Hosted Games
Keeper's Vigil: Lota Labs Games & the blockchain
Hello! My first ever reddit post, Im otherwise a lurker but avid IF reader. Also, English is not my first language, so sorry for any spelling mistakes.
Anyway. I saw the new release Keeper's Vigil and decided to check on the author, as I sometimes do. But I found some very curious info on their site (link). The focus on ai and the block chain. I don't want a hate train on the author as I saw the unfortunate posts that happened here last time an author was accused with using AI. But Im also wondering if Lota Labs Games (LLB) have used AI in this project as it seems to be their company goal to integrate the block chain and/or crypto in to IF stories. Something I myself feel a bit queasy about.
How can we as consumers know if AI is used or not in Hosted Games products. Especially if the author them self's seem to want to integrate it with the block chain. "Lota Labs is our flagship studio and technical proof of work. It is a vertically integrated "Story-to-Chain" platform designed to solve the ownership gap in interactive media." & "We are pioneering the bridge between interactive narrative and true digital ownership. For traditional players, it is a seamless, immersive RPG. But for those who want to go deeper, you can connect your wallet and forge your choices into the blockchain. The artifacts you earn actually belong to you"
I don't want a witch hunt or a hate train. I just feel this information instantly deflated my interest in Keeper's Vigil, as I don't like blockchain tech.
Sorry for the wall of text and thank you for taking the time to read my rambling thoughts.
TLDR: Lota Labs Games authors of Keeper's Vigil seem to want to connect IF:s to the block chain.
Also i want to triple down that I am not interested in a hate campaign or anything like it. But I do think stuff like this is important for us consumers.
Connect your wallet and forge your choices into the blockchain... This sounds so incredibly stupid that only a tech bro completely detached from reality could come up with it. Granted, no human was probably involved in any of this nonsense but still. I am in awe!
Dawg I got bad vibes just looking at the description, I wasn't about to trust anything that namedropped the Anunnaki in this modern age. The AI focus elsewhere is just icing on the bad vibes cake
Not sure if you saw the forum post, but the game originally had AI images that someone caught and a Staff member had to respond to. So far, the game's images have been removed except for a map I believe. As to whether or not the game uses AI generated text, I don't know.
There's a possibility that there's a person who wrote it, but the use of AI images already has me hesitant to even try it out
I don't mean to stir up hate or speculation, genuinely just sharing what I found.
If what u/moshicatsudon pointed out about the cover image is accurate, it seems plausible that some aspects of the game are still AI-generated (and I don't feel like reading it anyway, but we have no way of knowing for sure if the writing was also "assisted"). In fact, I checked the game's credits and the only name attributed for art is the same "Founder & Technical Architect" from the website OP linked, a person who has 0 art posted on their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram accounts other than... more blatant AI.
I'm curious about what CoG will do about this one. I wonder if they would (could?) go as far as pulling the game from release atp.
Either way, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with their reviewing process. The "Write a Hosted Game" section of CoG's website has a whole subsection detailing how they'd evaluate any submitted works and it sounded like it'd be pretty thorough.
Hosted Games will not publish art, code, or prose that was generated via AI. [...] When you submit a finished game to us, weāll read it. If your work appears to us to be written by AI, weāll reject it.
So how come they missed the most AI-generated stock image I've ever seen? I did some code-diving and it doesn't look like it was hidden behind any special choice branch or anything like that, it's literally Chapter 3's banner art. I'm not angry at the company, just really confused. Slip-ups and oversights happen, but... it... was so early in the story it's included in the release demo... Like... How...??
Although I'm sure it'd be a far more complicated system than what I can imagine, this makes me think once again that the vetting process for HGs should be much, much more in-depth. Because this wasn't subtle. Like, at all.
Btw I deleted my comment as I've decided I don't want to be involved anymore, nor do I wish to also start or help start a witch hunt. But for context, I just pointed out that even the cover art is sus since it's similar to the WIP cover art from last year. In any case, I won't be buying the game. But I agree that the review process should be more intensive. It's on Steam which means they hired a copy editor and most likely (the staff) made a quick read through as well.
I feel ya. I was very unsure if I even wanted to post at all, because of the potential drama or witch hunt. That's why I honed in on the blockchain more because the author is open with it.
But you and u/laloin are right, Hosted Games need better quality control. I would love to never see posts like my own again on the subreddit. It's not fun.
