I was one of those people who always wanted to make a video game but never thought I had the time to actually do it.
Funny enough, this all started while I was sitting on the toilet watching a video about making a game in Pico-8. Something about it lit a spark in me. i had messed around with GameMaker throughout the years and knew enough to get myself into trouble, so I decided I was finally going to make a game.
Castle of the Winds was a game I always loved, and my original thought was basically: what if I made something like that, but with updated graphics, my own world, and my own ideas?
Around the same time, I discovered just how good AI had gotten at helping with code. So I started using ChatGPT. A lot.
I didn't research how the indie community felt about AI. I didn't really know about the arguments surrounding AI-generated art or how strongly artists and developers felt about it. I was a plumber trying to make his first video game after work. I kept my nose down and worked on the thing for about six months.
AI helped me tremendously with coding. But I was still designing the game, building the world, creating mechanics, balancing things, testing, breaking things, fixing things, publishing builds, and learning all the little lessons you learn when you actually try to finish a game.
I made a point not to use AI-generated art or music for the actual gameplay. But I did use AI for some backgrounds and marketing material. At the time I didn't think much of it. Now I wish I hadn't.
Toward the end of development I started seeing more and more of these videos where someone would basically ask AI:
"Give me a game idea."
"Now make the game."
"Make the art."
"Make the music."
"Make the Steam page."
"How do I make it go viral?"
And I started feeling strangely disheartened.
I had spent six months making my game, and here I was watching people try to speedrun the entire process. It felt like the goal wasn't even to learn how to make games. The game was just a product they could generate as quickly as possible for money, views, or attention. But then I had to confront something uncomfortable. Hadn't I done a smaller version of the same thing?
I'm a plumber by trade. One of the things I do is gas piping. There are modern flexible gas piping systems that can make an installation much faster and easier. Then there is black iron pipe. Black iron is old school. You measure every piece. Cut it. Thread it. Fit it. Sometimes you take the whole thing back apart because you're off. It takes longer and it requires more skill.
That's what I use and proud of it.
When someone who knows the trade asks me what I use for gas piping and I tell them I still run black iron, they often get excited about it. It's becoming a dying part of the trade. People have been installing gas that way for more than 100 years, and there is something satisfying about standing back and looking at a clean black iron installation and knowing that you built it.
I'm not saying flexible gas piping doesn't have a place. It absolutely does.
But personally, I wouldn't sacrifice the quality or craftsmanship of my plumbing just because there was an easier way to get the job finished.
And eventually I had to ask myself:
Why didn't I have that same attitude toward making my game?
The truth is that I could have made those backgrounds myself. I could have made the marketing material myself. It would have taken longer. i would have had to learn. My first attempts probably would have looked worse, but I could have done it.
I think that's the part of the anti-AI argument I didn't understand until I actually went through the growing pains of making something myself.
There is value in the struggle. Spending years learning how to draw, compose music, program, animate, write, or design games. There is value in craftsmanship even when a machine can produce something faster.
I still think AI is an incredibly powerful tool, and I don't think using it automatically makes someone lazy or untalented. I probably wouldn't have gotten through some of the programming problems I encountered without AI helping me understand what I was doing. But I think there is a difference between using a tool to help you practice a craft and using a tool to avoid developing the craft altogether.
I didn't understand that distinction when I started. Now I do. And unfortunately, I learned it after the game was already released.
The funny thing is, there's one guy who has played my game for around 30 hours over the last month. He keeps asking me questions about mechanics and the story. Every time he does, it makes me glad. Somebody actually found this weird little game a plumber spent six months making and cared enough about the world I made to keep playing it and asking me questions.
That means more to me than I expected it would.
It also makes me wish even more that I had done those remaining pieces myself. If I ever make another game, I want to do things differently. I'll still use good tools where I think they're appropriate, but I don't want convenience to replace craftsmanship.
Black iron gas piping is slowly becoming a dying part of my trade because easier alternatives exist. I hope making a video game without generative AI doesn't eventually become the same thing.
It took making my first game, and failing, for me to understand why preserving that craft matters.
