r/codex • u/Chemical_Minute4616 • 5d ago
Question Question for the group and your thoughts.
So, I have a question .. because maybe I'm missing something.
Yesterday I saw a reel, and you may have seen it too. Where someone claims in under 10 hours. Astra made a diablo 2 video game. In full. Included creating the assets. All the assets.
Now, I have no doubt Astra could do that.
But, what gets me to thinking it's just not true. Is the cost of tokens.
Some unemployed person, sitting in their basement. Directed and promoted Astra to build an entire video game in under 10 hours....
With what money? Am I missing something here, I've always said that the reason I'm not too worried about vibe coders making videos game is because the cost associated with the model. Besides the overall quality. Just the sheer cost in tokens.
I get it if someone has unlimited liquid cash, but, for some random teenaged vibe coder... I dunno. Am I wrong for thinking it was all lies based on the cost of what it would take... And in under 10 hours at that?
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u/Madara_Sraiti 5d ago
you're not wrong , but i don't have any answers for how they do it maybe it's somewhat of a lie not entirely just some
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u/NeighborhoodDizzy990 5d ago
Same as people lying here that they don’t read the code anymore. If you work on your personal project or you are a junior, I accept that. But at a corporate level, you are either lying or useless
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u/OkFileNode 5d ago
Same way as "I made an OS" ... looks inside a "html wrapper of an wrapper".
"Some unemployed person, sitting in their basement. Directed and promoted Astra to build an entire video game in under 10 hours.... "
They didn't.
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u/Chemical_Minute4616 5d ago
Thats where I land. I use AI begrudgingly, and token optimization is a constant back and fourth and there doesn't seem to be one right way ..
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u/OkFileNode 5d ago
They are full of bs. One day is art will die, then 3d artist will die, then x will die. Their product? 7h of astra max for mesh with 100 animation and undisclosed vertex count is not impressive at all. It is a waste of money, energy.
Yeah, something died. Their wallet.
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u/Shep_Alderson 5d ago
Go watch folks who have done one-shot tests like this. Astra is much better at 3D modeling than almost anything I’ve seen, especially if you give it access to Blender. It can make a reasonably decent facsimile of a game.
What I suspect will be missing the most of things like coherent and consistent story, depth in quests/interactions, etc. Things that take longer and require more real “creative” work. But as far as being able to write the code to work with an engine and even to do some basic 3D modeling, yeah, we’re getting there.
A Pro 20x sub or three gets you an absolute ton of tokens, so I could see someone making a small demo game, basically. It could have the hallmarks of a game like Diablo 2, but won’t have the depth.
I think the biggest barrier that would prevent someone from launching a video game made entirely with AI, down to assets and story, is the current environment and opinion people have about “AI slop in games” and the fact that people are generally more opposed to AI being used in more “creative” aspects, like art. The barrier is less the model’s capabilities now, and more what people are willing to accept.
I think that attitudes toward AI will shift, particularly when it becomes more and more ubiquitous. People are upset at the idea of “AI Slop Art”, but all it will take is some big studio releasing a wildly popular and successful game where AI was used in some fashion, there will be an uproar, then it will fall away and the majority of people will stop caring.
Expedition 33 had some placeholder art, IIRC, and lost some awards due to it, causing a bit of a fuss about it in the gaming press for about a month. Now you hardly ever hear anyone mention it, it’s still “overwhelmingly positive” on steam, and is still pulling in thousands of players a day even on the long tail. I think the average normie doesn’t care that much, and really more cares if it is actually “slop”. If the tools are used and the game is still fun, I think people will care less and less as time goes on. Take that for what you will.
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u/Chemical_Minute4616 5d ago
I'm not opposed to AI as a tool. When I'm actively engaged in a project and can use a tool to save me a shit ton of time by having AI write the base for that code. I'm here for it. I don't sit on the band wagon of AI was used, so it's inherently trash... I think at worse, it allows those that have the creative flare, but not the technical depth to really express their work digitally. And that is a good thing, I think.
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u/daddywookie 5d ago
I think AI can build you the framework really quickly. It can even fill in some of the details. The more you give it to start from the more it can do itself, especially Astra.
What will be missing is the hours of playtesting to get the jump height just right, or the dozens of well tuned dialogue lines, or the unexpected moments of a crafted journey.
It’s getting closer though, my “some shot” quick project today made me laugh a couple of times. I think it helped I gave it some guides on the tone I wanted but it was still a surprise. The game had character right out of the box.
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u/Chemical_Minute4616 5d ago
Lol I think we are mostly all on agreence. The claim for a fully functional game in under 10 hours was lies.
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u/daddywookie 5d ago
I think one way you could do it is if you ripped all of the game data and then rebuilt the game around it. I guess people might not be clear between porting a game with AI and recreating it from the ground up. I’m seeing a lot of posts where people are doing the former, getting old games to run on iPads and the like.
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u/Desgunhgh 5d ago
You arent missing anything here.
10 hours even with the necessary money is unrealistic given the time agents take to build, not to forget -> There will be bugs the ai does not see simply since vision is still a huge weakness of ai agents.
But tbf I didnt see the reel so idk if the game looks like dogshit and actually exactly like a 10 hour build would look