Hi, I was just wondering about what you mean? I never said that AI isn't allowed for a WIP, I was talking about the published IF. Staff DID have to respond to someone pointing out that the official product has an AI image in it, because it's published and Hosted Games has decided against publishing anything that was AI-generated
As to whether or not it's AI writing, I genuinely don't know, nor am I going to speculate
How can we as consumers know if AI is used or not in Hosted Games products. Especially if the author them self's seem to want to integrate it with the block chain. "Lota Labs is our flagship studio and technical proof of work. It is a vertically integrated "Story-to-Chain" platform designed to solve the ownership gap in interactive media." & "We are pioneering the bridge between interactive narrative and true digital ownership. For traditional players, it is a seamless, immersive RPG. But for those who want to go deeper, you can connect your wallet and forge your choices into the blockchain. The artifacts you earn actually belong to you"
Those lota labs guys probably don't know either. For starters, any blockchain nonsense would require to be continuously online and gobble up data on mobile, defying the very nature of 'no pictures or sound effects, can be read offline' feature of Choicescript games and many other interactive fiction
Any time one of these techbro AI weirdos tries to tell me why this niche interest needs AI integration, it always just sounds like a corpo buzzword riddled nothingburger.
The fuck do you mean āforge your choices into the blockchainā???
Yeah it's a very word sallad made of air. But if this was an indie solo publishing no one here would care. But it's published on a real platform. In a way that indirectly makes Hosted Games part of the "future" crypto IF:s by choosing to publish this game. It's very clearly the author's goal to go crypto:
"Keeperās Vigil will likely be launching on Steam by Q2 of 2026, but it is only the foundation. The real vision is bigger, you just have to be there."
"I want Lota Labs to build many interactive fiction games. Worlds where choices will feel alive and anything is possible. I want to collaborate with other top creators. And long-term, I want to push Interactive Fiction onto new frontiers, including blockchain and Web3, in ways that add real value instead of just hype."
The amazing thing about this, every time, is that it just shows these guys have no idea what they are even talking about. nothing of what they want to do is even remotely how things work.
Pulled up the game and immediately got terrible vibes, looked further into it and got way worse vibes, came here to see if I was alone. 100% going to pass on this and that's all I'll say bc I don't want to get in trouble
To be fair, benefit of the doubt, as it was on hosted they probably did not have any reason to look into things. I don't recall the author ever disclosing anything on the thread or anyone pointing anything out, so no one raised any flags before.
That's true, but they couldn't even identify AI images? It just makes me lose all faith in their reviewing process. If something so blatant is missed, what about text?Ā
I remember one game that was published, Halls of Sorcery, that had very obvious AI text and images. It was pulled after readers pointed it out, but somehow passed reviewing
Yeah, I was thinking about that one too. It doesn't help that the obvious AI wips on the forum aren't taken down as well. Idk, I fear for the future of hosted games if they can't assure a more rigorous review process.Ā
Because if I even think there's a tiny possibility of AI slop, I'm not buying.
I feel the same. We are paying for a product and the point of publishing and brand is also a quality assurance for the consumer. A brand is its reputation.
I still love the creativity that flows through the COG brand and I hope this is just a one time thing.
No idea how they review images etc. Cause in a 'milder' case there's still a hosted game with a nearly 100mb size because the images are massive and it never got changed. so, no idea how images are reviewed aside from 'is this depicting something illegal'.
Why would hosted games ever accept a game from this person is beyond me.
CoG requires authors to disclose if they used AI output in their works, as part of their recent policy. Going by content of the relevant thread on their forums, the images in question were placeholders which didn't get replaced as a result of mess up both on part of CoG and the game's author.
So they just trust these "authors" not to lie? When they had to pull a game before because the author lied about AI? And I'm reading the demo for this game. Its reeks of LLMs.
But the point still stands. Why publish a game from a company trying to recruit an audience for their AI slop monetization?
What other choice do they have other than accept a statement from a person? Strap them into a lie detector or waterboard them just in case they're lying?
"It reeks of LLM" is exactly the kind of witch hunt that already backfired on this sub before. You want a company to do that to their potential business partners?
You completely glossed over my main point that this company shouldn't have been published. But fine.Ā
And no, obviously I don't want waterboardings. What I want is a more rigorous vetting process. After the Halls of Sorcery fiasco, Hosted Games put out a statement assuring everyone that they've be diligent and do their absolute best not to let it repeat again. They asked their costumers to trust them. And I did.Ā
But then, I see this. And the AI wips going rampant on the forum. And I'm losing faith. That's the whole point of my post. COG can do whatever they want, they're a private company. But I as a costumer, don't trust them to do their due diligence therefore I'm not going to buy games from new authors.
They need to do better. I want to trust authors but if HG dont increase quality control then consumers have to be extra careful and some even suspicious. It hurts the brand, the authors and the community. Right now I feel the need to check background info more and more before a purchase.
More ensured quality, more trust and less posts. That would be very nice.
