indie game big walk used ai to fix bug, sparking festival controversy
big walk developer house house used llms to fix a bug, sparking debate among indie game festival judges about ai usage in game development. this affects indie game developers and their disclosure policies.
house house, the developer of big walk, used llms sparingly to fix a thorny unity engine bug that was slowing the game down with infinite length shadows. the ai-assisted fix consisted of 10 lines of code, representing well under 0.1% of big walk's code. this limited ai use has sparked a controversy among indie game festival judges, with 19 jurors releasing a statement declining to vote for games that use generative ai, citing ecological, economic, psychological, and labor harms. the debate raises questions about ai usage disclosure in game development and the need for clear policies on ai usage in games.