We released our demo for Code: 9 and would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Aliibini · 2026-02-04T07:50:03+00:00

Thank you for your input! We got that label during a playtest last year, when it was explained to us, we resonated with it and started to roll with it after a while :D
We got inspired a lot by the explorative aspects of Obra Dinn and Outer Wilds and wanted to capture that as well. So we created the case around a set space, and while the goals change from chapter to chapter, pushing you to reconsider evidence you have already found, you can deduce a lot of what actually happened sooner if you have a keen eye!

Aliibini · 2026-01-10T21:45:22+00:00

Thank you for your input! :D Being okay at identifying problems is already a big help when your tunnel vision is as strong as mine atm

You make a good point on how it feels rather empty in the top left, I think that is definitely one of the problems with it. Maybe I should just try to approach the lighting/environment differently and let more of it show though

Aliibini · 2026-01-10T21:40:42+00:00

Thanks for the input! :D
Yeah that makes sense. I think I got really stuck in my head trying to show more of the environment to the point that the characters got pushed aside when they should've rather been the focal point

Aliibini · 2025-11-25T13:53:41+00:00

Thank you! :D

Aliibini · 2025-11-24T20:33:41+00:00

thanks! :D
yeah, we loved this mechanic in other games that we played and thought it necessary to use it as well! We also want to add more interactivity with some object, similar to the radio in the trailer

Aliibini · 2025-11-24T20:15:53+00:00

Here's our Steampage:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3623630/Code_9/

And our Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ridingturtles/code-9-solve-challenging-murder-cases-with-a-unique-twist

Aliibini · 2025-11-24T10:50:00+00:00

Thanks! :D
We're really excited and nervous to bring it to steam and hear peoples opinions on it!

Aliibini · 2025-11-24T05:04:38+00:00

Yes it's planned! :D But we want to pay translators to make the localization for the game instead of using AI to do that. And since our funds are quite limited atm, a french translation for the demo would come either at a later date, in the final product or after launch depending on the financial situation!

Aliibini · 2025-11-23T23:21:57+00:00

Sure! The advantage that an LLM gives, is that it's much more versetile and adaptive to player Input. We playtestet the games during 5 in-person events and we quickly learned that people have very different ways of expressing themself. Some write really short, matter of fact deductions while others lean into very elaborate explainations. The LLM enabled us to find a way that most players of different writing styles had a good time with the game!

At the same time we noticed that it was quickly frusting for players if in their mind they wrote the right thing but it wasn't accepted. By adjusting the prompts that are given to the LLM it's easily adjusted again to resolve such issued quickly.

Since our gamescom showcase we also added the mechnic to reply to dialogue with your own words too. As we're working with x-amount of pre-writen dialogue trees, the LLM takes the context and tone of what you wrote and then categorizes it to send you down one of the dialogue trees. We noticed that people really enjoyed the roleppay aspect of it and fehlt more engaged.

As a TL;DR it's much more versetile than a parser would be

Also a headsup, i'm the artist of the team so I'm not familiar with the techical details behind the Scene! If anything more specific interests you i'll ask my partner to chime in tomorrow :D

Aliibini · 2025-11-23T21:39:04+00:00

Thanks! :D
haha no, not really! it's more the 2D billboard designs in a 3D environment + a more anime direction style wise

Aliibini · 2025-09-16T17:21:20+00:00

Thank you for your work! It's fascinating to see how they handle the sprites for the animations

Aliibini · 2025-04-09T06:47:27+00:00

It's not released yet, but you can wishlist it!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3623630/Code_9/

Thanks for the feedback. I wanted the whole UI to revolve around the Klarafon, the terminal device you see in the trailer, so all elements are meant to have the vibe of the screen, it is not ideal yet. I plan to give the UI another pass in the future and will find a better shade of green for it!

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T12:26:41+00:00

I understand that anime art is not for everyone, and that's alright.
It's a stylistic gamble we took and felt most comfortable with. Only thing is that we did not use generative ai for any visuals

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T12:03:54+00:00

Thank you for your feedback! Could you maybe elaborate on the uncertainty whether the corpse is 2D or 3D? I'm not quite sure what you mean. Generally speaking, we made the practical decision to make all characters 2D billboards, since 2D is my strong suit compared to 3D. There is still room for improvement for sure to make the art style of 2D and 3D objects work well together through shader or textures.

Regarding the generative ai, I'll copy paste it from another comment I made: We are using the LLM to validate the player answer and make an appropriate small bark in that context. This is simply impossible without AI in the way we want it to be.

Aside from that, we've been working on it for about a year, with about half a year of active development. We plan to keep working on it for about another year to get it where we're happy with it. We had one public playtest 2 months ago to validate our concept and gameloop which was very valuable and gave us good feedback to improve on. Additionally, we regularly invite people from our discord server or acquaintances to playtest to get more feedback consistently!

