itch.io

I made an edit to this. I realized it read kind of like an accusation of current projects submitted to the jam. It doesn't look like any images used in currently submitted projects were generated by AI for these projects. I just wanted to address it since there was no mention of AI in the jam's description. Thank you to everyone who's submitted awesome games to the jam!

This has been on my mind since early in the jam, but I wanted to take care not to make anyone feel attacked while also being clear about my stance on generative AI. The simple fact is that I didn't prohibit AI-generated content in the description of this jam--in future jams I will--so I won't be removing anything made for the jam that included generative AI in its creation. Of the entries currently in the jam, I can find non-AI sources for the images used, so it looks like it's not currently an issue, but the question has come up and I know some people participating are more friendly towards generative AI than I am. However, I wanted to explain why I moved from being more OK with AI to being pretty strongly against it.

Arguments Against Even Small-Scale Generative AI Use

These aren't the only arguments against generative AI, but they are what I find most relevant to me and my values.

1. AI models often use art as training data without getting the artists' permission first. Sometimes sites quietly update their terms of service or settings to sneak art into their training sets without artists even being aware of it. I find this to be pretty unethical and enough for me not to want to give these companies my time/attention/money, but to make matters worse...
2. These tools will be used by people/companies who can afford to hire artists to avoid hiring artists. I used to think of myself as justified in using it because I'm usually making games on a $0 budget and make very little, sometimes nothing, off of many of my games. However, I think by legitimizing generative AI on the small-scale, we end up legitimizing it in general. Combine this with the point above and what you get is artists having their art used without their permission (read "stolen") to train the machine that will take their job.
3. It looks wrong/bad--good enough for a corporation to use it over an artist who will cost them more, but lacking human care and curation. Even as generative AI makes fewer mistakes in the number of fingers and teeth or whatever, what it kicks out often hovers in the uncanny valley and lacks soul/curation that gives the art feeling and meaning. Even stuff that's fooled me on first look bugs me enough that I look deeper and discover that the image is, in fact, AI. I find when stock images are carefully selected by the author, even if they don't perfectly fit the game in a literal sense, because of that care of curation they often sell the vibe so much better than AI images do. Heck, even bad drawings bring personality to a game that AI images lack.

Other Options

Hopefully that's not too much of a rant, but it's clear where I'm coming from on this. So, going from here, if you were planning to use generative AI in the artwork of your game, I encourage (not require) you to look for stock/royalty free images to use instead or come up with some other solution for your game's visuals. If you have AI text, I encourage you to rewrite it. I'd be happy to assist with making new covers or editing your text to make it more human if you'd like. For the record, so far I haven't read any text that screamed "AI" to me, so maybe no one used it for that, and all the cover images so far have AI sources as far as I can tell.

Some places for royalty-free images are Pixabay.com (you have to screen out AI results, though), https://freesvg.org/, the National Gallery of Art, NASA, and the Smithsonian.

Like I said earlier, for the purpose of this jam, this is encouragement to avoid generative AI, not a requirement. I'm not looking for a back-and-forth discussion about the ethics of AI in this jam's discussion (there are plenty of other places for that), but if you have a concern or request specific to this jam, please reach out to me individually at any of those places I can be found. Discord, Bluesky, or emailing mrbdaily13@gmail.com are probably your best options. I'm sure some people will wish I just kicked out any entries that involved AI and others will be annoyed that I'm making such a big deal over this. I'm doing my best to be fair while addressing something that I believe is bad for artists and art. Sorry I wasn't more clear about this from the start. Won't happen again.

Happy forging!

--Daily

As we reach the end of the jam and the holidays, let me know if you have something in the works that you’d like a little more time for. I’m totally open to extending the deadline if that’s helpful.

Also, now’s a great time for little things! Character creation options, weapons, subsystems, and single encounters for other games are all great options.

Perfect! Thanks for the reply!

I love these! Are these permitted for commercial use or just for personal use? I have a game I'm working on now that I think these could work well for.

It's really fun to see HELLFORGED both mashed up with a different system and used in a solo game. The Borderlands-like flavor is a good fit here too.

This was not the kind of game I was expecting to come out of this jam, but I welcome it with open arms! What a delight. I haven't had a chance to dig into the mechanics yet, but great job putting out something that totally caught me by surprise.

