HTML Inner Empire [v1.7] [Defiant Explorer]

[bolondro2]

Just as an example what the current NovelAi can do. I am sure with a bit of Photoshop magic, it would look even better.

No idea of how hard or expensive it´s to get this kind of images via IA, but, just as they are presented by Xiblis, with no further improvement, seems pretty usable to me, and an improvement about the current art used in this project.

Not that I care a lot. the strong point of this project it´s the narrative and the story telling. But if you can put a cherry on top...

 

[M0nte]

Just as an example what the current NovelAi can do. I am sure with a bit of Photoshop magic, it would look even better.

You are aware of the current moral and commercial landmine that is generative text and images?

 

[bigdickmcgee6969]

You are aware of the current moral and commercial landmine that is generative text and images?

moral schmoral who gives a shit

 

[Deniz31]

I wouldn't enjoy some random AI pics of scenes interfering with the story in this one but more portrait options are always nice. More of the alternative portraits people did would have been even better, AI might help with it.

 

[Xiblis]

You are aware of the current moral and commercial landmine that is generative text and images?

No, since it has been refuted many times. Only Artists mispresent that information, as they are scared at losing their proffession, which is understandable ofcourse.

 

[Leonard Verandez]

You are aware of the current moral and commercial landmine that is generative text and images?

I wouldn't say that it's a landmine.
As consumers and business owners, it's great wonder. Most of these VN projects often struggle with timing and schedule because of how much time it takes to do the art and render everything. Creators will have excellent stories that they finish the writing in a week or less but take 2 months to render like 5 scenes. Almost all of the best games on this site have taken 2 or more years to complete, or are still in development after many, many years.

But for a great counter-example, look at the gay game

You must be registered to see the links

on itchio. The creator has a great story and hot scenes, and finished the whole game within a year, just because he used AI to generate images. And its FREE. I don't know any but there's probably alot of straight games using AI out now too.

However, morally, I do agree that it puts alot of artists out of business, especially those on patreon or other websites that make most of their money with special commissions. But hey, that's just the hand of the market.

Right now, this game has EXCELLENT writing and super hot scenes, but they could definitely be supplemented with hot AI-generated images.

 

[Gibberish666]

I wouldn't say that it's a landmine.
As consumers and business owners, it's great wonder. Most of these VN projects often struggle with timing and schedule because of how much time it takes to do the art and render everything. Creators will have excellent stories that they finish the writing in a week or less but take 2 months to render like 5 scenes. Almost all of the best games on this site have taken 2 or more years to complete, or are still in development after many, many years.

But for a great counter-example, look at the gay game

You must be registered to see the links

on itchio. The creator has a great story and hot scenes, and finished the whole game within a year, just because he used AI to generate images. And its FREE. I don't know any but there's probably alot of straight games using AI out now too.

However, morally, I do agree that it puts alot of artists out of business, especially those on patreon or other websites that make most of their money with special commissions. But hey, that's just the hand of the market.

Right now, this game has EXCELLENT writing and super hot scenes, but they could definitely be supplemented with hot AI-generated images.

"Because it's cheaper and easier" does not always translate into objectively better. If anything, "cheaper and easier" is usually how garbage projects get made. It's cheaper and easier to put artificial sweeteners in your soda, but now 1/10 people in the US have diabetes. AI art gives my eyeballs diabetes.
The fact that the AI's product still has to be edited somewhat defeats the whole point of being "cheaper and easier." You might as well have spent the extra ten minutes to make it yourself from scratch... And it's still free.
This is probably what the dev meant by, "its 'better' somehow turns out to be 'worse'. " The only thing that matters is they've tried it and decided they don't want to use it. But they've also stated it's okay if you want to mod the game and use your own AI generated art. So, there you go. If you want AI art in this game, you can do it yourself. It's an HTML game, so all you need to do is replace the art files with the ones you want to use.

There is a lot more to the moral argument than "that's how the market works." These are peoples' livelihoods at stake. Real people with real problems and real goals. Nobody should have to be told, "you and your family has to starve because it's cheaper and easier, and our business will save even more money."

I almost wrote even more arguments against using AI generated products, but I'm stopping myself before it turns into a two-page essay. The most I would ever accept AI for would be as a tool to produce a reference to bypass artist's/writer's block. The final product must still be made by human hands.

 

[Defiant Explorer]

Here we go again... I am not against using AI in purely technical or routine work. Like, in translation. No one owns the languages, so there's no legal problem with them. But I am definitely against their use in creative tasks. It's a degradation. You have to suffer. You have to be challenged. That's the essence of creativity. It's how your brain is constantly training, forming new neural connections where your new skills are recorded. The result may not be perfect, but at least it's fully yours. If you give this function to AI, which just absorbs other people's stuff through algorithmization, then why are you needed at all? I mean, it's hard for me to write this or that scene sometimes. Why not ask ChatGPT to do it instead? What? Why limit yourself to just pics? Let the AI's do all the hard work. And I'll just put my name on that generic writing bullshit after and call it a day.

Anyway... No thanks. I better follow the old ways. As long as I can.

