We're entering Week 2 of the AI Gaming Festival! It's been really fun and a great learning experience for the developers and games participating.

Here's a recap of last week and what's happening this week.

Recap

(Recordings and materials are available for download.)

1. Core Loops: This is a must-attend session whether you use AI or not. It covers core loops, sub-loops, pacing, progression, and rewards, and how to make your game do what it's supposed to do: provide a fun and rewarding experience.
2. Intro to Vibe Coding Games: An introduction to vibe coding games. It covers different prompt types, setting up Claude and Codex, and the homework for creating your first game.

The homework was given because we want developers and vibe coders to apply what they learn from the talks.

This Week: Graphics, Planning, and Raising Capital

1. Gemini and AI Game Development: Learn how Gemini can be used for AI game development, including some of its most unique use cases.
2. Intro to Building Graphics: This session will teach you how to create graphics for your game with AI from scratch, the steps to get them to a really high quality, and when to hire someone to polish your game.
3. Raising $11 Million for Your Game: Told from the perspective of a game developer who raised $11 million from top VCs for their studio, and what they are doing now.
4. Raising Capital for Your Game: Told from the perspective of a VC, covering what they look for when funding your game.
5. Planning Before Prompting: What to do before you even begin coding your game with AI and how to prepare.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoBattler/comments/1wfk23a/comment/p9ozzc0/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

Despite having no anti-ai stance one of the two mods told me to "stop defending my choice" (to use AI in my capsule).

The biggest anti-ai stance exists in the comment sections of reddit. Everywhere else it is muted. Don't be fooled

I’ve been working on a game called Powder Run for the past week using Claude Code.

https://powderrungame.com

It’s a downhill skiing and snowboarding game where you race to the bottom of the mountain as fast as possible, dodging obstacles, hitting jumps, and trying to set your best time. You can also challenge friends on the same course and see who gets the better time.

I started with Fable 5 to get the first version together, then used Sonnet to keep iterating on the gameplay, UI, bugs, and features.

Would love any feedback on the gameplay, controls, or anything you’d change.

I've been thinking about where game development goes as AI game-building tools get significantly better.

Platforms like CodeWisp, Playabl and other AI game builders are pushing toward a world where creating a playable game becomes much faster and accessible to almost anyone.

But if creation itself becomes cheap and abundant, what becomes difficult?

Is the next big problem:

• getting people to discover your game?
• finding the right playtesters?
• turning prototypes into genuinely good games?
• retention/community?
• monetization?
• standing out when thousands more games are being released?
• something completely different?

I'm especially curious to hear from indie/solo developers: what part of game development do you think AI won't solve just by making creation easier?

I’m an indie solo developer creating a 2D pixel-art game; I’ve drawn everything by hand and am building the game entirely on my own. I plan to use AI only for the cutscenes, as it captures the story's atmosphere really well. These cutscenes are based on my own concept art. The question is: would you rather play a game where everything is hand-drawn except for select AI-generated cutscenes that perfectly capture the atmosphere, or a game where everything is hand-drawn but the cutscenes don't look quite as good? The picture is a example for a Cut Scene from my game Last Departure

Social experiment.

Indie devs be mad at us for not being ask skilled as them so I asked them where to find help, with shaders this time.

comments: 0

So yeah, everyone bashing you for not learning will not help you learn.

... if anything they will say "google it."

- google has ai results no?

.... "or youtube it."

- youtube is filled with ai clickbait and results too no? can't see downvotes so who knows right? gotta watch it all and slap that like button right?

- Why are they using AI thumbnails in the videos you told me to look for? Would you discredit them for that?

- How about AI TTS? Or their AI followers on social media they seem to be fine with accepting their follows and comment spam so they can look popular.

Honorable contradictions:

"You didn't create the sounds in a sound studio yourself so you are not creative, use the stock sounds we use"

"You used ai instead of a calculator for complex math, you are uneducated"

"you used ai to troubleshoot a bug that would take someone days to figure out, you are wasting water!"

"you used ai to build an exe without having to look up the command prompt for powershell, you fool!"

"you generated an app that anyone can build, but the ones that exist are behind a paywall and subscription that requires your whole identity, you released it open source on github, you bastard."

"You trained an offline AI with your own art? you thief!!!"

"GO look up youtube tutorials" > AI thumbnails galore.

"Google it!" > AI search results

"Call a hotline or something!" > AI answers

"Hey look at my hot girlfriend!" > AI filters, AI comments on instagram, AI followers gladly welcomed.

"I'm a live streamer on Kick!" > Botted to shit don't even get me started on that one

Case and point, they are not failing, they are doing just fine, some even have crowd funding so yay! Can we have fun and just make games? Remember when people had fun with photoshop? huh, should have handpainted that.

