A roguelike made with AI-generated assets will soon disappear from Valve's popular PC gaming storefront, all because of the power of love
AI in video games is a caustic enough subject that Valve requires developer disclosure if a title utilizes the generative technology. This way, people who have qualms about AI or its impact can opt out of purchasing anything that uses the genAI. One developer, however, is saving everyone from the moral quandary in the first place by just deleting their game altogether.
Hardest is a free-to-play roguelike on Steam that was released in the summer of 2025 with the tagline, “stop time, summon tsunamis, shoot with bubble guns, feed cards to mimic, collect rare negative cards!” Except for a user who says the game helped him bond with his son, Hardest mostly got a negative reception. “I assume the whole thing is AI slop,” one reviewer wrote.
You’d think flopping like this would be the end of the story, but half a year later, Rakuel, the developer, has undergone a revelation. On Jan. 10, the indie creator posted an update to Hardest announcing that he would pull the game from the platform by the end of the month.
I made this game during the summer in couple months and thought to use AI because in university there is so much brainwashing on students and all the tools are given for free, so I could generate unlimited images for free and so.
Emphasis mine. Universities playing a role in this annoys me a lot.
Some AI companies can use this game just existing as a reason the get more investment for their AI companies, that benefit no one, but rather suck resources from the economy from hard working people.
I think this part alone is incredibly important and the real eye-opener for him.
The modern private or otherwise profiting university is first and foremost employee farms, with many trying to be ceo farms and, well you can see what universities have churned out in that regard
first time seeing a indie dev go ahead and Remove the whole game because the whole game uses AI.
Until now i only have seen indie devs just use AI to show that its just a tool rather then replacing artists/people, to fit the narrative(the narrative itself is not AI generated) and keep it on the game’s backgrounds(and the devs opted to use adobe firefly cause it claims to be “ethical” there were even mods created to remove the AI apparently).
I wanted to make this joke but didn’t want to downplay the breakthrough they had. But man I wonder what her argument was… How did she manage to convince him?
The announcement suggests the developer wrote all the code, but used the slop robot to generate assets. Sounds like the issue is that making art assets actually takes skill, and is something most programmer types underestimate.
I’m curious if a dev that carefully manages placeholders could at least garner interest from artists this way. Clair Obscur’s debacle with their Indie Award demonstrates how horrible this can turn out if they miss even one asset; but sadly, I empathize coming from a position where I devoted my studies into learning coding and writing techniques, not artistry.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but the main difficulty here is that using AI, even just for temp assets, is a virtue signal that demonstrates bad virtues. That’s why it’s socially repulsive. It’s like inviting someone into your home and watching them stick their fingers in the soup.
It’s not that using an AI asset for exactly 5 minutes only before swapping it out, and never even committing it to your git history—it’s not that this disqualifies your work from being meaningful in other ways, it’s just that being weak on this front, morally, makes you seem like kind of a dipshit. It’s a failure to reject the siren’s song that leads sailors to their death, you know?
And for what it’s worth, I love seeing passionate work. As a proper art enjoyer, a professional liker of things, cubes and cylinders do nothing to dissuade me.
Kind of an extreme viewpoint in my opinion. I personally have no issue with an indy or first time dev using AI assistance for a passion project, my issue is when large studios are replacing talented folks with soulless slop.
Ethical concerns aside there is a difference between using AI to not have to hire artists/developers and using AI because someone can’t realize their vision because they do not have all the prerequisite skills.
On one hand, you have companies using AI when they can absolutely hire a human to do something; on the other, there is someone who couldn’t have published anything without the assistance of such a tool.
People have different passions, and not everyone can be good at art, programming, etc to create something amazing. The problem is when someone uses a tool as a clutch, or uses it to replace human expression of intention. Then it truly becomes a soulless worthless piece of crap.
The best example is people in the scanlation scene that translate manga. It’s fine to use AI to remove the original text while NOBODY is fine with an AI translation. Why? Because redrawing line art is an activity that doesn’t require human expression (it’s more about preserving the original expression of the artist, not changing anything); while localization of text requires a human to interpret and express intent in a different cultural setting.
