It sounds to me like you're looking for someone to give you permission to use AI code generation. If that's the case, then here you go:
I, Entwine, a professional software engineer, decree that DesertCryptid shall have permission to utilize any Artificial Intelligence product to generate code for his game starting today, and until we reach AGI (at which point my decree will hold no weight).
Anyone who disagrees with my decree shall have to face me in a code review (to the death)
Do you have art samples and a spec for what you want to build? If it's small enough / straightforward enough that the code can be knocked out in a weekend, someone here might be interested in taking it on...
Disregard ethics for a second. I would argue it is much more unethical to use AI generated art in a game than it would be to use AI generated code. Here's why:
AI art steals the role of artists because it uses algorithms to produce a product that has never existed before, like an artist does with colors instead of math.
AI code isn't great. That's why so many experienced coders are being hired to come fix the nightmare code that companies used AI to generate after firing all their coders. But that's because AI only knows how to put together code that has already existed, which means all an AI is really doing is interpreting your input and producing an output - just like you would do if you thought of what you wanted your code to do, spent countless hours pouring through search results, forums, textbooks, etc., slapping some shit together, and running it through a validator. Most applications have validators built into the workspace, meaning if you write something that doesn't work or make sense, it's going to tell you (and probably even tell you how to fix it). So, just think of AI as a slightly smarter validator. You write some really bad code (what you want the code to do in English) and the validator goes "this English code makes no sense, here's what it should look like."
There's no guarantee the "corrections" it makes will actually work, fit into the code you already have, be organized in the most efficient way, or be the best way to handle that particular task. But, a huge chunk of a coder's time is thinking about things like that anyway. So let the AI fix your English code into whatever language you're actually trying to speak, and you deal with the other half: is this how I want it to work?
But that's just me. 🤷🏻
Edit: If after all that you're still not feeling very ethical, then show a coder your product and see if they'll use their brain's LLM to validate better code.
That's kind of the big issue when starting out, finding like-minded people that are willing to work with you. Your best hope is to try again to find somebody that's at your level and wants to help with the game. If you have any local gamedev community, even if it's just your country, I'd highly recommend looking there as opposed to random people online because (in my experience) people tend to be more serious in smaller communities, especially if you can meet up IRL.
I don't think anybody really cares if you use AI for your free hobby projects. The problem is that AI is really bad at gamedev, so you'll suffer a fair bit with broken code and not knowing how to tie everything together in the game engine.
I want to be a game artist and learning to code seems like it would be a distraction from that. Is it wrong to think that way?
Not at all. Not everybody wants to be a solo indie dev that's trying to be good at everything, most people I know are either just a programmer or just an artist. Get good at what you do and try your best to find a teammate you can trust who's also serious about it.
I can see the similarity. That game looks a bit like Heroes of Might and Magic as well.
That's exactly what I thought of! Found out about it in like grade school Computer Lab
This week I've
I am aware of classifications and content descriptions. I'm not in US so the ESRB are not directly relevant but my local body does something similar.
I find the actual classifications to be a bit conservative so treat them all as advisory and make my own decisions. For example my son beat these (on easy) at four years old, I don't think we would have enjoyed them as much if we waited until fifteen:
On the other end of the scale I can use these descriptions to see that while Saints Row (2022) is tamer than GTA5 it is still going to have content thats a bit rough for an eight year old:
Parental controls are another question but I use then for time limits on his tablet and content restrictions on consoles and streaming services.
The way I have parental controls set up he has access to everything M or lower but MA15+ or higher requires a conversation.
They help inform my decisions but at the end of the day we are making our own choices within our household.
I think it might be this one: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=the+ancient+art+of+war+game+apple&iar=images
Seems to be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Art_of_War
Sparking Zero had huge buzz around it. It was hyped up as the successor to Budokai Tenkaichi. It was pretty popular on social media. It had meme-y meta moments like using Yajirobe online for a while. Huge playable roster really added to the hype. Dragonball is incredibly popular. Dragonball may actually be more popular today than the early 2000s. It's had a huge resurgence since the series canon resumed with the battle of the gods movie
Parents I know are very active users of parental controls from what I've seen
Sorry can't say I know of it, but you've got me curious if you ever remember it.
Over the past week I've
No worries. This was my first learning experience opening packaged files in a hex editor, so I have that for future.
Thanks for taking a look!
Ah, sorry friend. It looks like xpps are generalized resource files (fittingly their magic is "KCAP", PACK backwards), and they have a complex schema because they store basically general relational data it seems. Reversing would take quite a bit of work with the information currently available. If it's any consolation, it seems like the merge may have been a bit of a monumental task to do correctly anyways given the enormous amount of metadata there is (just open up that file in a hex editor and see how small the text portion is, and how there appears to be multiple different metadata schema and sections). Sorry I couldn't help, it's a great idea.
may be able to write a utility or at least give you a guide to do it manually. Could you upload an example file and link it?
Oh, that would be very helpful!
This is the .xpps file (Since I am an Internet stranger, I would expect you to check this file at your own risk.)
https://mega.nz/file/xiIHDSyI#EUTY6vQUweqyNWGX9JpcG1hDHdW4pgKI8DHYxa1NMys
I am new to extracting files by reading the hex code and stuff, so I don't understand how to work with it. But from what I can see on some threads online, people have attempted to do the same, thought I could not understand the conclusion they reached.
Here is the thread on upacking the .xpps files I found -
https://reshax.com/topic/759-ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-pc-version-xpps-xmesh/
also
https://reshax.com/search/?q=.xpps&quick=1&type=forums_topic&item=759
I have some experience reversing binary formats. Depending on how complex it is (I unfortunately don't have much free time to code) I may be able to write a utility or at least give you a guide to do it manually. Could you upload an example file and link it?
Cool, the screenshot reminds me of a game I played in the Apple II days. Anyone remember the name of that one? "Age of war" could be pretty close, but I can't find anything about it online.
unfortunately not…
My immediate thought was this would be fighting the Cold War via Pokemon battles... as in, you explore the world, catch Pokemon, conquer new countries and catch more Pokemon there... You use Pokemon and their trainers instead of soldiers to fight the wars...
Start with the core gameplay loop. Look for the fun. Look for what you can take out, not add.
Play-testing something like this with pencil and paper first might be a good idea. Once you work out why it always plays the same way, then you can look for how to perturb the gameplay.
Right now I’m focusing on the very core mechanics of the game (camera movement, territories gaining independence, unification, etc.). The biggest thing I still need to add is a user interface to see what country you are, start/stop the clock, see what modifiers you have, show the name of the country you selected, etc.
Sucks to be Player-Right
The main factions will probably be the western bloc (later NATO) and the eastern bloc (later Warsaw Pact). There will also be a third faction, the non-aligned movement led by Yugoslavia with members from the newly independent nations in Africa and Asia. I'm thinking the non-aligned movement will need to have some sort of special mechanic to stand out, but I don't know what. Any ideas?