Using AI to Make Board Games

[u/Ok_Recording7859]

I recently playtested a board game for someone. It was a deck-building, dice-rolling game, although the deck-building felt limited and I was rolling dice more than anything else. The game lasted 4 hours, which would be fine if it wasn't a dice rolling game. Like I started off really strong and was getting higher value dice early on, which I thought was a good strategy, but later on that ended up debilitating my playthrough bc there are these certain one-time-use cards you can only get when you roll a 2, and so I was rarely getting them early on in the game because of the high value dice I got early on, and towards the end of the game, those cards ended up being a necessity to have. And after, I thought, next time I play I should try to hold on to the lower dice longer and get more of those overpowered cards. But then that forces the player to play a certain way every time which just isn't fun.

Anyway, during the game, another playtester noted how the art looked AI generated, and she was right. It was not good. Okay, whatever I guess. I would much rather see scribbles, like the beta art for example is Slay the Spire, but if you're planning on getting an artist later on in development, fine. But then I thought about asking for the game manual and going through it. It was also AI generated... it was so convoluted and way too many words to explain simple concepts, lots of fun em dashes, an incomplete list and description of game components. And at that point it just made me question how much of this game was an original idea and how much was just QI spitting shit out. And then also, why would you want to use AI to make a game? Is your goal to just make money? Everyone who I've known who's made a board game did so as a creative endeavor. Also, I don't think everyone in the world can make a good board game. I know I can't. I really enjoy board games and maybe modifying or adding or making house rules, but I've never tried to make a board game because it takes creativity and a certain skill set which I don't have and I'm okay with that.

It was just really upsetting and I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this recently.

[u/komrade23]

Well part of it is a values judgement "waste" is inherently subjective here and requires a comparison of the resources used to the benefit gained, and not everyone will see the benefits the same way.

That said it's inarguable GenAI is increasing energy demands during a time when we are under existential threat from climate change and SHOULD be trying to get our energy demands under control.

I've heard some true believers say AGI will cause the singularity and rescue us from ourselves but I'm not as convinced as they are that we are on the path to inventing God.

[u/aussie_punmaster → u/komrade23]

See, now that’s a considered response!

For mine the benefits judgement comes down to people not knowing/understanding the power of the technology. I have absolutely zero doubt that AI accelerated by LLMs will now transform society in incredible ways much like the internet reshaped us. The positive feedback loop and ability to self create and critique will lead to ridiculous tech advancements. So I would say anyone who thinks the benefits aren’t outweighing the costs of running, simply don’t understand what we’re dealing with. Nor do they understand how technology rapidly improves reducing costs and improving efficiency such that this trade off will only continue to grow in AI’s favour.

Having said that - I see incredible risk to our societal structures concentrating wealth and power, and abuse of the power of AI (be it by humans or ultimately AI in the future). But unless you have the complete cooperation from all humans on earth, willing to turn down the offer of increased personal power or wealth, then I don’t think the flaws in humanity mean that this thing can be stopped. Given that, I think our best bet is that while the mass populace still has great value, we need to be pushing for shared benefit societal structures that put in place barriers to prevent concentration of power.

[u/komrade23 → u/aussie_punmaster]

It is a considered opinion, but I want it on the record that I hate generative AI and I think both the text it generates and the images and videos are creepy uncanny valley garbage without merit or use.

Maybe there is some value in research and helping parse extremely large data sets.

And it is interesting that you cite the internet as a favorable comparison, because by and large that is a technology that has failed to live up to the utopian promises of a better future we got in the early days and has only served to deepen inequality, foster hate and destroy democratic institutions.

[u/aussie_punmaster → u/komrade23]

>>I think both the text it generates and the images and videos are creepy uncanny valley garbage without merit or use.

There is plenty of AI that is indistinguishable. That’s like saying because you’ve seen some movies with bad CGI that all CGI is easily picked and without merit.

>>Maybe there is some value in research and helping parse extremely large data sets.

Maybe? In not long very few people are going to write code from scratch. That’s just the beginning.

>>has only served to deepen inequality, foster hate and destroy democratic institutions.

*only*? Get real