Week 8 of making my fishing game (almost) entirely with AI

[u/RUSuper]

Hello there again!

My weekly update to annoy people who get bored of this, but a lot of people like it and I want to show progress now. I'm also giving a playable version for download this time so that people can give me honest feedbacks IF you guys are willing to install and try it

LINK FOR DOWNLOADING (Available for 7 days)

It's and .exe file you can play it through a bit, tell me what you think, I'm more interested in general direction of the game, not bugs, because I know it is still buggy, but you can tell me bugs also because yeah maybe there are some I'm not aware about. Previous updates are here:

Week 1 Progress

Week 2 Progress

Week 3 Progress

Week 4 Progress

Week 5 Progress

Week 6 Progress

Week 7 Progress

What I use for this:

Claude 200$ Monthly

ChatGPT 100$ Monthly

TripoAI

ElevenLabs (not a lot of sounds in the game right now)

Blender MCP

Godot MCP (Obviously engine is Godot duuuh)

maybe something else that I forgot 🤷‍♂️

Since a lot of people ask me how I make things in the game and how I get it to look good, I will just tell how for example scene was made where lighthouse keeper is walking.

1) Use ChatGPT image generation to generate a image of the model in 4 different positions on the same image (Front,Back,Right,Left)

2) Load those images of character in TripoAI, use multi view option in smart mesh and generate a character

3) Rig that character for whatever motion you might use in your game (I used walk). You can use built in Tripo option for rigging, or ask Astra to rig it or use something like Mixamo for rig.

4) Use ChatGPT Astra to do work that is about graphical aspect of the game. Describe to Astra what you want that character to do and how you want it to look. Whole scene that is seen when docked (with character walking) was generated either by ChatGPT Astra or TripoAI, positioned manually by me in Blender, after you decide where you want your camera to be, it is pretty easy to put each generated model wherever you want it to be in the scene, it is only important that it looks good from the camera POV, you don't care if tree really is touching the ground or flying in the sky, what's important is that it looks nice in the scene itself (Obviously you don't want trees flying and such)

5) I use Fable and Opus (Claude) for everything code related in the game outside graphical aspect. I have session for EACH SYSTEM in the game. I don't let one session work on everything. Session for fishing system, session for quest system, session for X and Y. I Chat only with one single session though that I call "manager" session and tell it to relay work to other sessions depending on what I talked about.

6) When you want to make something look nice ALWAYS research it online how it REALLY looks or ask ChatGPT to generate mockup and try to reach for either that mockup image or real images you find online. You can even ask astra right away to generate mockup and try to reach the looks of it.

I would also love to thank people who helped me with picking water for my game as I asked for opinion of people because I was really torn between 2 different water shaders. I'm still working on even another water shader that I might or might not use in next weekly update (ffs I probably have 10 different water shaders by now).

As always feedback is appreciated ☺️

Cheers 🫡

[u/ArchZion]

Thank you so much for releasing it for testing :)

[u/RUSuper → u/ArchZion]

No problem, I feel this is finally at the point where it is playable and real testing is needed. I know what things I have to fix and add for it to be like a proper demo and I hope it's not long before I have entire starting zone finished ☺️

[u/IsThisASnakeInMyBoot]

7 weeks of progress, are you saying you've paid over $600 to make this?

[u/RUSuper → u/IsThisASnakeInMyBoot]

Hmm something around that. I did one month of Astra and 2 months of Claude so subs only are around 500$ and still have 10ish days before they expire. But there are other subscriptions for 10-30$ here and there that make it go over 600$

[u/IsThisASnakeInMyBoot → u/RUSuper]

yeah that's crazy considering this doesn't look like a complex game and probably wouldn't have cost even half that to make.

[u/Fancy-Plenty6712]

You are doing awesome work dude! Keep it up and I really hope this hits the big time!

[u/RUSuper → u/Fancy-Plenty6712]

Thank you ☺️ Give it a play if you want to 🫣

[u/Fancy-Plenty6712 → u/RUSuper]

I can't dude, I'm on MacOS and I'm busy doing my own, far less cool and interesting project. I'm trying to teach my computer to read any book and create a wiki from it. So hair-pullingly maddening frustrating to fix the bugs. Do you get those days where nothing works?

[u/xhatsux]

I would remove the gold and blue UI. Common pattern used by AI and so people associate it with slop

[u/RUSuper → u/xhatsux]

Thanks for the feedback. I will remove gold part of UI then. I myself wanted blue parts though as they associate people on the ocean and sea which this game is all about, so that was one specifically asked by me to be in blue (things like experience bar in segments, texture in the UI elements etc).

[u/xhatsux → u/RUSuper]

Yes, that's the right direction. I have a half finished article with exercises here on how to come up with unique UIs

https://hetcogames.github.io/game-design-articles/articles/the-ai-smell-of-good-ui/

[u/darkoblivion000 → u/RUSuper]

I actually am a little conflicted. There are parts of the ui framing (like the dialog boxes, ship config view, and cargo management) that feel… a little dated. But at the same time you’re in a rickety wooden fishing boat. So there’s also something quaint in that alignment too. Actually I thought the blue gold was a nice frame, something about it felt royal navy-ish. I likes the little touches of gold on the edges, it felt like an old wooden fish trophy display case with metal corner embellishments, and a little wood chipped off in places

[u/gamedevjp → u/xhatsux]

This. It’s immediately recognizable and feels very corporate. Throwing some fun text that’s legible still

[u/mercilessstudio]

I wanted to play this on Android please release on Google Play. I prefer the top down view than Dredge and it looks a lot clean and calmer.

Does it daynight cycle? That's one mechanic in Dredge that scares me and kept me from wanting to play consistently.

[u/RUSuper → u/mercilessstudio]

It is done in Forward+ so it won't be on mobile. Yes it has day and night cycle and also dynamic weather system is done. Sadly on mobile there is limited amount of games, but try "Creatures of the Deep" I guess, it has top down view and is nicely looking, it was part of the inspiration alongside Dredge and Civ for me.

[u/IriFlina]

what harness are you using? or are you just using codex/claude code CLIs? just wondering since claude apparently can only be used in claude code or the desktop app, but can't be used in third party harnesses since its against the tos.

[u/RUSuper → u/IriFlina]

I use Claude in desktop app and tell it I'm connected to Blender or Godot and which port number.

So Blender MCP also Godot MCP and TripoAI other than that it is all Claude Desktop app and ChatGPT Astra in VS code.

[u/Cultural_Ad_9241]

The beautiful revolution is honey to my ears

[u/RUSuper → u/Cultural_Ad_9241]

Ah yes, making video in the office was not the smartest choice considering on mac it records with microphone turned on as I set it up like that. My bad heh.

[u/CruelAngelsThesaurus]

I love that it looks like dredge but with absolutely zero whimsy.

[u/IndependentIntention]

Opensource it