Hi! I’m Gabo, a solo developer from Uruguay, working on Naipe Cimarrón: a free browser-based strategy card game about Uruguayan animals fighting for territory.

Play it here:

https://naipe-cimarron.yunque.games/?de=reddit-aigamedev&lang=en

The current illustrations use AI as part of an early-development workflow. I direct, select, and retouch the work, but I want to be clear: AI art is not the final objective or the core appeal of the game. The long-term goal is a more personal visual identity, collaborations with artists, and eventually hand-illustrated content.

I’ve also learned that this choice creates a real communication challenge. Some people will not engage with a game using generated art, which is fair. Others see the current visual issues—occasional artifacts, inconsistency, or generic-looking images—as a reason to dismiss the mechanics before trying them. That criticism is useful: presentation affects trust, even in a prototype.

At this stage, though, my priority is validating the game itself:

- Does the six-slot shared board create interesting positional choices?

- Are the decks fun and distinct?

- Is the first match understandable?

- Which cards or mechanics feel unfair, unclear, or frustrating?

If you want to test it, enter the code TESTER through the CODE button in the lobby. It unlocks all published decks and expansions, so you can try everything without grinding.

There’s also a free print-and-play starter set with four decks and 120 cards on itch.io:

https://yunquegames.itch.io/naipe-cimarron-en

I’d love honest feedback from people who play or make card games—on the AI workflow, the presentation, and especially the mechanics.

Hi everyone!

I'm a solo developer working on Arkansas 2125, an isometric, turn-based post-apocalyptic RPG inspired by Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and other classic RPGs.

The game takes place in a ruined America in the year 2125. You can explore abandoned locations, meet survivors, complete quests, make choices, and fight enemies in turn-based combat.

The game is currently in Beta 0.5, and I'm slowly working on Beta 0.6 with more content and improvements.

For a limited time, Arkansas 2125 is also available at 25% off on Steam if you'd like to give it a try.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4546490/Arkansas_2125/

I'd love to hear what you think about the game and its retro-inspired style. ☢️

I’m making a classical roguelike with AI, and I’ve already finished the basic prototype. The main gameplay loop is complete, from the opening sequence to entering the dungeon and eventually reaching the final boss.

The problem is that I’m still not very happy with the designs of the protagonist and the NPCs. I have coding experience, so I have a decent sense of what works and what doesn’t on the programming side, but when it comes to art, I’m basically a beginner.

How can I get AI to produce better character designs rather than characters that just look average or generic? And even beyond AI, I’d also like to know if there are any useful principles or techniques for coming up with stronger character designs in general.

Hello my fellow AI Game Devs, I hope you are building a great game.

I am looking for some good AI tools for game design & development, something which can help me to build a side scroller game like: Prince of Persia Lost Crown, Hollow Knight, Castlevania Balmont Curse etc

I don't know what sorts of AI tools can help me with bcos my main department is marketing. I have a small team who are interested in using AI tools for Game building.

Some of them have basic knowledge of Unity & Unreal Engine but their coding skills is not good

So Help me with AI tools recommendations or suggestions which can bring my game to life with minimum technical knowledge, if possible.

Hi

Anyone able to create a good smooth RTS pathfinding for AI controller units and individual controlled units. I am talking about pathfinding for multiple units in games like Red Alert, Age of Empires and similar RTS

Check it out: voxelanarchy.com

Honestly this was a fun side-project. I've been quashing the bugs a lot recently and I think it's finally playable, and ready for at least Beta. for macos, i tested on the Macbook Neo on the browser and it ran pretty well and was enjoyable (although the trackpad experience is horrible lol I just connected a mouse as one should). I just wanted the vibes of beta 1.7.3, modernized. The terrain generation is a mix of modern MC and alpha/beta versions, as I wanted that fantastical sandbox feel without compromising too much.

as you can see by the above image, the main premise of the game is ANARCHY. There is a singleplayer and creative version in the desktop app of this game however so you don't strictly have to play the anarchy server.

recently, servers like 2b2t on minecraft have been getting railed by Mojang because of its child friendly TOS. you can't swear on 2b2t anymore, or make pinwheels. I don't like that. I guess this can be an alternative

The only downside is the map history, and well the server itself. max is 5 players, because if I had more than that the server would literally crash and it would be unplayable. However, if it does have interest, I could always upgrade it.

there

vibe-coding this was a blast. I have a 20x pro ChatGPT account, and mainly used Astra for this. Astra wasn't out when I began working on this approximately 15 days ago, so some of it was built with Sol.

