A(ll) I(n)!

I have to be clear with you. I’m not an AI-hater.

Recently, I even enrolled in an online course about empowering developers with AI¹.

I’m still learning how to use it. But from it, and from some Y Combinator clips on YouTube, I learned a few things:

• When using generative AI, it’s better to use older technology than newer. There’s more learning material. The person telling me that said it was better to use Ruby on Rails than Rust. With all my hype about Rust, I admit he seemed right. What does that tell me?

  • Well, Raylib isn’t at its most powerful in C#, and even less in Rust. Its full power is visible in C (since Raysan makes all of it in C). And C is old as fuck. I did program in it, but that was 2004.

  • But if AI is going to help me write, I might as well return to MonoGame. I will still have all the things I love about C#.

• Picking a game framework leads to the second most surprising benefit when talking about AI: AI can do even more for you than when you don’t have to click through an engine’s GUI.

• If you ensure there are unit tests and the tasks are granular and not “one sentence describes the entire game,” you can go far. I can confirm that Copilot worked great with such an approach (although that was console applications, not games).

• I’m tired of the learning curve, really.

• This AI-train is not gonna stop…

The only problem is - all those tools that allow you to code with AI are paid.

So I reached out to my muse, my mentor, my captain, my queen, my wife 😉

My Wife With all the Solutions, colorized

And on receiving support, I decided to spend some money monthly and subscribe to cursor!

Why? Because now it’s the perfect time to go all in on AI! And as a developer, I will have to learn how to use it anyway. For work. So why not for hobbies as well?

But…

Let’s make some rules first!

1. I’m not learning programming languages; I’m using them to ship video games.

   1. Learning a new (or old) programming language is a side effect—welcome, but still a side effect.

   2. You’re still learning: MonoGame/Raylib/whatever, game architecture, and so on. But from a higher level.

2. No AI-generated art. Empower, not replace. Find assets. AI-Art is only welcome as a placeholder.

   1. Ultimately, you want to work with people to achieve your goals.

3. No AI-generated music. As above.

So, something can change in this newsletter.

I will probably share more about making games with AI.

I’m not changing the name of the newsletter, I’m still a solo game dev.

Now…

1. It’s in Polish, so I don’t think you will benefit from it (unless you know Polish)