 

[Samuel Hidayat]

But for a great counter-example, look at the gay game

You must be registered to see the links

on itchio. The creator has a great story and hot scenes, and finished the whole game within a year, just because he used AI to generate images. And its FREE. I don't know any but there's probably alot of straight games using AI out now too.

The characters look glossy and shiny as hell, and they all have the same pose with little to no variations. Character portraits should be able to give us hints on their personality and story, yet this game's fail at that.

 

[twicejjang]

The simple reality is this, if the game dev doesn't want to use AI art, why are you trying to convince them to do so? It's not even like this is an art-heavy game to begin with, so it likely wouldn't even significantly speed up the development process.

 

[Leonard Verandez]

Here we go again... I am not against using AI in purely technical or routine work. Like, in translation. No one owns the languages, so there's no legal problem with them. But I am definitely against their use in creative tasks. It's a degradation. You have to suffer. You have to be challenged. That's the essence of creativity. It's how your brain is constantly training, forming new neural connections where your new skills are recorded. The result may not be perfect, but at least it's fully yours. If you give this function to AI, which just absorbs other people's stuff through algorithmization, then why are you needed at all? I mean, it's hard for me to write this or that scene sometimes. Why not ask ChatGPT to do it instead? What? Why limit yourself to just pics? Let the AI's do all the hard work. And I'll just put my name on that generic writing bullshit after and call it a day.

Anyway... No thanks. I better follow the old ways. As long as I can.

It's alright. Most of my arguments were mainly for the use of AI for VN developers who take 6 months to put out an update, and obviously doesn't apply to everyone. I wasn't intending to pressure you, just wanted to give my POV on the use of AI art because it's criticized too much imo.

I don't really care about imagery for this game because the writing and lore and characters are already the best!

(I do however, think that AI creators are extremely predatory for profiting on the work of thousands of existing artists-to train their AI- who won't see a dollar of all the profit earned.)

 

[Vasin]

Here we go again... I am not against using AI in purely technical or routine work. Like, in translation. No one owns the languages, so there's no legal problem with them. But I am definitely against their use in creative tasks. It's a degradation. You have to suffer. You have to be challenged. That's the essence of creativity. It's how your brain is constantly training, forming new neural connections where your new skills are recorded. The result may not be perfect, but at least it's fully yours. If you give this function to AI, which just absorbs other people's stuff through algorithmization, then why are you needed at all? I mean, it's hard for me to write this or that scene sometimes. Why not ask ChatGPT to do it instead? What? Why limit yourself to just pics? Let the AI's do all the hard work. And I'll just put my name on that generic writing bullshit after and call it a day.

Anyway... No thanks. I better follow the old ways. As long as I can.

I just started playing the game and it looks pretty good so far. That said, I have 2 minor nitpicks with that you said.

One is that you unjustifiably discount the art of translation. There's a difference between a work of art translated by a human proficient in a language and a text ran through ChatGPT. Which is seemingly what has been done to this game? It frankly doesn't look like it has been written in English to begin with. It's nothing particularly egregious, but it would definitely benefit from a proofreading pass by a native speaker.

And second is that AIs are not "just absorbing other people's stuff through algorithmization" or rather if they do, then all people do is the same. There's a reason why they are called "neural networks" and it's because the foundational principles behind them are functionally identical to the way our biological brains work, if only on a different physical framework. The difference in quality comes not from the difference in algorithm of how they make the output but rather the difference in the baseline experience. In short, AIs don't exist in the world as we do and they don't understand words and imagery in the way we do. That's why they are making all of these dumb and painfully obvious mistakes.

As for adding the art, I am a very big fan of text only games, so I would actually be against adding low effort drivel art and high effort art still sort of stifles your imagination and also takes *a lot* of time to produce. Not worth it, in my opinion. The art that is in the game is pretty solid.

 

[Defiant Explorer]

I just started playing the game and it looks pretty good so far. That said, I have 2 minor nitpicks with that you said.

One is that you unjustifiably discount the art of translation. There's a difference between a work of art translated by a human proficient in a language and a text ran through ChatGPT. Which is seemingly what has been done to this game? It frankly doesn't look like it has been written in English to begin with. It's nothing particularly egregious, but it would definitely benefit from a proofreading pass by a native speaker.

And second is that AIs are not "just absorbing other people's stuff through algorithmization" or rather if they do, then all people do is the same. There's a reason why they are called "neural networks" and it's because the foundational principles behind them are functionally identical to the way our biological brains work, if only on a different physical framework. The difference in quality comes not from the difference in algorithm of how they make the output but rather the difference in the baseline experience. In short, AIs don't exist in the world as we do and they don't understand words and imagery in the way we do. That's why they are making all of these dumb and painfully obvious mistakes.

As for adding the art, I am a very big fan of text only games, so I would actually be against adding low effort drivel art and high effort art still sort of stifles your imagination and also takes *a lot* of time to produce. Not worth it, in my opinion. The art that is in the game is pretty solid.

Am I? Yes, people sometimes call these or those things "art" to emphasize the difficulty of mastering them and the many subtleties involved, well, like "the art of war" and the like. But hardly anyone seriously considers generals as artists.

