With AI causing all kinds of issues in the gaming market, it pleases me greatly to learn of new initiatives that support human creativity. Humanbrew is a Discord server dedicated to homebrew games made without AI. As one of its founders, Elias Daler, states, it’s “by humans, for humans”.
The goal of the community is to learn the ropes, share knowledge, and enjoy making things. This speaks to a core issue with generative AI and large language models. You can prompt all you want, but you may not truly understand what you’ve built, how it’s been built, nor why you’ve chosen those design decisions. Some call it a whiteboard challenge. I call it knowing what the hell you are doing and learning a trade to go on to create better things.
Fundamentally, it’s putting humans back in the design seat, which should be the case for all art and media. I’d rather have a million homebrew games made with love, care, attention, and a unique view on the world than slop. You can’t shortcut talent and learning a craft. Embrace humanity. My only concern in the longer term is that these communities will be forced increasingly underground to protect their work.
You can join the small community on Discord.
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