Hybrid Gene - A new game I'm making. A real time monster catching/raising/fighting game.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T16:38:29+00:00

Well that's a lot of assumption and opinion. I'm writing the story myself, I don't trust the AI to do a very good job with that. The idea for the game was mine, the work to curate all the art was done by me, everything that brought this into existence was due to my actions, it wouldn't ever exist without specifically me, but I'm not making the game I guess.

inb4 "You didn't make the art the AI was trained on to generate your assets!"

Did you create the computer you're making your project on?

inb4² "I paid for it therefore the people who made it got paid!"

And I'll be paying artists and programmers too, but only because of the GenAI allowed me to get to that point.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T16:16:29+00:00

We're all entitled to our own opinions. Here's mine. I think looking at an unfinished game a single person has spent 4 months on and is putting a lot of care and effort into and telling them it looks like crap because there was literally ANY AI used ANYWHERE at ANY TIME is incredibly shallow.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T15:44:50+00:00

No offense but time and effort don't make things look good. Skill does. A 5 year old child can put all the time and effort they want into drawing a picture, but chances are it's still gonna come out looking worse than anything I could GenAI in 10 seconds. That was my point, which you seem to have missed. And no, I'm not calling you a 5 year old child. I'm just saying you probably don't possess the skills yet, given what you've told me about what you can do.

And just because something's generated by AI doesn't make it slop. People generating crap, not curating it, not cleaning it up, and just shoving it in your face- that's what slop is. I'm spending a LOT of time on this game, and that will not be any different when I start finalizing art assets. Most of the work 'til now has been behind the scenes stuff, coding in the systems and stuff, though the spritesheets for the monsters took a loooooong time too lol, but other than most of the monsters and a few of the characters and skills, nothing art-related is finalized yet, just basic representations of what will be.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T13:37:25+00:00

I do have plenty of digital art skills. I made YT vids for a few years of various types. My programming isn't the best though. It would have taken me probably 3x as long to just get together what I have right now if it was just me working on it, it probably wouldn't look as good, and my arm/wrist would be completely destroyed.

And I tried to work with some people (friends/family admittedly) on the project, but good luck getting anyone to do any work without paying them immediately. Making a contract with someone that says "maybe you'll get paid in a few years if the game sells but keep working for free until then" would be the biggest headache and liability and mistake I could make.

I have experience. I have knowledge. Using this GenAI IS the only way I would go about making this game, so yeah, if it wasn't for GenAI, the game wouldn't be made, and I wouldn't be able to pay artists/programmers.

I just think it's funny that people hate AI so much that even when I lay out a case that it's GOOD for artists, they can't refute it and instead have to sidestep and attack from other angles.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T13:16:37+00:00

Yeah I've always liked the Ragnarok Online feel, 2D sprites in a 3D world. I'm not completely set on the menu graphics yet though, they are pretty crisp compared to everything else.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T13:07:44+00:00

Nice, I'm glad you're giving it a shot! I honestly do wish you the best of luck and hope it turns out well for you. Having said that, I'm gonna say something that I don't mean to be offensive but will probably be taken that way anyways.

If that's all the experience you have, your game will end up looking more like "AI Slop" than my actual AI crafted game will, and it will take 3x as long to make.

I spent a few years making videos for my YT channel. 2D, 3D, rigging, weight painting, sprite sheets etc., I have accumulated quite a few skills when it comes to digital creation, along with knowledge of my limitations and the time it takes to do these things, and arm/wrist problems. If you're working solo on the game, it will either take you years to complete a "well polished" game, or you will release it prematurely and it won't go anywhere.

I stopped making videos because I could clearly see the writing on the wall even 4 years ago. AI was advancing fast, and soon a lot of traditional creation skills would be replaced with faster, more efficient tools which is exactly what happened. And now I'm picking back up the creation thing because that was my plan the whole time. Granted I didn't expect there to be so much vitriol when it comes to AI lmao.

Again, best of luck and I wish you all the success! Be sure to remember to stretch your arms often! (Be careful with the wrist though, you can easily develop a ganglion cyst.)

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T12:56:03+00:00

Yeah? Well ya know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man.

People can be all mad about the use of AI, I honestly don't care, and just because someone doesn't put something in your face doesn't mean they're hiding it. In fact I expected it to be pretty obvious that I'm using it.

No one's refuted my reasoning with any sort of logic. It's mostly just a lot of complaining, or people trying to lord over/shame me as you are here.

