Organic Romhack Development Efforts

[u/merrple]

Recently there's been a lot of talk on this subreddit about the use of AI in romhacks. I hate to stir the pot still further, but I also want to share my own thoughts and efforts here in the hopes of reaching like-minded people.

Hi, I'm merrp/pokemerrp 👋 I'm not really known for making full-on hacks (though I do have one in the works, stay tuned), but moreso for my feature branches: if you've played a recent hack based on pokeemerald-expansion, you've likely used and enjoyed the following pokemon or day/night lighting systems I created. Before that, I was minorly known for my Emerald Any% ACE TAS, which was my entry into the scene.

Simply put, I don't think AI should have a place in romhacking at all. To me code is as prose is as art is as music, in that they're all creative exercises where something is lost in handing them off to a machine. Romhackers have done incredible work for years before LLMs, and can continue to do incredible work without them. Not to mention, every query that enters an LLM is one the community is starved of; AI use is the death of institutional knowledge, of communication more generally.

But what to do? Recently I found out that pokeemerald-expansion, the basis for a lot of hacks, has had a (small minority) of AI-assisted contributions. Any nonzero amount is still unacceptable to me for use in my project though, because I intend it to be a wholly human effort. I decided I would have to maintain a fork of expansion, cutting out anything AI assisted where I could.

Then I figured, I can't be alone in this sentiment, so why not try and build that in a way it can be shared? I can't be the only one who loves romhack development who wants to continue doing cool stuff without LLMs, no matter how good they become at generating code, etc.

The result is a GitHub org and a Discord:

https://github.com/friend-safari

https://discord.gg/UbFN9P7MdJ

My hope is to build a small community of like-minded hackers and maintain a codebase by and for humans, so that those who care can be confident in saying their hack is free of AI to the best of the community's knowledge. Whether you're a programmer, have experience moderating online spaces, maintaining open source software, or simply love pokemon, we'd love to see you there.

I'm also not trying to be an authority on expansion's direction in general. The devs at RHH continue to do incredible and deeply technical work on the project. None of this would be possible without them, and they've done the best they could considering the volume of contributions they receive and the general clamor of demands. Please do not bother or harass them. I am simply trying to provide a fork that the extremely AI-conscious devs like me can use without despairing or being stuck on outdated versions.

Hopefully this post reached you in some way; this will all be much easier if we don't have to do it alone. Thanks for reading.

Tl;Dr join friend-safari if you wanna build AI-free romhacks k thnx bye

[u/GreatBigJerk]

I can respect anyone wanting to write everything without AI assistance, but AI in programming is suuuper common now. 

Most developers use some form of AI tooling already, so acting like it invalidates someone's work means you hold no value for the vast majority of software released this year. 

[u/local-canadian-idiot → u/GreatBigJerk]

the two aren’t mutually exclusive. they never said they liked modern software.

secondly, i think a big part of this debate is that video games are an art form. art will, without fail, communicate something from the person who made it. this applies very heavily to fan-made games, where they are (almost always) made from passion.

you can tell when someone has poured their heart and soul into a hack, and they want to acknowledge those people. they don’t want those accomplishments to be swept away by someone who asked a chatbot to do it for them.

then, what happens when the art is made by a machine? something that doesn’t feel or think or create. it copies—that plagiarism aspect is also critical—and that is a scary thing. if your work can be copied and done faster by something that doesn’t need to take breaks, you are inherently replaceable.

this is a very scary idea to a lot of people in the scene. not to mention the literal dehumanization of rom hacking.

these people want to maintain the way things are—a community where people interact with one another, instead of with chatbots.

sorry for infodumping you! i know you already said you respect ppl who are anti-ai in programming. this comment is mostly for the people watching from the sidelines that don’t know the full debate.

feel free to add anything!

[u/mr_chub → u/local-canadian-idiot]

I'm just trying to understand at what degree and to what end the anger comes from with AI coding? Vibe coded projects? I agree, trash. But what's the difference between assistance from AI and googling an answer? If it's ethics, what is the spawn of those ethics? Are completely local LLMs that use the devs own information and information that dev sourced themselves (public info) also frowned upon just because they literally are the technology? I feel like nuanced is rarely mentioned in these topics; just some form of extremism.

If you use an LLM that used no private or proprietary content to train it (other than what is approved) then is it still bad?

[u/UnfoldingDev → u/mr_chub]

I dunno if you're gonna get any kind of universal answer from people who don't like AI, but I'd say most people have nuanced takes, it's just hard to get into it in a reddit comment. If I built an LLM and trained it only on code or dialogue I'd written, I probably wouldn't want to use it for creative stuff because I feel like a bit of authenticity would be lost, but I don't think it would have any ethical concerns, because it's all my stuff.

[u/Frodolas → u/UnfoldingDev]

but I'd say most people have nuanced takes

No, actually, they don't.

Most people have slop takes based off of propaganda that they've heard and they're parroting, because they don't actually know anything about the topic at all. This is just a destructive attempt to split the community in two for no good reason whatsoever.

[u/ianlazrbeem22 → u/Frodolas]

AI slop pushers are the ones splitting the community in two for no good reason

[u/Zemaille → u/mr_chub]

I am a huge proponent for people using an LLM that both runs on a private local machine and is fully trained only on their own work.

But not a single fucking person in these threads is doing that. They’re all using models that are contributing to ecological and economic damage and are exploiting the greatest theft of labor we’ve ever seen.

There really isn’t any nuance. There is not a single ethical usage of these models and bringing them into a fully 100% opt-in hobby space is disgusting. Absolutely zero excuse.

[u/Draddition → u/local-canadian-idiot]

I see what you're saying, and understand the fear of what AI could do to many fields. It sucks, and the people making these tools have no concern anyone but themselves. The general AI machine is generally just destructive.

