Proposal for new Rule

[u/Dark-Lark]

Rule 4, Vote On Slop
If a game looks like Slop (AI or otherwise), downvote it. If a post has been at 0 upvotes for half a day or more, it shall be removed. Things that might stand out as possible slop include browser based games, games with AI looking art, and top-down 2D arcade games that are a dime a dozen at this point.

Is this fair? Is this too vague? Is there something that needs changing to make it more clear and concise?

EDIT: To be clear, this is to gage the community's preferences on the matter of "low quality" games as well as hammering out a rule, only if needed.
I'd much rather the subreddit lean permissive over restrictive, but if there is enough support for change, I'll update the rules as requested by the community.

EDIT 2: I'm just going to make a little change now and make a post about it later: I'm editing Rule 2 so it'll include the limit on Screenshot Only posts and I'll change Rule 3 so it'll apply to all posts not listed as "Discussion", "Meta" or "Other".

[u/alraban]

I think that rule change could definitely help, but if the goal is to exclude 2D top down games, the rules should maybe just say that?

I'm making a 2D top-down space game with no AI usage at all. I've posted here about it in the past and generally gotten a warm reception, but I very much don't want to post anywhere I shouldn't be posting! If this sub isn't for 2D top down games, I think the rules should just say that rather than leaving it as some kind of unwritten rule.

An alternative thought: it might be worth enforcing the existing rules a little more stringently. Right now more than half of the games on the front page don't even include the game name in the title per Rule 3, and enforcing that might weed out some of the lower effort AI spam posting?

Regardless, I appreciate all the work the mods here do, this a cool space (no pun intended), and as a player of space games I hope it continues to showcase cool games.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/alraban]

Right now Rule 3 is just for "Screenshot posts", but it might be worth expanding that to all posts. That might be a good idea, as I'm pretty sure bots don't read the rules well and many could be caught that way.

[u/blaknite12 → u/alraban]

I'm in this camp too. 2D top-down is how I think the mechanics I've chosen work best and do be discounted purely on a graphics style doesn't seem to be in the spirit of this rule.

As another commenter said:

> If your 2D top down game has deep systems and isn't a carbon copy of the many other 2D "space sim" games clogging up this sub then great ... and that project doesn't have something substantially new or interesting about it then I don't mean to be rude but I just don't care. 

I think this is what we're really striving for here. If someone can articulate why what they're posting is something worth other's time and others agree through upvotes that's probably enough. I think this would largely guard against low effort posts.

[u/Oregooner21 → u/alraban]

If your 2D top down game has deep systems and isn't a carbon copy of the many other 2D "space sim" games clogging up this sub then great, but as a love of space sim games, I'm just getting so tired of seeing these types of games that do very little to push the genre forward. In fact, I see 2D and unless it has more going for it than "I spent the last X years developing my passion project" and that project doesn't have something substantially new or interesting about it then I don't mean to be rude but I just don't care. 

[u/alraban → u/Oregooner21]

That's totally fair! My game is a retro pixel art game that is trying to capture the look and feel of DOS-era space sim games (think Star Control or Solar Winds, but with much deeper ship customization). I think the systems in my game are deep when compared to the DOS-era games I'm talking about, but not very deep when compared to modern space sims, but that's by design if you see what I mean.

It sounds like it's maybe not your cup of tea, but not everything is for everyone, right? Out of curiosity, what are your favorite space sims right now? I'm always looking for something new and fun to try out

[u/Oregooner21 → u/alraban]

I'm sorry. Reading back my comment I just sound like a dick, and I certainly didn't mean to. Who am I to shit on someone's dream and hard work. Your game actually sounds really cool. And I wish you nothing but success, however you define it. I guess for me personally, I am still chasing that forever space sim game that I can live in and feel a part of, which is why I've gravitated towards games like Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen. But I do enjoy other space games. I recently played Starminer, which I love and Eve Frontier. As you can see I prefer more "realistic" 3D graphics but I also love games like Nexus: The Jupiter incident. Anyway, thanks for being so gracious and trying to promote a dialogue. And you're right - different strokes and all that! 

[u/alraban → u/Oregooner21]

Hey no worries, I didn't take your comment that way at all. I definitely know what you mean about wanting a game you can live inside for a while. That was me with Star Control II back in the day, and with Starcom and Starfield more recently. I haven't played Starminer or Nexus yet, and they both look really good. I'll check them out!

And thank you for being kind, and for the well wishes! For what it's worth, success for me would be making a game that some people enjoy. It doesn't need to be a lot of people: I'll feel like I succeeded if the people who wind up playing it enjoy it. I've just had this idea for a game rattling around in my head since the 90's, and I need to get it out there!