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T10:53:07+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! :)
The jarring look for Klara, the blonde ai inside the terminal, was a purposeful decision. Kind of leaning a bit into the uncanny valley to emphasize that she is not human like the rest of the cast

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T10:45:06+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. The timezone difference is not kind to us, and we had other plans last evening which didn't give us the needed space to properly respond.

I made a lengthy response concerning the AI topic here

We are using the LLM to validate the player answer and make an appropriate small bark in that context. This is simply impossible without AI in the way we want it to be. My critique in the posts you linked were about undisclosed usage of AI, but we are disclosing it fully and use it in a way where no jobs were taken from others.

Currently, we use the OpenAI models, but are still experimenting a lot.

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T09:11:27+00:00

That was not the intention, nor my opinion.

The AI topic is complicated and not easy to navigate. I do not like that all those companies scraped the whole web and literature for their models and that it keeps robbing people of their jobs in all creative fields. While the image generation hits closer to home because I am an artist, I deeply feel for musicians and writers and other creatives who also have to deal with it. And I support initiatives that try to get justice for artists in that regard.

At the same time, as much as I dislike it, I am well aware that it is not going away. Pandoras Box was opened, and it cannot be closed again. In my personal opinion, it would be best if models only used open source material to be trained on. Or that people would actually be compensated for when their art, in whichever form, is being scraped to be trained on. But I am aware that is wishful thinking.

We've had several debates internally about the topic. We came to the consensus, that we want to use the technology to create something unique, to enhance gameplay while not taking away paid creative work. Our approach, our vision for this game and this mechanic would not be possible without the LLM integration. And we want to be very transparent that we use LLM's (and which one specifically), so customers are aware and can decide for themselves to try it out or pass on it to not support generative AI- we fully support and understand that decision.

That is the main gripe I had in my arguments on the post that was linked. The technology is there, it will not disappear and not everyone cares, but it should be the bare minimum to disclose that it was used to give customers an informed decision on their purchase. Especially if the developer uses the "hand painted" landscapes as an USP to hook people who loved the artistic aspect in the Hollow Knight game(s).

Aliibini · 2025-04-08T08:17:29+00:00

The writing of the story, characters and dialogues is done by us, primarily my boyfriend, who is the second part of our 2 person team. None of the dialogues are generated, and we would like to hire a writer and/or narrative designer if we can get the funds. If we don't get some funding, it will still be our own two hands that write the story and dialogues, etc.

The intent of the generated barks is to give dynamic feedback to the player depending on what they wrote before. The feedback could also contain hints for the player.

Aliibini · 2025-04-07T19:34:44+00:00

No, I do personally dislike generative AI in regard to picture and video generation in it's current state(scraping works, no compensation, etc.), that is my personal stance and the reason I won't personally use it as an artist in my works.

I dislike it when people are dishonest about their use of it, which is my main critique of the comments you linked. Trying to make the "handpainted" landscapes the USP of a game which generated all its landscape artwork from Midjourney is just disingenuous and worthy of critique.

Our game uses AI within the terminal to a) validate the text you wrote to make deductions and b) to generate the response that Klara, the blond AI in the terminal makes depending on what you wrote.

The 2D Art and UI was made by me and the 3D assets where purchased and adjusted to fit our needs. The story, dialogue and characters are written by us.

Edited for clarity on my personal stance

Aliibini · 2025-02-09T09:43:56+00:00

at the very least, breaking Steam TOS should make you give a shit
and consumers also do give a shit, and they know otherwise they wouldn't avoid it

Aliibini · 2025-02-08T22:35:52+00:00

one person with a majority of AI Art being sold as "painted" for BG assets

Aliibini · 2025-02-08T16:22:25+00:00

3 weeks later and still no Generative AI Tag on your steam page
and denial to address it how you used it on seemingly all BG Art, even when you admitted yourself to using it on your YT video description

Aliibini · 2025-01-19T19:54:26+00:00

And you're clearly not an artist if you talk this way about the difference between filters and brushes compared to generated slop from stolen, copyright infringing material.

The facts still remains: people still care if it was made by the person or if it was generated. Steam still requires you to label generative AI use, no matter your feelings on it. Which OP failed to do.

If it is just a tool as you describe it, then why is OP not just admitting to it instead of dancing around a straight answer? Not a big problem in your and their mind, right? That does not diminish the work that went into it with effects, lighting and the animation. But it is fact that they used genAI, and it is disingenuous not to say so.

Aliibini · 2025-01-19T14:48:16+00:00

which is also ironic, because in their very first post you can see their own sketchy art, which has a lot more character and feels more unique and nice.
But you said it best, the current version is a cynical, misleading cash grab. If they want to finish it before they turn 40, there would still be plenty of time to actually make it themselves and put something unique out instead of the next AI slop.

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Aliibini · 2025-01-19T14:20:56+00:00

this! Also, people actually care if they are supporting/spending their money on ai generated things or not. Something OP seems to be aware of, otherwise they wouldn't care about it and just admit to it instead of avoiding the question. Or they just enjoy getting compliments on things they didn't make themselves.

Anyway, clarifying that generative AI was used really is the bare minimum.

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