It frankly doesn't look written by a native speaker, because I'm not a native speaker. Never claimed to be. And I never once boasted about my skill in English. So yeah, a native proofreader would be nice. All that's left is to find a volunteer to read a half-million-word text... I could also use an artist. No, three! One for portraits, one for maps, and one to make a pretty UI. Oh! I also want a programmer who doesn't stare at code for an hour because: "Why don't you work, you piece of shit! Oh yeah, there's a missing parenthesis right there... Oopsie." I could also use a composer. Mediative, original tracks would really enhance the immersive effect. And a couple of real writers too, yeah, college-trained and stuff.

But all you have is me - the proud professional of nothing from that.

 

[Vasin]

Am I? Yes, people sometimes call these or those things "art" to emphasize the difficulty of mastering them and the many subtleties involved, well, like "the art of war" and the like. But hardly anyone seriously considers generals as artists.

It has nothing to do with the difficulty or "generals", whoever they are. A book (or a movie, or what have you) translated into a given language is unquestionably a work of art, yet it was not written by the original author that doesn't speak the language it has been translated into. Ergo, the translated book, which is a work of art, is a result of translator's efforts. Sure it's a co-authorship, and largely a thankless one, but you would not call a 2nd writing credit on a book less of a writer, would you?

 

[Defiant Explorer]

It has nothing to do with the difficulty or "generals", whoever they are. A book (or a movie, or what have you) translated into a given language is unquestionably a work of art, yet it was not written by the original author that doesn't speak the language it has been translated into. Ergo, the translated book, which is a work of art, is a result of translator's efforts. Sure it's a co-authorship, and largely a thankless one, but you would not call a 2nd writing credit on a book less of a writer, would you?

Imagining and describing through text a fictional world whose characters and history don't exist is creativity. Creation of something new. But translating that same text from a native language into a non-native language is a difficult job that requires a lot of concentration and attention to detail. But it is still a technical task, not a creative one. Nothing new is created, just adapted. That doesn't mean it's an easy or unimportant task or job or whatever, though.

All drafts for the game are written in my native language. I tried to write in English right away to save time, but it didn't work very well. I need to see and perceive the whole text to feel its rhythm. So writing is definitely a creative task for me, and translation is a technical one. But sorry if this view hurts your professional feelings or something.

 

[Vasin]

Nothing new is created, just adapted. That doesn't mean it's an easy or unimportant task or job or whatever, though.

All drafts for the game are written in my native language. I tried to write in English right away to save time, but it didn't work very well. I need to see and perceive the whole text to feel its rhythm. So writing is definitely a creative task for me, and translation is a technical one. But sorry if this view hurts your professional feelings or something.

But is is new. The text in the target language did not exist before. It's not "adapted" it's created. Hence, creativity. It's about applying definitions in a consistent way. I can see how it would seem like adaptation if you're doing an author translation, when you're both the author and the translator though, but that is a minority perspective. I'm not going to belabour this point any further though. I am merely curious, if you write the game in a different language would it not be better to also have it in it? Rather than just needlessly restricting it to English? (Clarification edit: to have the game be in both languages)

 

[Gibberish666]

For not being a native English speaker, I think Defiant Explorer has done quite well.
I've had no problems with it worth remembering.

 

[Vasin]

For not being a native English speaker, I think Defiant Explorer has done quite well.
I've had no problems with it worth remembering.

I completely agree with this, 95% of the time it reads like an English text. When I read in dev comment that it's written in "broken English" I expected it to be bad, but it turned out to be very very good. I wouldn't call it broken at all

 

[Defiant Explorer]

But is is new. The text in the target language did not exist before. It's not "adapted" it's created. Hence, creativity. It's about applying definitions in a consistent way. I can see how it would seem like adaptation if you're doing an author translation, when you're both the author and the translator though, but that is a minority perspective. I'm not going to belabour this point any further though. I am merely curious, if you write the game in a different language would it not be better to also have it in it? Rather than just needlessly restricting it to English? (Clarification edit: to have the game be in both languages)

Oh, I don't want to sound like those puffed-up critics at all, quibbling about what is art and what isn't. Just seeing things as I see them, I guess.

As for the bi-lingual version of the game... Considering how much text there is, it's like making two games at the same time. There's either making another version in parallel in the engine or adding a boolean algorithm on each text variation that will display text depending on the language setting enabled. Either way, it's x2 work for me. I need to use my resources more carefully. English is the modern lingua franca so that potentially makes the game the most accessible.

 

[Kristal]

Oh, I don't want to sound like those puffed-up critics at all, quibbling about what is art and what isn't. Just seeing things as I see them, I guess.

As for the bi-lingual version of the game... Considering how much text there is, it's like making two games at the same time. There's either making another version in parallel in the engine or adding a boolean algorithm on each text variation that will display text depending on the language setting enabled. Either way, it's x2 work for me. I need to use my resources more carefully. English is the modern lingua franca so that potentially makes the game the most accessible.

I really did enjoy your game, was fun role playing it hehe. You shouldn't argue with people over how to do what you are good at :3