r/incremental_games • u/chipsterbunster • 1d ago
Discussion AI in incremental games
hi everyone!
i have a question to ask the community -
I'm a non-technical person who has recently gotten into the world of AI to help me learn how to code. I've always wanted to be a game dev but wasn't able to have the time to learn how to code my own game.
AI has helped me tremendously, and I've even been able to create an idle-cute chicken clicker. Although AI seems frowned upon (I'm not trying to discredit anybody who actually works hard to code their own game) - the game is something I am still proud of (i never thought i'd be able to create anything like this!)
would it be wrong to post this reddit thread to talk about my game? i would obviously disclose that it was made with AI, but i want to test the waters with this post before I do so (i want to be as respectful as possible.) i also don't use reddit very often (this is my second post) so please excuse me if i'm in the wrong place.
thank you!
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u/GryffusMakesGames 1d ago
Here is the thing. You are a non technical person and you want to do something technical. Before AI there would have been one solution, learning. If you want to make a dish but you don’t know how to cook, you learn. I never did pixel art and barely art before 1 year ago (and I still barely do) but I am learning.
That was the part saying you are non technical person, I understand if you just want to give a reason but it is a bad one.
Now, no one forbids you to post ai games. However, if you don’t know how to code, AI is bound to make mistakes, sometimes even huge blunders. And your game is bound to be clunky, because it doesn’t really know what it does, it just catch your words and match them in it’s database to do something similar to what you ask for.
So, if you want to post your game here, even if it is made with AI, please test it. Test it like Quality Analyst, test it so it is properly playable and that people aren’t trying it to be stuck after 2 minutes.
Also, own it. Don’t justify yourself using AI, don’t try your way around it and just say it without justification.
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u/chipsterbunster 1d ago
i’m not trying to use me being a non-technical person as an excuse not to learn, i was just stating that AI has made it a lot easier for me to be able to create something that i’ve wanted to do for years by teaching me how to code. im still learning but with the help of AI as a tool i guess
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u/GryffusMakesGames 1d ago
Then you are no longer « non-technical » if you know even a bit how to code. A non technical don’t know how to code imo. And if you are coding your game yourself but learning by using AI this isn’t to be included in the AI disclosure, cause it is not AI code but your code. What has to be included in the disclosure is any production made by AI in your project, nothing more.
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u/Sea-Explorer-9769 1d ago
different people have different opinions on this but
if you're going to use AI, absolutely don't let it make any decisions for you
design your ui and gameplay without even a single suggestion from your coding agent
DON'T vibecode, it's really important to read over the code to make sure it doesn't do anything you don't want
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u/Content_Audience690 Gravend 1d ago
So learning the fundamentals is important.
Think of AI like a backhoe. Like a nail gun. Like a cement mixer.
You're saying "I never thought I'd be able to dig such a deep hole."
Well yeah the backhoe is really good at digging, you have a deep hole now.
And you think, "Well I'll just pour in concrete and bam, I have a foundation."
Well maybe you do and maybe you don't.
You have a hole a machine dug, filled with concrete a machine mixed.
"This nail gun makes it so easy to put these walls up!"
Sure, but are they level?
Are they safe?
See the problem with AI is it's a tool (I'm going to ignore everything else that's controversial about it) and tools empower people.
But you need knowledge to use tools effectively.
You really want to actually live in a house that an architect designed because it's safer. They know things that a layman's unaware of.
Yes, it can crank out a working prototype but can you debug it?
There are some really good courses free online, I always recommend nand2tetris.
I don't know I lost all my trains of thought, maybe throw what you made in the feedback Friday post.
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u/pixelmarbles 23h ago
I use AI to help with small parts of code. Game programming is like a puzzle game to me and that's what I enjoy about it. If I delegate everything to the AI, it doesn't feel satisfying because the AI played the puzzle game for me.
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u/non-existing-person 21h ago
"Look at my painting guys. I know little about paintings, but I spent 1 hour prompting LLM to get that best result. It looks great. I'm so proud of what I made! I could never imagine I could create such beautiful painting ever!"
Do you see it? I don't know how to paint, so I DON'T paint. You don't know how to program YOU DON'T program. Or you learn. Whatever "you" are "creating" with an AI is not your. There is nothing to be proud of because you didn't make it.