I went to a rural Canadian school, thank you very much! Please don’t run away tho, you went through all the work to set up your lil’ soapbox and everything. Let’s chat.
Here’s why your earlier comment is (in my humble opinion) very silly. You used a bad comparison. And I’m not just talking about the bringing up Hitler bit.
Learning how to shit next to the toilet is stupid.
First off, nobody needs to learn that. That’s an inherited skill. Secondly, it’s bad in the context of the post. Learning how using AI is wrong is an objectively positive thing, but your example is someone learning negative things. It’s bass ackwards, as the kids used to say ('twas me).
What would you prefer the dev do? You can’t change the past, so what actions should he have taken to align with your obviously superior moral code? Self flagellation? Volunteer for a drawing-and-quartering position?
You can keep up your current act if you want. Attack anyone and everyone who even tries to better themselves. Pat yourself on the back while you’re at it, but I don’t jive with the punishment-only model of reformation. If this guy realized he was doing something wrong and changed his ways then I think that’s a good thing. Learning should be encouraged, not punished.
P.S. immediately bringing up Hitler as a comparison is silly, and makes you look silly. Try to not do that, and also try to use comparisons more grounded in reality.
Edit: I may have initially misunderstood this bit
He should have developed the AI parts.
I took that to mean before he released, but maybe you meant after he learned. That makes a bit more sense. If that is the case, I will address.
Apparently the AI bits were art assets. That’s kinda hard to learn in a hurry, and art is expensive. Mayhaps he could have got by with free assets, but then there’s always the chance to get accused of asset flipping.
Also learning anything takes time. Either way, pulling it was probably the quicker and better option.
Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo - Fixed a typo. I’m bad at phone typing, and I feel bad 😞
Meh - sounds like they saved some money by not going heavy into custom assets.
Seems like for a first pass at an indie game you should use asset packs and/or Gen AI. If the game has legs - you make another pass with a bigger investment into it.
Obviously if you enjoy the asset/model/whatever aspect then delve deeper into it.
Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about celebraing an indie dev deleting their game while the biggest games such as arc raiders succeed despite overt ai use that actually displaces voice actors at the company.
The developer gives a pretty decent reason for the deletion, imo:
“I have realized the AI is not actually free, and it has a major effect on the economy and environment,” Rakuel wrote. “Some AI companies can use this game just existing as a reason the get more investment for their AI companies, that benefit[s] no one, but rather suck resources from the economy from hard working people,” he continued.
There’s nothing he can do about Arc Raider’s success, but taking ownership of what he did, I gotta say, respect.
I would never judge anyone for using AI to fill in the parts they need to realize their project vision that they otherwise simpy couldn’t (without putting in a lot more effort into a thing they probably don’t really enjoy), but doing this is still a statement and pretty cool to do.
Not that I’ll ever be motivated enough to actually finish a project, but I’ve thought about the art aspect of making a game, and eventually figured if I’d need to commission more than I can afford, I’d be morally fine with genAI if the game is either free or I use a large portion of profits (if there are any lol) to hire artists to gradually replace the art.
Though I also refuse to give a single cent to all the companies profiting off this so any image gen I’ll ever do will be local on my pc (or for free on some service, I guess).
I don’t think you deserve this many down votes for this take, but I’ll provide a counterpoint. Not being able to afford a real artist is not as large a barrier as you think.
Balatro’s music was created by Spanish musician Luis Clemente, known online as LouisF, after developer LocalThunk hired them on Fiverr in 2023.
The stock broker is a genuinely nice guy, they realize they are soul mates and he quits his job to be a house husband so she can chase her dreams and make an indie game on steam. Coincidentally it has no AI and blows up, and they both get to retire and live off the earnings. Sorry, what were we talking about again?
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Good on him, but I wonder if he would be doing this had the game been a success
Rakuel’s post on steam is very interesting
Emphasis mine. Universities playing a role in this annoys me a lot.
I think this part alone is incredibly important and the real eye-opener for him.
The modern private or otherwise profiting university is first and foremost employee farms, with many trying to be ceo farms and, well you can see what universities have churned out in that regard
Wait, a steam game with vertical aspect ratio??
first time seeing a indie dev go ahead and Remove the whole game because the whole game uses AI.