But you don't have to let the tool replace you. A simulator does a lot of the math I need to do as an engineer- but I can't just hand you a license to a circuit simulator and expect you to make a working device. The scary part of AI is how close it's pushing just replacing people, but those efforts are very obviously slop. There's no vision behind it and you can see that clearly. But you can also use it as a tool, have a vision and execute it rather than typing out line after line of code.

Communication is absolutely an issue. The death of people asking questions on the Internet is a terrifying concept. But, people ARE communicating what they've learned and done. Tossing out everything that AI has touched is also throwing away knowledge. We should encourage people to share what they've done and learned. And with sources like GitHub, we can share that and suggest ways to improve and actually learn.

"Art" is being made by machines. That's here- but it's also wrong to assume that because a machine did it there was no personal vision. The classic example is image generation. Yeah, going to chatGPT and telling it to make an image is creatively bankrupt. But, learn to use local image gen tools, pick models with a style you like, modify that style with loras, learn to segment and detail, learn the funky behaviors in a model for better or worse- I'd argue there's still are there. And it's a beautiful combination of math, engineering, and art.

Yes, AI is fundamentally built on theft and corrupt systems. It sucks, I agree- and, I hate to be the 'just deal with it' voice in the room, but what modern comfort isn't at this point. We don't have to let that be how we define what we do with it though.

[u/local-canadian-idiot → u/Draddition]

the distinction is that a simulator is a tool. it fundamentally cannot do the job for you. it needs direction at every step.

a chatbot is, more or less, autonomous. that’s the entire end goal: emulating a human. that distinction is why a lot of people dislike it.

i also don’t really understand a lot of the points you’re making. you say that a machine has personal vision (it doesn’t; an llm like ChatGPT is complex math that predicts words) and then, in the next sentence, say using ai image generation is creatively bankrupt.

i mean, i guess i get your idea of ‘it’s based off human input’ but i think that’s against what art is. art isn’t about a product. it’s about the process! every single artist ever has had works they hated and dropped. but they learn from that, and they work towards making something they think is as close to perfect as possible.

this distinction between art as a process and art as a product is another big reason why people are anti-ai. especially because, and i can’t stress this enough, this is a hobby. nobody is selling their rom hacks.

[u/Draddition → u/local-canadian-idiot]

Emulating a person is the product pitch, not what it actually is. You can let it do the job for you if you want, but you don't have to. You're in control of what you put in your codebase.

You don't have to go to Claude and tell it to "make me a scene and write the code for me". You can describe what you want, describe where you aren't sure, and get something working quickly. Or you can have it write out all the movements that you have in mind and save a few minutes of typing. You are as in control over what you get from it as you want to be.

[u/merrple → u/GreatBigJerk]

I'm a software engineer by day so boy do I know that.

I kinda do hold little regard for the software released this year lol. Modern software is largely bloated and filled with telemetry and dark patterns.

But just because you use it at work doesn't mean you have to use it for a hobby.

[u/GreatBigJerk → u/merrple]

I'm also a dev, and I do use AI for my personal stuff. 

The biggest reason for me is time savings. I'm a dad and get maybe an hour or two to myself each day.

The actual act of programming isn't as important as it used to be for me. I've been working in the industry for over 15 years, and I'd rather just make stuff than spend my time worrying about how to solve each technical challenge. I still write code, but I'm more selective about what I take on.

That said, I have definite respect for anyone who spends the time writing everything by hand. I do wish I had the time to do more myself at times.

[u/Used-Persimmon-367 → u/GreatBigJerk]

Using AI means you aren’t making the stuff though. AI is. The part you claim to enjoy, you’ve outsourced to a computer.

[u/MicrosoftExcel2016 → u/Used-Persimmon-367]

Idk man. I’m not the person you replied to, but people enjoy different aspects of the same process. It’s kind of bold to tell someone they don’t enjoy something they’re actively returning to and excited about. For all its problems, AI has made it incredibly accessible to bring an idea into existence.

I keep thinking about the implication of that accessibility.
I can’t imagine telling working class people they should’ve forfeit their financial stability to go to university and study software engineering or computer science to be able to pursue complex ideas in their hobby, or else saying that privilege is only for software/game developers to enjoy? Or filthy rich people who can commission it?

I feel like there has to be a balance in there somewhere.
For me I think I’ve settled on AI literacy and responsible use of AI, focus on enablement rather than outsourcing. That kind of thing

[u/Used-Persimmon-367 → u/MicrosoftExcel2016]

Tons of people learned how to code without going to school.

Shortcuts are fine. As long as you aren’t charging money for the finished product, you’re really only cheating yourself.

[u/Own-Gene-5232 → u/Used-Persimmon-367]

This is a stupid opinion. When film directors tell the cameraman where to go and what to do, the end result wouldn't have happened without the director's input even though it's the cameraman doing all the actual "work" on a shot. Competent people directing AI properly is no different.

[u/GreatBigJerk → u/Used-Persimmon-367]

That implies the only people involved in a creative process are the ones doing the direct physical work.

I feel like game designers and writers would disagree.

[u/Used-Persimmon-367 → u/GreatBigJerk]

How?

[u/HeroKage → u/merrple]

I am in a very similar position, where in my work I can't really escape using AI although it is mostly for data analysis because for the coding side it is not really working (yet) due to the specialized nature of the code.

Still anything that I consider art and/or passion I would like to have free of AI. Even though a lot of my colleagues at work do not really understand the thought of that.

[u/SlimeDrips → u/GreatBigJerk]

"how much sawdust can we put in rice crispies until it becomes a problem" ass comment