About AI use in this game

[wheatley]

Hi, dev here. This question comes up often, so here is the full picture in one place. I will keep this post up to date.

Design
Game design, level design and UI design are my own work. I keep updating the demo, and the changes come from player feedback, from people who work in the field, and from teachers who use the game.

The UI may feel unusual because the game is not a copy of other logic gate games. It tries to be approachable for a complete beginner and still smooth for someone who already knows digital logic. Games in this genre tend to be either very hard or trivial, and landing between the two is the hard part of my job. Some screens are still confusing and I am working on them. The public demo can also lag behind my latest changes.

Art
The demo contains a few AI-generated images. I am replacing them with work by real artists, and the full release will contain no AI art. A few images are generated procedurally by code. That technique is much older than generative AI, so I do not count those as AI art, and they may stay.

Music
The demo originally used music I generated with AI. It has been replaced with tracks by human composers, who are credited on the Credits screen.

Text and translation
I am not a native English speaker, and the English text was produced with AI translation. I agree it reads badly in places. A full rewrite of the English text is finished and ships in an upcoming update. For the other languages I cross-check with several models and fix what the community reports. I am not using a translation agency, because the text is very technical and I could not verify the result in 20+ languages myself. Native speakers who play the game have been the most reliable check so far.

Code
I have been writing code and making games for more than 10 years, including Digs TD and others, long before AI tools existed. On this game I use AI coding assistance. It makes me faster, but it does not replace me. I decide what gets built, I test it, and I am responsible for everything that ships. The game is covered by over 6,000 automated tests and has been updated continuously since the demo launched.

Threads on this topic
I have tried to be open about AI use from the start, and this post is the complete answer. To keep the discussion in one place, new threads that repeat this topic will be locked with a link here.

Feedback is welcome in this thread, criticism included. Games exist for their players, and your feedback shapes how this one develops. If a screen confused you or a sentence made no sense, tell me which one. Specific reports get fixed fastest.