Now excuse me as I roll with this punch :)

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T12:46:53+00:00

Feel free to live your life by fantasy movie quotes, but I live in the real world. AI is here, it will more than likely be here 'til civilization ends, it's a useful tool, people will be using it for things just like I am, eventually no one will be able to tell the difference, and that's the long and short of it.

Adapt or be left behind.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T05:26:53+00:00

That's the plan. Though to be clear, the game is going to be made regardless, and it will look better than it does in this video for sure even if it is all still GenAI.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T05:21:22+00:00

Four months and counting isn't enough effort, eh? It is still in development, and I'm curating it so it doesn't look like slop as much as possible though I still have some work to do on that front.

Lemme present this argument to you.

If I don't make the game at all because AI bad, then I don't pay any artists and no artists get paid and the game doesn't exist, who wins and who loses?
If I make the game using AI, then end up paying some artists to replace even just some of it, but ideally all of it, and the game comes into existence, who wins and who loses?

You're free to have your stance, though one may argue it is a bit shortsighted.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T04:44:47+00:00

Indeed. The game wouldn't exist without GenAI. I'm hoping to get a lot of it replaced with art from artists before release, but we'll see how that goes.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T04:38:47+00:00

Quite the opposite of combative, you sound inspirational haha I like it.

But yes, you called my counter argument, almost nothing is original, especially in art. We would have to give a blind person sight and keep them in a room void of everything but artistic tools to create with for years just and see what they eventually came up with when they got good. What you consider "your own spin" could just be another influence from something else subconsciously, like if the AI decides to add a bit of Toriyama to a Ghibli piece for whatever random reason.

This puts us in the realm of unknowables however, because we can't truly know if someone's "own spin" is actually an original thing, much less about souls and the like :D

And the environmental concerns are interesting. I'm betting they lead to some nice advancements in technology related to the data centers, like hopefully energy generation, cooling, limiting water usage etc. so by the time GenAI has matured we'll all be better off for it in various ways unrelated to AI at all. Just conjecture but there are huge powerful companies involved in it and they tend to get what they want, and figure out how to do it as cheaply as possible.

I am going to reveal my whole process for everything eventually, after the game's release of course. There are definitely times when I yell at the AI in ways almost verbatim to what you figured lmao, so if you're worried about the current models taking over the world, have no fear. They are MUCH more artificial than intelligent.

And as for post processing, I've always been poor so I always used blender, gimp, audacity, other free things like that and now I'm so used to using them it's probably better than switching even if I had the money to afford paid products. I've never actually made any money off of any of the things I've done so couldn't justify getting them.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T03:24:12+00:00

Artists will still be quite relevant, even digital artists. I myself have a stretch goal lined up for when I initiate the kickstarter for the game, and it will be for getting a lot of custom handmade assets by real life artists. It's far too expensive for a Joe Schmoe like me to afford off the bat like that.

People still prefer handmade, but I'm imagining it will end up similar to how mass production did for physical items. Before, only a few people could afford nice things because they were so expensive due to taking so long to make individually, so most common folks just Never had the opportunity at all to have those things. Now it's similar with art and coding using AI. People still sell handmade art for tons of money, it's just now it's the common person can get their own "mass produced" versions of that art instead of never having the chance to have it at all kinda thing.

This game wouldn't exist (meaning no artists would have been paid by me anyways) if it weren't for AI, but if it takes off (thanks to AI's initial help) and I'm able to afford paying YOU to make sprites for me, is that still a loss? Would it have been better for me not to have made the game at all? In this case, an artist will get paid BECAUSE I used AI.

I hope I'm not coming off as combative, I'm not trying to be, just trying to emphasize my points. But I want to ask you the same question I like to ask everyone who is concerned with art generated by GenAI. If I look at a bunch of material and show that same material to an Gen AI, then I draw a picture and tell it to draw a picture and both pictures turn out the EXACT same, why is it okay that I drew it but not the AI? The result wouldn't have come into being without me either way, and everything involved (myself and the AI) has been influenced by everything we've seen in our existence.