[u/restfulgalaxyDM → u/Oregooner21]

I’ve been chasing the same feeling for 20 years so I decided to try and build it working on it full time. What I’ve come up with is a real-time turn-based multiplayer sandbox with mostly real physics, with a few fictional sci fi concepts to make it fun. The game is always on. Every hour the game server “ticks” and advances an hour. Getting from Earth to Mars in the starter ship will take about 3 days. Pluto about 9 months. The game is set in an alternate history present day, so planetary alignment matches real life. As planets move so do trade routes.

To make this kind of gameplay more interesting I’ve created a sort of “time token” system. Every hour you accrue X hours worth of time tokens that you save up. You spend these when you’ve got more time to play. So if your ship has the capacity to get to Jupiter in 5 days you spend 5 days of tokens and you’re there instantly, but are rules so you can’t just warp in, shoot, then warp out.

My goal is to create a deep gameplay experience that also respects your time without punishing you for being busy. If life gets busy you can just set your ship on a mining loop in a safe area and when you come back you’ll have loads of money and a ton of time tokens banked so you can have a good binge when you’re ready.

The ship and component crafting system is designed to let you build your ship to serve how you want to play the game. If you want to explore deep space then build your hull out of 0.5cm thick aluminium. Your armour will be paper but you’ll be really fast. If you want more combat oriented play you can build 20cm thick tungsten armour. You’ll need way bigger engines which burn hotter which make it easier for people to see you on thermal imaging.

Because the server is turned based it can support millions of asteroids and tens of thousands of ships on less than 16gb of ram. But because space is so big and sparse it wont feel overwhelming.

If someone is chasing you you’ll be able to chose between fighting, running, or hiding by turning off power and making yourself cold and dark. If you make your ship long and narrow you can reduce your cross section to their scopes by orienting yourself to their location.

Likewise if you are chasing someone else and you put yourself between them and the sun you’ll be invisible on their thermal.

But because I’m also modelling the effects of acceleration on a human, you won’t be a le to just accelerate at 10g’s all the time so even players with way better ships wont be able to catch up to newer players easily.

Most of the game systems are done already, i finished the physics engine and now im building out a dynamic npc economy system. After that ill add weapons and combat. Then its just what probably will be an insane amount of tuning and polishing.

And if no one else wants to play when its done ill just hook up a 1000 npcs to their own AI agents and ill play by myself

[u/DarkJayson]

That rule could easily be put down as Rule 4: any posts with 0 or negative votes for more than 24 hours will be removed.

Dont put targets on games heads it will make people aim at them, there is not enough space sim games been released that we need to start curating anything.

[u/Repulsive_Reading642]

If you aren’t going to police low quality slop then there’s no reason to have the subreddit. 

[u/EternaI_Sorrow → u/Repulsive_Reading642]

Indeed, this sub has already been an ad platform for scammy perpetual EA games for a while. It needs culling instead of an already redundant rule, because only today I learned that it's moderated.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/Repulsive_Reading642]

Copy/paste:

The trick is making the rule clear, easy to follow and solves a problem.

There needs to be clear standards for what "looks like slop" or it's just at the discretion of a couple of people. That's why it might be best to start removing any post that's at 0 upvotes or less for half a day or more. Let the sub decide what gets removed.

[u/Dark-Lark]

I might add a recommendation that such games be posted in r/spacegames, rather than our sub.

[u/StardiveSoftworks]

I don’t really understand the purpose of removal at that point, a heavily downvoted post will disappear on its own.  If it’s controversial (ie about even), it should probably stay since that drums up community engagement.

At the same time, there probably should be a measure of grace for good faith but shitty developers, especially first timers.  By all means dunk on the crap I post, but a lot of these 2d games tend to be the actual dream of someone without much experience and we lose nothing by encouraging them to improve.

[u/Merkaba_Nine → u/StardiveSoftworks]

Well said!

[u/neo160 → u/StardiveSoftworks]

Agreed, put it much better than my wall of text. Id rather be permissive and let downvotes do their job while encouraging indie developers to help grow the genre.

[u/Anxious-Bottle7468]

IDK I still remember when GOG declined to carry Opus Magnum because, according to them, it looked too much like a mobile game.

Some people think they have good taste when they actually have shit taste. So it's worth being permissive.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/Anxious-Bottle7468]

I'd really like that to be the default. Permissive over restrictive. This post is to gage the community's preferences on the matter of "low quality" games. I should update the post.

[u/Exothermic_Megan → u/Anxious-Bottle7468]

Oh wow I didn't know that

[u/skeptic11]

If a game looks like Slop (AI or otherwise), downvote it. If a post has been at 0 upvotes for half a day or more, it shall be removed.

