Aura

EDIT: As I sometimes do, I'm locking this post now that it went bigger than I intended

I'm so tired.

I was excitedly going to spotlight this game, Mech Builder, on @indiegamesofcohost tomorrow. Such an amazing idea, exactly the type of game I've wanted to come out, bought it and enjoyed the tutorial. Such a great idea for a solo-dev, taps into a really satisfying loop. And really clever, using 2D drawn assets instead of it needing to be a 3D game.

Of course, a few hours later, I realize that the dev used AI Art to make mech designs, then traced over them.

I was rooting for this game so hard. I wanted to be its biggest cheerleader. Day 1 of it being released and I had excitedly showed it to a bunch of people already, even before drafting the IGOC post. And now I feel like an idiot for not spotting it sooner.

What pisses me off the MOST though is this: Steam ALREADY ALLOWS AI Art games! All Valve asks is that you fill out a short form on your store page that divulges what you used AI for. This dev, as of writing, hasn't added that at all. He claims that only whiney haters care about AI use, and yet chickened out of being honest and upfront in the Steam store description.

If you're gonna use AI Art to make your art-centric game, at least have the guts and the dignity to be upfront about it and see how your sales do.

It's such an unusual experience to get to play in a famous painting. But that's exactly what this game is about: Loyal H. "Bud" Chapman's Infamous 18, a PC golf sim from 2006 that aims to replicate the dream courses painted by Bud Chapman in the early 1980s. Just added to the Golfshrine inventory yesterday, and the main subject of today's acquisitions update!

Update edit: I've also now preserved the game via Internet Archive - so, assuming they're currently up right now, you could experience it too.

This is one of the craziest sports game concepts I've ever heard of. A golf sim where the courses are based on paintings by an artist who exclusively did fantasy golf landscapes.

It's like if there was a beat-em-up that took place entirely in real Boris Vallejo paintings, but it's golf.

The "public" game archive held by Japan's National Diet library, which currently contains 3,300+ games, has been accessed just 16 times in the last ~two years, owing to very stringent restrictions that limit access to researchers who've demonstrated a need for certain material and have outlined how they intend to publicise their research.

These restrictions are in no small part due to—and tell me if you've heard this one before—a signed agreement between the library and unnamed industry organisations who feel that unfettered access would cause untold damage to the industry and allow people to treat the archive "like an arcade"...

unused dialogue from the killer games that i felt like getting out of my system