Nice! I’ll be interested to see how it evolves. I have the beginning ideas for a mission for it that I might put together for this jam.

This rules! I love the world you’ve built here for the system and really like how the unique aspects of your Revenants comes through in your mechanics.

There are a couple small mechanical quirks I noticed.

I noticed that you could really easily end up with a Rev with a Defense of 8, which is untouchable by any of your current enemies since you’re rolling d6s.

I might need to borrow “Splatter Dice” for future HF games.

It’s currently much more likely that you’ll get an execution by rolling your worst stat. This definitely encourages Revs to use all of their stats, which is cool, but I wasn’t sure if that was your intent.

All that said, it looks great! I can totally see myself playing it sometime. If you’d like any ideas on the whole Defense thing, let me know, but I don’t want to get in the way of your ideas without asking.

I'm thinking about what feels attainable during the jam window, so I think the next thing I'm going to put my energy into is a HELLGUTS/HELLDROPPERS crossover guide where Hellslayers can fight bugs and bots and Helldroppers can fight demons. I pretty much have the main rules figured out and wrote up a mission type and side objectives for demons in Helldroppers. I'm wanting to also put together a HELLGUTS mission where they face off against bugs and maybe even a true crossover mission built around Hellslayers and Helldroppers fighting alongside each other.

This is a really full-feeling supplement to Triangle Agency. All ARC options are really fleshed out, most impressively the two Anomaly options that have a host of associated Playwall documents with some really interesting paths. There are also really fun things to play with in the other ARC options and Requisitions. It even contains some lore to justify it within the Triangle Agency Reality. I fully plan on making this supplement available to players in my next game.

Awesome! I totally get having a lot on the to-do list and know you have a lot you’re doing with this game at the moment. Thanks for replying!

Is there a chance the icons in the game (like for chaos, anomaly power outcomes, commendations, demerits, etc.) might get released as assets and added to the third party license? I'm working on some third party stuff and for stylistic reasons and so players can know what they're looking at quickly, I'd love to use them.

I’ve been playing Star Wars: Outlaws and started making a HELLFORGED space criminal game. I know Edge of the Empire exists and like it, but it’s a little bulky for what I usually like to run with my game groups. Having a familiar, lightweight option would be nice.

Thanks! I started making it two nights ago, so things came together pretty fast! I suspect I’ll make some small adjustments as I test it out more and would definitely be down for feedback!

This is really, really good! If you put out an SRD for it, I could see it becoming a template for other dating sim and even non-dating solo TTRPGs. I'd definitely be interested in it.

I haven't played it myself, so I don't think I have deep* enough knowledge to make that game, but I dig* the idea! *(heh)

I was not familiar with that short, but after this comment I went and found it! Very cute!

Ultimate falconer game. I've seen falconers do demonstrations, but didn't really know much about falconry. This was clearly written by someone who knows about the subject. 

The execution is beautiful. There's no guarantee of success, and actually, you have about as much chance that something bad will happen as you have of something good happening. Some of the outcomes where things don't go well are the most interesting and emotional. I was almost a little disappointed that I happened to roll a 10 (the most successful outcome) on my first playthrough (though also happy my red-tailed hawk had such a successful day).

Spoilers in the "describe your bird" section of the image below.

Talk about what you're making, brainstorm with other designers, and show of your work here!

Side note, as I was typing the title of this topic, I typed HELLFROG, which I honestly think could be a pretty sick HELLFORGED game.

It's been updated! You'll find the main change on page 12 (the very end of chapter 3). Thanks again for pointing this out!

Oh, and while we’re at it, Defense is 6+Efficiency for Helldroppers.

Well, would you look at that! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Because I don’t know if I’ll get that fixed tonight, Health for Helldroppers is 12+Valor.

I think this is a great option for a lightweight Fallout game that still definitely feels like Fallout.  So far, I've read most of the text closely, skimmed the entire book, and made a character. Some highlights for me were the radiation system and the weapon traits (particularly the automatic and charging traits). The way rad damage is taken and then the mutations that can result from that feels like a really good fit here with an easy to understand system and fun, creative potential with the mutations. The risk/reward of certain weapons because of their traits also adds some really satisfying "crunch" to the game. Roll under systems are often not my personal go-to (I generally prefer the clarity and flexibility of "big number good"), but the mechanics here make it feel really smooth, still satisfying, and able to accommodate variation across contexts. Whenever I get a chance to run a game in the Fallout universe, this is the system I'll be picking up! I might even make some content for it and would love to see others do the same.