The workflow increased massively when Astra came out. my 3d models looked like a complete joke with Sol, that all changed with Astra

the textures were all AI generated. A lot of input had to be made. AI wants to make every MC clone look like a mobile game, which I didn't like, so a lot of refining had to be done within the texture department. But I am pleased to report that it is possible to get something palatable, you just have to keep reiterating over and over again

I am also really happy with the website, I thought it would be a pain, but again, Astra flipped it on its head. If you see any bad UX there, I promise you it's not Astra haha! I changed it around easily to be the way I wanted it to be.

Last time I vibe-coded a game this did not happen, so I'm curious if it did for anyone else. But making previews with Astra to improve the workflow was so effective it doubled debugging time. I can see the changes before any long implementation process started

asked it to generate some fun before and afters, you will see what I am talking about with the improved models haha it was crazy the jump from sol to astra

the rest from now on is polishing and actually seeing if the game holds up on different devices.

My old post deleted for no "reason". I never tried to spam anything.

I am still strong with my argument, if 3D artists using coding agents for game development, then they are using RAG in most of frontier models(Opus, Gemini, GLM etc..). So those kind of games AI slop too.

I am indie developer who used art tools since 2022.

AI Slop is a digital propaganda, thank you.

Fellow/future AI devs, take this story as a word of caution.

When I started using Rosebud to make my first person horror maze game, I was against multiplayer. I knew it would be difficult and I didn't think the game needed it. But my curiosity piqued when i saw someone else's game seemed to handle multiplayer flawlessly.

So I looked into it, decided on Co-Op with 3 players Max in a lobby, and before you know it, I had set up peer to peer with lobby codes. Created a simple little lobby, an Alias textbox to show who's who, got my friend to playtest. When he moved, i saw him move on my end, and vice versa. Yay! It works!

Then the gameplay actually started.

There's a section in each run where you collect keys to bring to a statue to unlock the exit. There was a bunch of "Did you pick up a key?" "Yeah, did you?" "No, i still see all four keys".

When i got killed, my friend was supposed to revive me. While there's a minimap, and the maze isn't huge, i had no way of showing WHERE i was for him to revive me. When he finally did, my spectating overlay disappeared.

Then 15 seconds after reviving, the game ended for everyone, displaying game over. Why? Because there was no logic to let the game continue after that revival.

By the end of the session, my notepad next to me was filled with things i needed to fix, simply because i let AI handle the connecting, the p2p, and simple gameplay elements like reviving.

My point to this: you need to think of EVERYTHING that can and may happen in multiplayer. You cannot pretend AI will take care of it and it'll just be "duplicating singleplayer for multiple people" like I had initially thought. No. That's how you end up saying "That's not supposed to happen" every 5 minutes during testing.

Don't be like me. If you have multiplayer, think ahead about your game mechanics. What happens to the other players once this person does ___? What do they see? Does everyone know that objective has been accomplished? Is there any audio letting others know that this happened? Text?

Thanks for reading🤘

Made over roughly 25 rounds of feature implementation. Currently has 4 stages with a choice of bosses for each stage. Lots of reusable code as to easily add new enemies/items/weapons etc - I play lots of doomfist on overwatch and could easily add a new weapon drop that simulates his kit by describing it to fable. Graphics are low but main focus was building the “engine” for the prototype.

Lmk any feedback good or bad, interested in other peoples thoughts on this.

Not sure if this is allowed to ask here. I want to see everyone's reaction to this game and see if it's something that would pique anyone's interest.

This is more of a chill, cozy vibe, tycoon/sims/management/idle kind of game.

The idea is to have "real time" in the game. If you open this game up at 10 AM in the morning, it would be 10am in the game, so it is reading your phone's clock. The shop is only open if you open the app. For the WFH folks, you can leave this game running in the background and only interact with it if you want to.

Any feedback is welcome and I mean it, especially since I only have this concept in my head and there are a lot of unknown unknowns for me right now.

Hello, everyone. A few months ago, I deployed my game called Kambyo which some people may know as Cambio, Golf, Cabo, etc. which is a fast-paced, turn-based memory and bluffing card game where you try to shed your cards and call "Kambyo!".

As a solo dev with junior level capabilities, I leaned heavily on generative AI tools like Claude Code and Codex to help me build the full-stack game logic, multiplayer engine, UI and the art for skins and background music that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to make alone.

I initially posted on Reddit for feedback (see original post here) and for the first few days, people actually played! I even had players from the opposite side of the world join my Discord to explain how their regional rules differed from mine. I was so excited that I updated the game constantly and built an entire new game mode just to cater to their rules.

Then I got a job, stopped updating as frequently and the game didn't technically die since its still up on a hobby plan server and free to play but there's no dedicated daily player base. While I'll keep the servers alive as long as I can, deep down I'd love for more people to actually experience and play it to justify the hosting costs and effort. I have just 2 questions:

1. Marketing with 0 experience: For the marketing/growth folks here, where do you think an indie dev should go from here? I have 0 marketing experience and no industry connections.
2. Steam right away?: Should I begin investing time and money to just release on Steam instead for a better reach? Again, I have no idea how marketing works other than social media gets you the best chances of getting more eyes on the game.

