WIP 04/14/2025
Added 2025-04-14 07:17:23 +0000 UTCHey everyone.
Sorry for the absence last week. No, I wasn’t on vacation 😅
In the meantime though, the JPG files in the game folder have reached 76.
(They were supposed to be 60... but oh well.)
I also made a small addition to the storyline by introducing a character who’s very dear to me. This will add about 5 more illustrations to the workload, so yes… the release estimate I gave on March 17 has been pushed back a bit.
Anyway, the drawings are almost done, and I’ll soon move on to the programming phase.
A quick thought on productivity:
Since I started this project, one question has been constantly on my mind:
How can I increase productivity without sacrificing quality?
At first, I thought about hiring someone.
Then I got my sister involved for the backgrounds.
Now I’m seriously considering using artificial intelligence.
I’m well aware of the ongoing ideological war between Art and AI.
At first, I was scared.
Then curiosity took over.
And finally, I realized that adapting can mean surviving — and above all, creating better, faster, and with less stress.
AI isn’t something you can beat.
Even if I chose not to use it, many others would — and they'd be faster and more efficient than me.
But here’s the important thing:
My style is non-negotiable.
It’s the result of years of work, and it’s what makes my art mine.
So, I’ll use AI strictly as an assistant.
The writing, directing, and character design will always be mine because I want to keep my voice and soul in this project.
Drawing takes a massive amount of time. But to tell a good story, you have to show.
And the more you show, the easier for people to truly immerse themselves.
AI will allow me to show more in less time while still preserving my personal style.
And hopefully, I’ll finally be able to go back to drawing for the joy of it, not because I’m chained to a daily grind like some kind of drawing machine.
Honestly, I don’t see a reason not to use it.
If you feel like sharing your thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
I’m always open to feedback.
Hugs.
Alek
Comments
Read the discussion with Fale1994, the comment right after yours. I have observed the evolution of AI since the beginning, and I know well those soulless generations you refer to. But there are also wonderful AI generations because the person who wrote the prompt already had artistic knowledge behind them. Personally I see AI as a skills amplifier. If your artistic taste is low, thanks to AI you will produce a lot of low content. If your artistic taste is high, thanks to AI you will produce a lot of high content. Of course, the dilution effect in the market will be inevitable, and it will be more difficult to "fish" for truly valid content because suddenly everyone has become an artist.
Alek ErectSociety
2025-04-28 08:17:59 +0000 UTCI agree. It is the lack of vision that produces bad content. A shitty game is such because it is not fun, because it is predictable, because it is in bad taste, because the writing is not solid. Great writers for example, are almost never also visual artists, and must necessarily rely on someone else, whether it is a flesh and blood artist or a machine, will depend on personal values and economic availability.
Alek ErectSociety
2025-04-28 08:01:14 +0000 UTCAI is a tool and an assistant until you shift all the work to it. Until this happens, you will not lose your style and your vision of the game. The fact that large companies use it not as an assistant, but as a free worker to reduce their costs, is sad, all an ordinary buyer can do is just avoid such games. As long as games are bought by pre-order, we will get such cheap and terribly made games. Nothing can be done about it, there will always be people who will want the game earlier, faster, ultimately overpaying for the product money that it is not worth. Personally, I prefer to buy after a 40-50% discount, there are so many games that there is no point in cluttering your steam with games that you will never finish in the end. Exceptions can be made for indie games, in which a soul and real work is often put into making something interesting. It is a pity that in the end real games are killed by terrible marketing and incompetent managers, because the people they focus on will never play their games. And real players will find other games, and these developers will eventually go bankrupt.
Fale1994
2025-04-25 18:13:19 +0000 UTCI resubscribed just to say please don't use generative AI. That's the one that scrapes art from artists all across the internet and will always have a soulless/tacky appearance. (As well as be distasteful for a majority of people) The hours spent drawing is really worth it in the end. I can tell your art doesn't use it, please don't let that change. It will just muddy up the waters with a ton of conflicting styles put in there for the sake of efficiency. It's cheap for a reason. Otherwise large profit driven companies wouldn't all be trying to jump on it.
Bat9000
2025-04-25 13:52:24 +0000 UTC