One super tiny suggestion that has nothing to do with the game itself: Because it was exported from PowerPoint, the file's "Title" in the metadata is set to PowerPoint Presentation, which is how the tab is labeled if I open the file up in Acrobat or my browser. If you have Acrobat, the fix is to go File --> Properties or Document Properties and there is an editable field for the Title. Clearing this field will make the tab label match the file's name. It was easy for me to do, but not everyone has Acrobat, so having the original files without a title in the metadata would probably ease the user experience a bit.

Love this (gay) socialist mouse!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I definitely had in mind ways to use Stun and Stress damage, but I hadn’t thought of using miasma to deal Stress damage, so I appreciate you mentioning that. It definitely fits!

This is great! I would love to see it expanded!

Loves

• Lots of Tunic flavor in here!
• There are some really cool options hanging out in the Starting Packages.
• The system is solid, taking good systems from the OSR and applying them well.
• The cipher was really fun to figure out! It took me awhile to actually try the key that worked.
• The block/dodge/parry actions are really neat. I like how dodging and parrying are a gamble.

Might Benefit from Improvement

• The Defense system took me a couple reads to figure out, but that might be due to my unfamiliarity with Into the Odd, Cairn, or Liminal Horror.
• When you fail a Will save it says "Roll for Curse" and that's the only mention I saw of curses, so it feels like there might be something missing.
• Some clarity on when stun or stress damage might come up could be useful for GMs especially.

Would Love to See Added

• I'd love to see a mini-bestiary! Or maybe I just need to write up an adventure for this!
• Magic? Given that the magic meter and using different magical items was such a big part of Tunic, I think something simple that integrates well with the system would be a fun addition.

I think this is a great, easy to pick up truly Tunic-like OSR, and I highly recommend it! 5/5! Thanks for making it, SummerTimeAlice!

Loved this! Oracle of Seasons was my Game Boy (Color) era Zelda game, and this definitely gave me similar vibes, including moments of uncertainty and very mild frustration (looking at you, bottomless pits) that I found ultimately delightful. They made the victories that much sweeter.

I thought this was overall extremely well done. I loved the last boss fight. I think seeing comments that some people got stuck helped me know not to cling to any one dungeon too tightly, so I found playing through it all smooth sailing. That was definitely a subversion of the usual Zelda formula, so I understand how people felt stuck.

Thanks for making this charming and satisfying Zelda-like! I'd love to see more of Bird Hero's adventures!

Little update:No crashes. Where are your gods now, puny fighters?!

Going from barely surviving to just being able to sit there wondering just HOW BIG I could get before my computer crashed or I eventually decided to close the tab was a delight! I'm currently at a capacity of 700 and just letting it run.

I'd sell my soul to make a game half as good as this.

Some WIP shots. As it's going right now, I should be able to get it done pretty easily before the deadline. A couple of the pages are a little more low-effort, but I like how the overall thing is coming together.

I'm wondering if there are any Discord servers or other places where people are talking about their progress for this jam. If not, I'd be happy to see people talk about what they're working on here.

Here are some pages at the front of Ash Trapped in Cracked Lips. Doesn't show a whole lot, but they're what I just worked on. It has it's own full system, but is meant to let other d20 systems (such as Cthork Borg) swap into the setting fairly easily.

This is so good. It's a great blend of utility and vibes. I find the simple visual instructions very clear and can immediately picture using them at the table.

Lore-wise, some of the magic siphoned from the level of the pyramid directly below you comes from the level below them I’d say. Mechanics-wise, it’s on purpose up to interpretation but I’m leaning no, you’re just tracking people you personally recruited so that the number is easier to track and so working your way up seems somewhat grueling and hard to maintain.

I went back to look at that comment and it made my day all over again! Tiniest Wizard is definitely the game I hear about people enjoying the most, and I love that kind of feedback. I’m really looking forward to this next Tiny Library, especially if it includes An Urgent Memo and things like it.

There’s a great, clean design to the card, and I love the mix of modern and magical options for messaging. The mechanics are simple and strong.

The visual design is appealing at a glance and works well with the theme of the card. The abilities and penalties also feel very right for each of the different utilities. Well done.