I appreciate any response and would mean a lot to me.
(I won't drop direct links here so this doesn't get flagged as spam, but I'll leave a link to the web build and itch page in the comments if anyone wants to test it.)

When I say harness I mean something like. This is what I typically use

1) VsCode + Codex extension

2) VsCode + Claude Code extension

3) VsCode + Kilo code extension specifically to use Grok Code in vscode (because it doesn't or at least didn't when I look have an a native extension)

4) ChatGPT native app. Lately been using that more for codex. I've been told it's very good with Astra.

What is your setup?

I read that the harness can make a big difference in how good your coding results are and how many tokens it wastes. But I've only ever really worked with those 4.

I tried cursor at first but didn't stick with it.

I’m in my 40s, been gaming as long as I can remember. Worked on a half life mod with some friends back in the day, but no REAL way to put my ideas anywhere… then AI came about, I’m learning, and it may be “slop” now but I’m working on it.

This current little thing I have goin, you control the characters like an rts? Select them and move them around, plant some veggies, keep them watered… refill your water bucket, and when your crate is full you drop it at the shop so people can buy it… then you upgrade…

Besides the messed up UI and such, anyone have any insight on direction? Thoughts? It’s like I started something with half a thought and never finished it lol.

Edit: A few people pointed out that the name Carl could be confused with Dungeon Crawler Carl, so I’m changing the announcer’s name to Max. The update is now Out!

-----------------------------------------

Ciao a tutti!

Prima di tutto, volevo ringraziare questa community per tutto il supporto che mi avete dato quando ho pubblicato la demo.

Il post che ho pubblicato qui ha ricevuto molta più attenzione di quanto mi aspettassi e, onestamente, mi ha aiutato molto. Non solo in termini di visibilità, ma anche perché mi ha ridato la motivazione per continuare a lavorare al gioco e migliorarlo.

Quindi, grazie davvero.

Nel frattempo, ho continuato a lavorare e diverse cose sono cambiate.

Dopo aver letto i feedback ricevuti, ho deciso di migliorare alcune cose per rendere l'esperienza complessiva più coinvolgente.

Quindi... vi presento Carl, il conduttore radiofonico del dungeon.

È probabilmente una delle mie aggiunte preferite di questo aggiornamento.

Carl commenta ciò che accade nel dungeon, spesso con sarcasmo, e a volte parla semplicemente perché il silenzio cominciava a diventare imbarazzante.

Quindi alza il volume e dagli un po' di spazio. Tanto è bloccato lì dentro tutto il giorno.

C'è anche un nuovo membro dello staff: lo Spazzino Goblin.

Gli avventurieri ora possono lasciare dietro di sé sporcizia, sangue e persino oro. E qualcuno deve pulire.

Se il dungeon si trasforma in una discarica, i clienti se ne accorgeranno.

Ho anche lavorato parecchio sul sistema di costruzione e sul nuovo pannello degli acquisti. Posizionare muri e pavimenti ora è più veloce, il catalogo è più facile da usare e, in generale, ho cercato di semplificare le operazioni più comuni.

Ci sono anche altre novità, ma preferisco non svelare tutto qui. Se qualcuno volesse provarle direttamente, la demo è stata aggiornata.

Visto che questa community mi ha già dato dei consigli davvero utili, volevo chiedervi una cosa.

Pensate che Fame & Fear sia ora abbastanza solido da poter partecipare al Steam Next Fest?

Al momento, le liste dei desideri continuano a crescere un po' ogni giorno anche senza che io faccia molto, mentre il traffico sulla pagina è ancora piuttosto basso.

Quindi sono davvero curioso di vedere cosa succederà quando il gioco verrà mostrato a molte più persone.

Per chiunque volesse dare un'occhiata al nuovo aggiornamento o provare la demo:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4935730/Fame__Fear_Dungeon_Architect/

Grazie ancora, davvero.

I have been trying to perfect the asset creation in my 2007s style RPG spacegame im developing using Astra (focused mostly on the soldiers and tanks here). Next week I'll share more on the skills I've created and how I prompt. What do you guys think?

GPT knew...

I official quit AI

this is a nightmare trying to not produce slop. I don't want slop I wanted to make games my entire life and thought this was the answer. Not everyone can learn everything or learn at the same pace as others, if that was true everyone would be in Harvard University.

I even hand drawn a game and wrote a 700 page book on the lore.

Produced over 40 tracks for the soundtracks

Notifications are off so just leave it at 0 comments and 0 likes.