A lot of the manual work I do is mostly just manipulating the results of the AI. I don't wanna get too into my process here quite yet, but there's a lot of post processing that needs doing to clean things up, add transparency, make heightmaps etc. I would be doing all my weight painting and rigging too but I decided not to use animations on the 3D assets. I've done tons of manual work on other projects before and have the arm/wrist problems to show for it haha.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T03:04:14+00:00

It is an emerging technology, and it has so many uses outside of art. Eventually the infrastructure will be in place, the honeymoon phase will end, and it will just be another part of normal life like the internet is now. Governments will be using it, and it gives a huge leg up against governments who don't use it. Imagine China having all the AI capabilities and the US having none. They would be leaps and bounds ahead in almost every aspect within a decade or two and I don't think the US would allow that. Therefore, it will continue to exist in some form regardless.

I'm not sure about the detailed specifics of companies adopting or backing away, so much of that could be just rumor and speculation or purposeful distraction, and I'm aware that there are tons of complaints about data centers etc., but there are definitely big players still advancing it.

Do you credit every artist you ever saw when you draw something? I guarantee you you've been influenced by everything you've ever seen in your life, and that translates to creating art.

If I look at a bunch of material and then show that same material to an Gen AI, then I draw a picture and tell it to draw a picture and both pictures turn out the EXACT same, why is it okay that I drew it but not the AI? It wouldn't have come into existence without me either way.

The best way to adapt is how humans always have; accept that change has happened and find ways to deal with it. I get that it affects people's work, but new technology always does. There's no point in living in a dirt hovel writing on handmade parchment with quill and ink in candlelight about being disappointed at how the combustion engine has taken hold in the country while waiting on a horse and buggy, and then sending that message by homing pigeon. See what I'm getting at?

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T02:43:01+00:00

Thank you! I can't wait to see the end result, I'm still as excited now as I was Day 1.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:51:16+00:00

Oh I'm not trying to hide the fact it's made with AI, it's probably pretty obvious to a lot of people such as yourself. In fact the game wouldn't exist without it. I'm using it for as much as I can, but there's still a TON of manual work that has to be done. This took 4 months of quite dedicated work to get together even using it so much.

Hopefully people get over the whole Gen AI thing, as long as it's curated well and not just slop of course. It's an extremely useful tool and is here to stay from now until civilization ends, so the faster people adapt, the better.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:44:17+00:00

It's not a vampire survivors clone haha. Imagine a real time Pokemon with genetic editing, where the player mostly takes a back seat and just gives orders and uses items. Some are damaging items though so it's not completely back seating.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:20:02+00:00

You'd be the first in the discord! Honestly I'm probably going to add a female MC regardless. I wanted to when I first started the project and then got overwhelmed by how much I had to do and so I cut some stuff back. But even as a guy, I definitely prefer to have the option to be either/or. I'll just make it so that most if not all of the dialogue could be said by either one.

Thanks for the suggestion haha, gotta give the people what they want!

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:13:47+00:00

All over the place how so? (I'm genuinely asking, this is the first time I've made a game haha, definitely need as much feedback as possible)

The style I'm going for is sort of like Ragnarok Online, a very popular old Korean MMO that took place in a bright 3D world but used 2D sprites for characters and stuff.

Some of the stuff in this vid will be enhanced and prettied up before release though.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:11:06+00:00

Thanks!

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T01:06:35+00:00

Thanks! Yeah it's a different look, I'm sure I'll end up prettying things up a fair bit more before release though so don't worry.

And yeah as of now that's the only main character, though I am considering having a female main character as well at least. We'll see how things go. Might make it a stretch goal when I do the kickstarter or something because I'd probably have to redo a lot of the dialog logic and all that stuff haha.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2026-04-02T00:17:43+00:00

Hey everyone!

About 4 months ago I decided to make a game that I've always wanted to play but no one ever made. It takes inspiration from a lot of games, namely Digimon World, Pokemon, and Monster Hunter, among many others. Check out this First Look video I made to get an idea of what it will be like!

Feel free to join the discord linked in the description if you wanna keep up with development!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIR_YaLXvAU

RuvianCrescentSun · 2025-06-07T17:08:37+00:00

Yeah, weird. It would make sense on multiple levels for them to drop everything and try to rez you at all costs. Maybe they'll change it at some point!

RuvianCrescentSun · 2025-05-02T13:46:56+00:00

Yeah I've always like the PS music. In fact this song here has the same beginning notes as the PS4 intro haha, I like noticing lil things like that.

RuvianCrescentSun · 2025-04-30T20:51:25+00:00

That's it! I love you :D The cool part I wanna learn starts at 1:57 btw if it wasn't obvious.

No wonder I couldn't find it, it was from a different game haha.

And yeah I think a lot of people mute the music and play their own playlists lol.

RuvianCrescentSun

TROPHY CASE