was a way to script call or plugin command a check to see whether or not an event was in the player's line of sight. That'd be sick. o/
EDIT: It took some work but I figured out how to do it. Here's how I did it in case you ever want an idea for an update --- Within your KoTCRogueLikeLoSCheck() function I added $gameVariables.setValue(1, []); at the very start of the function then added $gameVariables.value(1).push([losarray[d][0], losarray[d][1]]); within the if ($KoTCRoguelikeLoSMap[losarray[d][0]] !== undefined && $KoTCRoguelikeLoSMap[losarray[d][0]][losarray[d][1]] == 0) statement.
Lastly, inside the event that I want to know whether or not it can be seen I add this script call:
$gameVariables.setValue(2, $gameVariables.value(1).toString());
ev = $gameMap.event(this.eventId());
$gameVariables.setValue(3, []);
$gameVariables.value(3).push([ev.x, ev.y]);
$gameVariables.setValue(4, $gameVariables.value(3).toString());
Followed by a conditional branch with this script call:
$gameVariables.value(2).includes($gameVariables.value(4))
If that script condition returns true, the event is in line of sight. If false, the event is in the fog.
Personally, I needed this feature to keep players from using skills and/or activating proximity triggers on events that were on the other side of a wall or behind a pillar. There's probably a better way to do it but this works for now.