Until now i only have seen indie devs just use AI to show that its just a tool rather then replacing artists/people, to fit the narrative(the narrative itself is not AI generated) and keep it on the game’s backgrounds(and the devs opted to use adobe firefly cause it claims to be “ethical” there were even mods created to remove the AI apparently).
What good sex does to a guy
I wanted to make this joke but didn’t want to downplay the breakthrough they had. But man I wonder what her argument was… How did she manage to convince him?
Could’ve just re-coded the AI-bits
He says it’s all coded by him, it’s just the assets that are AI.
Seems like it’s all AI-bits
He probably doesn’t know how.
Good for him doing the right thing. Keeping slop out of the world is one of the most moral things a person can do.
That’s why I’m not having kids.
Make like 38 Special and hold on loosely brother. Keep it up.
Why doesn’t he just… I dunno, develop the AI bits? Is he just going to give up?
It sounds like the bigger issue was that the game was bad.
The announcement suggests the developer wrote all the code, but used the slop robot to generate assets. Sounds like the issue is that making art assets actually takes skill, and is something most programmer types underestimate.
Also, it still kinda feeds the AI narrative if he recodes the AI part.
“See? He used AI to make it faster and get some money then he went back and touched it up, really helpful tool”
This challenge never stopped Chris Sawyer and he went on to develop the most influential video game for his time.
You could simplify art hella if you dont go detailed, procedural (nonai) is fun
I’m curious if a dev that carefully manages placeholders could at least garner interest from artists this way. Clair Obscur’s debacle with their Indie Award demonstrates how horrible this can turn out if they miss even one asset; but sadly, I empathize coming from a position where I devoted my studies into learning coding and writing techniques, not artistry.
My space game was cubes and cylinders colliding.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but the main difficulty here is that using AI, even just for temp assets, is a virtue signal that demonstrates bad virtues. That’s why it’s socially repulsive. It’s like inviting someone into your home and watching them stick their fingers in the soup.
It’s not that using an AI asset for exactly 5 minutes only before swapping it out, and never even committing it to your git history—it’s not that this disqualifies your work from being meaningful in other ways, it’s just that being weak on this front, morally, makes you seem like kind of a dipshit. It’s a failure to reject the siren’s song that leads sailors to their death, you know?
And for what it’s worth, I love seeing passionate work. As a proper art enjoyer, a professional liker of things, cubes and cylinders do nothing to dissuade me.
Incidentally, if people had skill, they wouldn’t use Ai?
Again, reading the announcement, it sounds like the advice the developer received in school was to use it. He’s realized now that it was a bad call.
He says he might release a new version with original assets in the future
Kind of an extreme viewpoint in my opinion. I personally have no issue with an indy or first time dev using AI assistance for a passion project, my issue is when large studios are replacing talented folks with soulless slop.
Ethical concerns aside there is a difference between using AI to not have to hire artists/developers and using AI because someone can’t realize their vision because they do not have all the prerequisite skills.
On one hand, you have companies using AI when they can absolutely hire a human to do something; on the other, there is someone who couldn’t have published anything without the assistance of such a tool.
People have different passions, and not everyone can be good at art, programming, etc to create something amazing. The problem is when someone uses a tool as a clutch, or uses it to replace human expression of intention. Then it truly becomes a soulless worthless piece of crap.
The best example is people in the scanlation scene that translate manga. It’s fine to use AI to remove the original text while NOBODY is fine with an AI translation. Why? Because redrawing line art is an activity that doesn’t require human expression (it’s more about preserving the original expression of the artist, not changing anything); while localization of text requires a human to interpret and express intent in a different cultural setting.
No AI or death. Give no quarters. The last time we relented, they broke the agreement of the armistice and made ww2.
Based as hell
based on stupid, that is
I dunno, is learning stupid?
Depends. Learning to do th Hitler salute when meeting someone is stupid. Learning how to shit next to the toilet is stupid. See how that works?
He should’ve developed the AI parts.
Yeah, bring out the Hitler comparisons! That’ll show me lol.
