AI Cards
Now available on itch.io
Contestant in 2023 Global Game Jam!
AI Cards is a classic Midjourney card-matching game that enables the player to reveal many decks of cards, each showcasing a beautiful part of the world, or universe.
What I learned from creating AI Cards
Quality Constraints
A one week development period place some stressors on the process, one being that there was not a ton of room to experiment & polish. Knowing this, I decided on a minimalist aesthetic and leaned on AI for most of the cards’ graphical content. This ended up becoming the main theme of the game and allowed me to streamline the frontend, so that I could spend the rest of the time focusing on back-end features.
For a 7-day game jam
If I started over…
If I had an opportunity to revisit or recreate this game, I’d include challenge & skill mechanics by use of a level timer & player power-ups. I’d also choose to expand on the generative AI by creating a game mode where new cards are generated in real time based on moderated player inputs. This leans into the game’s main strength and provides something not seen in games!
Biggest technical challenge
Programming the card matching technology proved to be the most difficult, because not only did I need to match cards, I needed to learn to use coroutines and limits on how many cards could be read at a time. However, because I simplified the front-end tasks, I had more time to figure this out. And I knew that once I pushed past this barrier, the rest of the project would fall into place nicely!
Post-launch updates
After completing the game and submitting it to the Global Game Jam group, I gave it a day’s rest and took 3-4 weeks to polish it & add some extra cool stuff like a better menu interface, special effects, cool transitions, and LOFI music!
Tight Project Timeline
Deadlines are very important to me. Even though the project was not in perfect shape throughout, I followed through on top priorities and made only the necessary UI elements to keep the game functional. Working with a very short timeframe helped me understand the concept of ideation to production process in a wholistic manner.
When things went sideways
Because using generative AI for games is a very new thing, the Steam team opted to decline it’s release on the platform. I knew the generative AI tool Midjourney was more experimental/risky, and so this outcome wasn’t entirely surprising. However, I’m fortunate to have been able to release on Itch.io & am very glad about the experience gained from this project.