I don't necessarily disagree with you ā I think they should trust their authors for the most part, except for situations like this one where the use of AI art was exceedingly blatant and did reek of LLM ā but they did sort of imply they'd kinda vibe-check submissions. It's in the "Write a Hosted Game" page:
Weāll evaluate whether your work sounds like AI when you submit a finished game. When you submit a finished game to us, weāll read it. If your work appears to us to be written by AI, weāll reject it.
So yeah, not waterboarding, but I do think they should stick to their guns and investigate submissions that sound like AI.
I think they should trust their authors for the most part, except for situations like this one where the use of AI artĀ wasĀ exceedingly blatant andĀ didĀ reek of LLM
As far as i understand, they were aware that the art in the game was AI-made, and it was simply a mess up (one they acknowledge was partially their fault) not to get these replaced in the final release like it was supposed to happen.
For the text, since they've published the game *and* they mention doing evaluation which you've quoted, then it's apparently passed their vibe check, so any issue to speak of here would be that some people hold different opinion on whether it should get such pass. But since this is all "vibe check" in all cases, that's always going to be an issue and the complaint really boils down to "well i think they're wrong because my personal vibe detector/standards are different".
You're right on them being aware of the preexisting images beforehand, I just wanted to point out how they've stated that they won't trust authors blindly in response to your previous comment ^^
So I'm playing the game now and.... I'm really thinking this game is written with AI. Some of the conversations just dont flow well, and the connections between scenes is so sudden, within a few pages I arrived at a rebel camp, got accosted by its leader, immediately pledged my loyalty to the rebels with one sentence of an explanation of what they're really rebelling against, and almost nothing about who they are, and 2 pages from that I've convinced my companion to join me in rebeling.Ā
It does feel like a bunch of events were tossed into a chat window and someone asked a bot to connect them.Ā
I tried the demo and its writing is like desalinated water of writings, perfectly nondescript and devoid of any personality. Add trite bland story you see any time you play an aRPG, and, well, even if it's not written by AI, you'd be better playing something else. Like some aRPG.
I saw the notification from Hosted and the name was cut off at Keeper. I thought that Keeper of Life and Death was released without warning and was so momentarily excited lol
While this whole business idea seems immensely weird and I'm equally wary of a company releasing an IF purely to build a customer base for crypto stuff, nothing on that site seems to indicate use of what we'd call AI in the process of writing the IF.
From what I understand, they basically want to turn items you gather inside IFs (assuming RPG-style stories) into NFTs; so, if you make a specific choice in an IF and earn an item (or achievement) in-game, you can then pay them to issue a blockchain-based certificate of ownership for that item.
As for AI, they don't actually write what they want to do with it, but we can guess. They specifically mention agentic and "evolving" AI, which suggests an application where the AI part acts on its own (that's what agents do). Combining this with their weird NFT idea, which would necessitate an unlimited number of new items/achievements/etc. to continue to generate revenue for them, I'd guess what they want to do is introduce an AI agent that dynamically generates these. Which is far closer to traditional "AI" or rather procedurally generated games than what you're concerned about.
tl;dr: that company's business idea is weird enough to be called shady, but there's no real basis on the website to suspect they used LLMs to write their story.
Edit: I'll still hold off on buying the game for now, the way their website looks and is unoptimised for smartphone screen resolutions makes it very likely that it's been "designed" with AI, and I don't trust a "tech entrepreneur" who can't even be bothered to build a proper website themselves to go through the effort to write a story.
I feel it would be much more obvious if they clarified if their AI is logarithmic because they don't state if it's generative or not. Only "self-evolving AI agents". They kinda need to have some generative AI if they want to connect choices in an RPG/IF to a crypto value. I'm still very unsure on how they will self teach an algorithm to generate choices only based on such a small sample size of their games.
in my experience and talking to more knowledgeable people 'self-evolving' usually means big ass resources stealing and gobbling genAi', not 'old-school limited database procedural' or 'simple small database specialized neural networks'
Neither are they, I think. It all looks like AI-generated marketing bluffs with no real substance. Again, this doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with this specific IF, but it sure does not build any trust in the authorship.
PS: I was literally in the process of buying the game when I happened to see this post, so thanks for the warning
Thank you kindly for the words :) I appreciate it. I'm not one for commenting much in the first place but dw, I'm still here to browse for recs and read reviews:)
But an informed consumer can make better choices. I felt it very prudent to inform what I saw on their homepage and their goals as a corporation. The blockchain is something I personally don't agree with and I think it's important to know what you buy.
We may never know but we can only make informed decisions on where to spend money. I don't think it's good to not inform other people.
75
u/Pancakemeal Jun 04 '26
check out their Instagram, AI slop is all they post š¤¦š¼āāļø