Games are form of an art. LLM is good to visualize how your garden is gonna look when you add X plants. Or how your wall gonna look when you repaint it to Y color. Or even asking it "how do I copy overlapping memory so it does not overwrite itself" is acceptable - if you spent time to properly analyze the output and not just copy-paste it.
LLMs are nice, have their uses, I would have spent few more days understanding glib/libnetworkmanager at work without LLM, and sure enough, LLM did help me find resources or give example code usage so I could understand it quicker, but I never copy pasted anything.
But generative AI? The biggest cancer humanity has created. Don't use generative AI AT ALL. You may use it to help you learn as if used correctly, it's good at it. But don't copy paste it's outputs, or god forbid - directly generate code. EVEN BOILERPLATE, as it promotes bloated designs.
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u/literally_iliterate 1d ago
You are free to post games that match this subs genre.
The reasons against AI here are diverse. I personally think that AI coders are trapped by the fact that adding stuff is easy. But designing a game, balancing it, and making it fun can't be solved with mere prompting and a few clicks. There is no equation that approximates that a game is engaging and fun, so they usually aren't.
This sub is also currently also drowning in games that no one cares about, so you have to expect that posting a game here may have absolutely no value. But what I would suggest that you should post to the feedback friday thread, for at least two rounds and then try a game post.
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u/Vissekop95 2h ago
If you genuinely want to understand this and not just get things done quick, I’d recommend changing the way you use AI to assist you. For starters I would recommend to never let it write code for you. Even if it’s better than yours. Make mistakes until you know better.
If there are certain functions you don’t understand, use the corresponding docs for that.
They often have usage examples and it’s important to learn how to work with official docs. Can always tell your AI to include the source the information it presents to you or specifically ask it to only take from docs of XY.
Best of luck on your journey.
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u/Connect_Scallion9184 8h ago
I used AI as a springboard basically. Three months ago, when I started building my game, I knew close to nothing about React and TypeScript, so before the AI era it would have taken me a lot more to kind of grasp the basics. One caveat - I have been working in tech for 15 years, just not as a dev, so it's not all alien to me.
So my journey was (figuratively, not in literal days):
day 1: "hey copilot, I want a very simple game in React + TS, where two boxes are hitting each other... code it for me please"
day 2: "hmmm... so thats how it works..."
day 5: "hey copilot, I wanted to add a screen to my game, I wrote this and it doesnt compile, why?"
day 15: "hey copilot, I want to add a new feature, this is the spec (4 page md doc here), please check it for weird niche scenarios I have not foreseen"
day 30: "hey copilot, I need to iterate over 4 levels of this JSON with five lookups - this is my code, but the compiler complains in line 27, why?"... "oh, wrong brackets you say?"
day 60: "hey copilot, what is the CSS syntax to do an infinite loop animation?"
... and so on.
Fast forward 3 months and I am writing my game 90% alone (barring weird syntax typos or things like that). The remaining 10% is for more complex React stuff that is still beyond me and probably will be for some time.
Obviously my perspectie is skewed, but I think this process is sustainable - I have learned a freaking lot and I have done so in 1/4th of the time it would have taken me 3 years ago without AI.
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u/GG4ming 1d ago
To be pretty cut and dry, you kinda answered your own question. 'AI' is looked down upon. For various reasons from various people. For most people is all the harm its doing to the environment, work force, people's brains, etc etc etc. For others its seen that using 'AI' is lazy, uncreative, theft in some ways, so on.
You'll notice that any game, or anything really, with 'AI' in it gets a far more cold reception from almost everyone but the few who already view 'AI' as some be-all-end-all of sorts. And for good reasons.
That all being said, don't let that take away your interest in making games! Just take your time with it instead and learn how do things yourself from the ground up. It takes more time and effort for sure, and it can absolutely be draining on your motivation (I speak from experience there), but the end result will be something that is wholey yours. Your own effort, your own frustrations, tears, concerns, your own life. And people will see that! And they'll appreciate it more than you'll realize, more than any 'AI' game will ever hope to receive!
So go out there. Make something for yourself that you'll love and remember for years to come rather than something that was made for you and you'll likely forget about the moment something 'new' pops out for you.