Guides for building, testing, and shipping

Choose an approach, prototype a feature, and keep long-running AI work away from the frame loop.

• Game AI without machine learningFinite state machines, behavior trees, and utility AI cover most shipped game AI. Here is how each one works, when to use it, and where it breaks down.
• Adding LLM-driven dialogue to NPCsThe production tradeoffs for LLM-driven NPC dialogue: local vs cloud costs, keeping NPCs in character, and the four failure modes that block a ship.
• Zero to a talking NPC in 30 minutesInstall Ollama, pull a small local model, and wire one self-contained HTML file to its API to get a character talking back to you, no account, no cloud.
• Shipping AI features without wrecking performanceThe budget mindset for shipping AI in games: frame time vs request latency, quantization tradeoffs, on-device memory limits, and cloud cost math.

Use a repeatable visual pipeline, understand model and asset licences, and keep a record before release.

• Keeping AI-generated 2D art style-consistentStyle blocks, seeds, reference-image conditioning, and LoRA training for 2D game art, explained plainly with an honest read on when each earns its setup cost.
• The text-to-3D pipeline that actually reaches an engineText-to-3D generation produces a blockout, not a shippable mesh. The real pipeline: inspect, retopologize, re-UV, texture, rig, import at a consistent scale.
• AI audio for games: music, SFX, and voiceAI audio for games: full tracks versus loopable stems, why layered short SFX generations beat one-shot prompts, and the hard consent line on voice cloning.
• AI game assets: copyright, player trust, and pipeline disciplineA field guide to AI game assets: copyright by jurisdiction, why players bounce off careless AI art, a pipeline for visual coherence, and rights-clear sources.
• Open-weight model licenses for game developers, comparedA checked comparison of Llama, Mistral, Qwen, Gemma, Stable Diffusion, and FLUX licenses for indie game developers: what ships commercially and what does not.
• Reading AI tool terms before you shipHow to read AI tool terms as a game developer: what commercial use means, who owns generated output, training-data clauses, red flags, and a pre-ship checklist.

Prepare a build for feedback, make a focused request, and use a jam or public post to find the next issue.

• How to give feedback that helpsHow the community's feedback loop works: name a specific moment, explain the effect it had, and leave a builder with a useful next question to test.
• The jam handbook: entering and running a jamHow jams work here: enter by posting in the submissions forum with the jam's tag, vote by emoji reaction, and see winners on the podium at /jams/.
• Posting your game to the showcaseHow to format a showcase forum post so it renders correctly on the site: thread title, screenshot rules, description length, and what happens automatically.

Review platform rules, player-data implications, and tool terms before a build reaches players.

• Platform rules on AI content: Steam, itch, Epic, consolesWhat Steam, itch.io, Epic, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and mobile stores require you to declare about AI-generated content in your game, checked August 2026.
• Player data and cloud AI: what leaves the deviceWhat travels off the device when an NPC calls a cloud AI API, what you must disclose, how to cut what you send, and where age and region rules apply.
• Reading AI tool terms before you shipHow to read AI tool terms as a game developer: what commercial use means, who owns generated output, training-data clauses, red flags, and a pre-ship checklist.
• AI game assets: copyright, player trust, and pipeline disciplineA field guide to AI game assets: copyright by jurisdiction, why players bounce off careless AI art, a pipeline for visual coherence, and rights-clear sources.