So a while back, I found a post about someone that had AI completely code the game for them, and I expressed my distaste with claiming "ownership" of it. I had also written my own post of my opinion on it.

I'd like to expand on that opinion a little bit, as my overall opinion of AI when it comes to devving is not entirely black and white - stay with me, now:

Let me once again make clear that I DO NOT believe in calling yourself a game dev if you typed in a prompt for a game, let AI give you a response, and released that with your name on it.

Like every other piece of manmade technology, however, AI is a tool, so if I use it, I use it as such.

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For any game (though I only use the Ren'Py engine and pygame module), I will try my best to do everything myself. I make the art by myself via drawing or PowerPoint shapes, I write the story, dialogue and choice menu logic myself, and I customize the UI myself (including figuring out code to manipulate defaults).

If I wanna add something outside of RenPy's default code like an achievement system or a second gameplay mode, I will rough draft that by myself by using Python logic. Since there is no default, there are loads of places where errors or incompatibility can occur. This is where AI can come in - stay with me, now.

What I will normally do in such times is try to figure out where the code is going wrong, and try one to three solutions that come to mind. If none work, I will copy and paste the exact line(s) of code for the screen where the problem is occurring onto a notepad tab, then replace all of my unique variable names with "placeholder/generic values" (instead of "Seraphia" I would put "Character A" - I don't want the AI storing creative info in its archives without my permission). I then take THAT PIECE of edited code to Google Gemini and write a VERY specific question directly addressing the problem (with only the context needed-nothing more) and try out its answer (if it makes sense - a keen enough eye can spot the mistakes). A lot of times, it gets me in the place I need to be to figure out the problem (if it doesn't outright work).

Here is a hypothetical example of what I would ask Google Gemini (I don't rock with ChatGPT or any other ones):

Keep in mind the AI is not told ANYTHING about the specific game I am hypothetically devving - only about the fact that it uses Ren'Py and thus has Ren'Py UI. Code is math and logic at its core, but not a single word about the story, characters, or anything exclusive to human creativity (not even the appearances of the images in question) is revealed. That's the part I must do by myself.

If I am desperate and/or tired, I may also use AI for comparison - I may ask it how it would code a specific mechanic (again, NOT an entire game) and put that side-by-side with my rough draft to see which one works like I need it to (not just "better" as in less errors, but in a way that does what I need done, and I'm careful to word it so that the AI generates its response generically!).

A hypothetical example of how I would go about that:

Mind you, the version I build almost never works like I need it to (hence the prompt), and the information surrounding it is already available in documents that the engine builders published themselves.

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The above mentioned methods, in my opinion, are the ONLY way AI should be used - if at all - by developers of any kind. Time constraints are not a valid excuse for letting AI generate visuals or core coding - that's the "dev" part no matter what, but oftentimes, there may not always be an expert who can fix exactly what's wrong readily available to any of us during the dark parts of that process - and AI (as a tool) is simply a substitute for that.

This is where I think people get [key word]-> unnecessarily paranoid about "AI replacing developers". It can generate code faster than the average dev, but the only reason why is because so many specific problems and detailed solutions (with lots of context) have already been published for it to pull from. AI is simply the container for what we teach it to do, so we must use it in a way that keeps the creative parts to ourselves.

The only thing I want to "teach" AI to do for me is troubleshoot (which it cannot 100% succeed at btw), which is the "busy work" of devving a game with an already-made open-source engine. If I were getting paid to dev games with already-made engines, I would only use AI as described above. If I had to build entirely new engines for others to develop games with, I would not try to use AI at all - it would be my job to think of everything, paid or not.

Anyway, I hope this helps in some way, and yes, all the games I make, I have devved myself with AI being used only for troubleshooting things that I am not familiar with (I have experience with Python code from over a decade of school and work, after all).

I would only want to use this tool to learn well enough not to need it again. Feel free to present your own opinion if you don't agree.

#advice #antiAI #noAI #dev #solodev #gamedev #python #renpy #google #advice #troubleshoot #pygame #browser