You went to an American school and ot shows in your reading comprehension.
You’re not here to understand anything, no matter what I say. You’re just crying and yapping. It’s best to avoid creatures like you 😄
This is really funny to read.
I’m awesome 😎
I went to a rural Canadian school, thank you very much! Please don’t run away tho, you went through all the work to set up your lil’ soapbox and everything. Let’s chat.
Here’s why your earlier comment is (in my humble opinion) very silly. You used a bad comparison. And I’m not just talking about the bringing up Hitler bit.
First off, nobody needs to learn that. That’s an inherited skill. Secondly, it’s bad in the context of the post. Learning how using AI is wrong is an objectively positive thing, but your example is someone learning negative things. It’s bass ackwards, as the kids used to say ('twas me).
What would you prefer the dev do? You can’t change the past, so what actions should he have taken to align with your obviously superior moral code? Self flagellation? Volunteer for a drawing-and-quartering position?
You can keep up your current act if you want. Attack anyone and everyone who even tries to better themselves. Pat yourself on the back while you’re at it, but I don’t jive with the punishment-only model of reformation. If this guy realized he was doing something wrong and changed his ways then I think that’s a good thing. Learning should be encouraged, not punished.
P.S. immediately bringing up Hitler as a comparison is silly, and makes you look silly. Try to not do that, and also try to use comparisons more grounded in reality.
Edit: I may have initially misunderstood this bit
I took that to mean before he released, but maybe you meant after he learned. That makes a bit more sense. If that is the case, I will address.
Apparently the AI bits were art assets. That’s kinda hard to learn in a hurry, and art is expensive. Mayhaps he could have got by with free assets, but then there’s always the chance to get accused of asset flipping.
Also learning anything takes time. Either way, pulling it was probably the quicker and better option.
Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo - Fixed a typo. I’m bad at phone typing, and I feel bad 😞
Oh man, you got jabaited
Its funny reading the positive reviews and seeing thay they couldn’t even bother spending more than 20mins playing.
Props for it being open source but it seems like a shit game. Needs more gameplay polish I doubt AI was the problem here.
Meh - sounds like they saved some money by not going heavy into custom assets.
Seems like for a first pass at an indie game you should use asset packs and/or Gen AI. If the game has legs - you make another pass with a bigger investment into it.
Obviously if you enjoy the asset/model/whatever aspect then delve deeper into it.
Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about celebraing an indie dev deleting their game while the biggest games such as arc raiders succeed despite overt ai use that actually displaces voice actors at the company.
The developer gives a pretty decent reason for the deletion, imo:
There’s nothing he can do about Arc Raider’s success, but taking ownership of what he did, I gotta say, respect.
I would never judge anyone for using AI to fill in the parts they need to realize their project vision that they otherwise simpy couldn’t (without putting in a lot more effort into a thing they probably don’t really enjoy), but doing this is still a statement and pretty cool to do.
Not that I’ll ever be motivated enough to actually finish a project, but I’ve thought about the art aspect of making a game, and eventually figured if I’d need to commission more than I can afford, I’d be morally fine with genAI if the game is either free or I use a large portion of profits (if there are any lol) to hire artists to gradually replace the art.
Though I also refuse to give a single cent to all the companies profiting off this so any image gen I’ll ever do will be local on my pc (or for free on some service, I guess).
I don’t think you deserve this many down votes for this take, but I’ll provide a counterpoint. Not being able to afford a real artist is not as large a barrier as you think.
https://balatrowiki.org/w/Music
And here it is being played at the Game Awards.
Despite his altruism, she‘s still going to leave him for a stock broker.
Smells like incel talk
The stock broker is a genuinely nice guy, they realize they are soul mates and he quits his job to be a house husband so she can chase her dreams and make an indie game on steam. Coincidentally it has no AI and blows up, and they both get to retire and live off the earnings. Sorry, what were we talking about again?
I checked to see if they were from the MGTOW instance
Yep, you got me. So intuitive. Congratulations.
We can’t understand you with Andrew Tate’s dick in your mouth.
She didn’t like AI for altruism cause, she’s not gonna fall for a stock broker or anything similar.