NoisyOwl [he/him]

I make indie games.

  • 31 Posts
  • 146 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: September 18th, 2023

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  • It’s trash as an idea generator.

    The only useful thing I’ve gotten out of a (text) AI is asking it to guess functions of keyword mechanics in games. Like I was designing personality traits for AI leaders in a strategy game, and had a dozen bad candidates for “over produces defenses.” So I told ChatGPT to try to guess the meanings of bunkerist, hoxhaist, prepper, turtle, protectionist, survivalist, isolationist, guardian. Which did narrow it down to bunkerist, turtle, and protectionist (note that this is literally wrong in the case of protectionist). Normally I’d try to poll a bunch of random people for this sort of thing, and try to avoid anyone who’s trying to be clever. So it did save some work there.

    It won’t come up with anything useful going the other way around though (“list some possible names for traits of AI leaders in a strategy game”). Like I said, it doesn’t work as an idea generator.

    I guess in general it’s probably useful if you’re in a situation where you need to make sure your writing is very very clear. If ChatGPT can correctly summarize what you wrote, it’s probably safe for people who are distracted or bad at reading or whatever.





  • Since this is happening inside a multiplayer game, where other players might not be doing automation gameplay, I want to be mindful of how much server horsepower an automation player uses. So giant Factorio-style megafactories aren’t a good fit (It’ll still be possible as a self-directed challenge, especially if you’re running a single player server, but it’ll need a hefty computer since I doubt I’ll optimize it as well as Factorio.)

    Which means I can’t do Factorio’s thing where an X requires 10 Y requires 10 Z and the massive scale causes problems you need to work through, so I need to add complexity elsewhere to make factory play still challenging. Machines that require inputs from multiple different transport mechanisms are one way to do that. Another might be time-sensitive parts.

    I’m up for suggestions on more ways to make particular machines a nuisance to work with.


  • I’m working on a 3D voxel game, where I plan to have automation mechanics eventually, so this has been on my mind.

    In the current (very possibly changing) plan, the first automation tier will be conveyors that go straight into buildings, but later materials will be too delicate for conveyors and need to use pneumatic pipes, and the final tier will include materials that must be handled with Opus Magnum style swinging arms (which are also inserters).

    I like changing the transport system is the best way to do progression in one of these games, because it’s directly tied to the map, and thus has the most options for subtlety and cascading changes. And having multiple separate systems feeding into the same process is of course good for adding complexity.