🖥 Generative AI: The Future of Video Game Development?

Google DeepMind's model, Genie, uses a text prompt and a hand-drawn sketch or photo to create classic 2D games like Super Mario Bros. Does this mean game designers will be out of work, or will the game development industry become accessible even to those without experience or education? We explored how text2game models work.

📱 How Genie Works

Genie was trained on 30,000 hours of video from 2D games. The model analyzed how the character's position on the screen depends on the player's actions and used this to create a sequence of frames that form levels. The main drawback is that the game is generated at a speed of one frame per second (modern games typically run at 30–60 frames per second).

🖥 GameGAN

NVIDIA also used video data to train its AI model, GameGAN. However, developers added information about the buttons pressed during gameplay. This tagging of video frames is resource-intensive, limiting the potential data volume for training. Nevertheless, GameGAN performs well with simple games like Pac-Man.

Both models — Genie and GameGAN — are research projects. Regular users do not have the opportunity to test them.

🇨🇦 Astrocade AI — Game Generator

Astrocade AI is a startup (supported by NVIDIA) developing a mobile app for generating games using simple text prompts. You just need to enter a command, such as "generate a platformer with a character that jumps," and the AI will create all the necessary game elements. You can edit it with a new prompt, such as "I want the character's costume to be red and for them to do a somersault when jumping."

Astrocade AI is also a community: you can publish your finished game for others to test or refine. Check out screenshots from the first users' developments in the app ⤴️

Machine learning specialist Andrey Kurenkov discussed Astrocade AI technology in more detail on a podcast about text2game models.

❗️ Interesting Fact: Fei-Fei Li, known as the "godmother" of AI, is the company's Director of Strategic Development.

You can sign up for the waitlist to test Astrocade AI here.

More about AI in games:

📱 How Does AI Train Esports Players?

🎮 How Did NPC AI Emerge: Non-Player Characters with Their Own Opinions

Will AI Leave Game Creators Out of Work?

😎 — I doubt it
🎃 — Very soon

#games @hiaimediaen