Thanks for the feedback! Regarding your questions:
You can empty the bag by clicking on the furnance whenever you want (I should probably explain this to players better).
As for the generative AI, it was used to create reference models and assist with game development. However, by the time the final demo version was released, I had personally replaced or reworked all of the generative AI elements.

Originally posted by midnightgamesoff:

Thanks for the feedback! Regarding your questions:
You can empty the bag by clicking on the furnance whenever you want (I should probably explain this to players better).
As for the generative AI, it was used to create reference models and assist with game development. However, by the time the final demo version was released, I had personally replaced or reworked all of the generative AI elements.

Hi! Oh really? That's weird cause when I tried it didn't let me
Maybe I just clicked it wrong idk. But thank you for letting me know and for sure let the players know ^^

As for the gen ai usage, thank you for answering. Even if by the time the demo was released the elements were replaced or reworked, I think per steams tos you still need to disclose its use during the development process on the games store page with its respective disclaimer/warning feature.

Because potential buyers deserve to know if and how it was used and if it isnt disclosed and reworked (not replaced) elements are still present, your game could possibly get reported and removed.

Plus, even if any and all gen ai assets or music or art or voice work are removed by the time of full release, or even after release like some devs do after receiving feedback, most people who do care about knowing about its usage (like myself) still appreciate and prefer the open acknowledgement of if it was used even if by the end result everything is removed. The transparency is always appreciated, ya know?

Thanks for raising it! We did try some AI tools early in development, but everything in the current build has been replaced or redone by hand. You’ve got a point about transparency though, so we’ll put a short note about it on the Steam page. Appreciate you being upfront about it 💛

Originally posted by midnightgamesoff:

Thanks for raising it! We did try some AI tools early in development, but everything in the current build has been replaced or redone by hand. You’ve got a point about transparency though, so we’ll put a short note about it on the Steam page. Appreciate you being upfront about it 💛

Of course, I'm glad I could help and provide insight as a consumer and if you don't mind me rambling a bit about my feelings around this-

Obviously, the anti-gen ai crowd typically tends to be rather staunchly "If it was used at all, I'm not buying it", which is where I was/still am somewhat since I'm an artist and I consider generative ai blatantly theft and lazy. Never mind all the other issues around it's usage.

But since I've started playing these different cleanup/organising games more I've tried to give devs a little more wiggle room. Because I've noticed there have been a good handful who listened to the people who trial their demos or playtests, take the criticism, and ultimately end up removing all traces of gen ai content in their game or on the store page. A great example of this is Big Bad Pharma.

While yeah, ideally I'd rather that gen ai wasn't used at all to begin with, I also think that those devs who take the criticism, who maybe didn't know of its negative impact, who actively acknowledge it's usage in development and why it was the wrong call and make the effort to not use it going forward, should be encouraged and supported.
And I've personally had a couple really sweet interactions with some devs who replaced the assets with their own art or vectors and felt shy or nervous about it and I think it's wonderful that they actually tried. No matter the skill level or how "good or bad" it looks, they're giving themselves the chance to learn and were brave enough to put themselves out there and that's amazing!

At the end of the day, as an artist that's all I care about. People giving themselves the chance to learn something new, and having a new skill they can call their own and not relying on the theft of other artists work.

Regardless of where people stand, the transparency is and always will be appreciated. Because some devs never acknowledge it, or they blatantly lie about it. The fact you even gave my question the time of day and heard me out is greatly appreciated.

So thank you, sincerely.
I may keep an eye on this game and I can only hope that you'll keep moving away from using gen ai for your work and see how you grow as a game dev.

I hope you have a good rest of your timezone and that the upcoming week treats you well

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I truly appreciate your feedback and the care with which you shared your opinion. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to give a developer the chance to learn and improve.
In today’s world, it’s really hard to make sense of this situation. Even when you download a texture or model from the Internet (since creating absolutely everything from scratch is practically impossible), you might not even realize that it was created using generative AI. I try to be careful and avoid using such technologies, but as an independent developer with a budget of about one and a half donuts, it’s hard for me to identify and filter out everything.
I’ll continue to listen to others’ opinions and work toward gradually phasing out generative AI. Thanks again for your understanding, and I hope you have a wonderful week, too!

Originally posted by midnightgamesoff:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I truly appreciate your feedback and the care with which you shared your opinion. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to give a developer the chance to learn and improve.
In today’s world, it’s really hard to make sense of this situation. Even when you download a texture or model from the Internet (since creating absolutely everything from scratch is practically impossible), you might not even realize that it was created using generative AI. I try to be careful and avoid using such technologies, but as an independent developer with a budget of about one and a half donuts, it’s hard for me to identify and filter out everything.
I’ll continue to listen to others’ opinions and work toward gradually phasing out generative AI. Thanks again for your understanding, and I hope you have a wonderful week, too!

Trust me, I empathise with being a small or solo team working with a limited skill set, limited budget and then having to be wary of sneaky dishonest louts ontop of it if you do source your resources or help from somewhere else.

But in my opinion, if devs or teams genuinely want to make it in the industry they're going to absolutely kneecap themselves by relying on generative ai.

I had a conversation with one dev when I asked if there were plans to remove the gen ai assets in the full release of his game. Since it was a demo and while I liked the concept, there was a lot of obvious gen ai usage.
He explained that while he absolutely understood not wanting to support gen ai usage, having lost his job to ai, he just didn't have the money to pay artists for their work.

And you know, I respected the fact he wanted to pay someone for their time and effort. But I can't emphasise this enough, the art community is huge and you'd be genuinely surprised how many people can and will be willing to help projects for free if you just put a feeler out and ask.
Which he took on board and said he'd keep in mind. That was maybe a month or more ago, and his demo came up on my feed, I saw the games thumbnail had been updated and it looked like he was slowly learning to make labels for products in game himself to replace the gen ai ones he'd used.

Similarly, another demo from a different dev said that they'd used gen ai for the games music and I think some assets as well, very recently I got some news saying that they were working with a music hobbyist from the community who offered to replace the music and they're working on removing the other gen ai assets.

Obviously, never expect people to do work for free. People deserve to be paid for their work. But there are so many people who just...do stuff for the love of the game. Artists, writers, voice actors, musicians, so many people do this because they love doing it. Others do it as a form of work experience, something they can use as a form of reference. People can work out whatever agreement that works best for everyone.

I think most people run into the issue of being too shy and embarrassed to ask for help for whatever reason. Or they feel they need to prove something.
But I can assure you, and any other dev who may read this, the art community is massive. There are people who will help if you ask. You just need to be upfront about the situation. Hell, sometimes people may approach you on their own and offer to help.

I was literally a hobbyist voice actor for a short time on YouTube in my teens, getting paid later on was nice even if it wasn't much but I just had fun voicing fan comics with friends of mine at the time. I only got into it cause I happened to reconnect with someone in that community and he asked if I wanted in cause he thought I'd be good at it and it'd be fun.

Collaboration is a huge part of the foundation of the art community. We all grow learning from eachother and the people who came before us. Sometimes asking is all that it takes, kinda like how we got here with me asking a question