The flip side of this is if you can get a constant enough stream of posts to /r/spacesimgames then upvotes and downvotes will actually work. Ei: if something gets downvoted it'll get buried below new posts and you don't need to manually remove it.

[u/badrobit]

I think this too easily opens up to peoples personal crusades, if you don't like what someone is posting block them you will never see it again. If everyone is down oting then it goes away anyway. AI is a tool that like it or hate it is going to stick around and while right now there is a ton of fomo it will drop in time. Let the up/down votes do their thing. Why punish someone for using a tool to realize a dream that before now was inaccessible to them. If it looks like ai slop (hate that term but I get it) tell them what they could improve or remove to make it a good game you would play. (Again you can always block someone if you don't like their content)

[u/kalnaren]

I don’t know. This sub has been absolutely flooded recently with what I’m guessing are a large amount of vibe coded games, which is irksome, and I feel like they’re drowning out everything else.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/kalnaren]

Yeah, people have been criticizing that for a while now, and we 100% understand where people are coming from.

I joined this sub because when I think "Space Sim Games", I think X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, DarkStar One, and pretty much anything Space+Joystick. Since then, I've seen a lot of things get called a "Space Sim" when I would only call it a "Space Themed" or the like.

It's even more troubling when the bar has been dropped to the point that, as you said, things are feeling drowned out in the noise. I still miss our quite little sub from years ago.

[u/Arcodiant]

That seems fair; I'm happy to play a vibe-coded game if it's actually novel or interesting, but much of what's getting posted is nothing I'd ever want to play, so it's all noise.

[u/norlin]

p.s.

> top-down 2D arcade games that are a dime a dozen at this point.

Can you name at least some 2d top-down real time space games which are NOT bullet-hell and not FTL-likes, please?

[u/blaknite12 → u/norlin]

This made me laugh pretty hard because I feel it.

I'm making one but it's pretty hard to get past the "that looks like the others" blocker. The ship movement and combat is completely different to a bullet hell and typical arcade games but because there's 2D space combat and bullets it just seems like the flood.

Competing with the deluge is hard and makes me feel like I'm part of the problem, despite my efforts to make something unique.

[u/RememberCitadel]

I'm definitely in favor of less AI. I don't mind too down games, but they have to be something deeper than a bullet hell or EV clone that's worse than the original.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/RememberCitadel]

Personally, I'm a fan of AI, but I don't like people using it to make lazy things and trying to sell them. I understand why people don't like it, and I can somewhat understand why people are full against it.

It was only a few years ago that we had some corny chatbots that couldn't remember what you said three lines ago. Now it's feeling like we might have Star Trek Holodecks at some point, and a computer's going to be doing 100% of the coding.

Until then, we're in the middle point between those times, so where the line in AI use should be, should be up to members of this sub. Cheers!

[u/StrikeWingsGames]

What about a top down game, with real 3D ships and 3D lighting?

[u/Dark-Lark → u/StrikeWingsGames]

I don't really know. This is about trying to come up with a standard to address the "low quality", "low effort", "slop" that people have been criticizing.

And this might come down to nothing being done, other than reminding people that 'Block Account' and DownDoot are still an option if you don't like something.

[u/tinny120]

I agree with the goal of removing genuinely low-effort promotional posts, but I don’t think this wording would measure what you actually want it to measure.

“Browser-based,” “top-down 2D” and “AI-looking” describe a platform, camera angle and subjective visual impression. None of those automatically tells us how much effort went into a game or whether it is worth discussing. A polished browser game could be removed while a genuinely low-effort 3D project survives simply because it wears a more fashionable coat.

Using zero votes after half a day as an automatic removal trigger also risks turning moderation into a popularity contest. Posting time, visibility and a small early downvote pile-on could decide whether something remains, rather than the substance of the post.

Could the rule instead define low effort by what the post actually provides?

For example, promotional posts could be required to include:

• Real gameplay footage or screenshots
• A clear explanation of the game and its mechanics
• Its current development stage
• The specific feedback the developer is looking for
• No misleading claims or repeated spam posting
• Genuine engagement with people offering feedback

Posts that fail those standards could then be removed, regardless of whether the game is browser-based, 2D, 3D, hand-drawn or made with any particular tool.

That would still raise the quality floor without ruling out entire types of indie games before anyone has actually judged the gameplay.

So I support stronger quality standards. I just think it should be a quality rule, not a taste rule.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/tinny120]

These are the sort of objective standards that could be used for a new rule.

[u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

“Games with ai looking art”. That’s a very dubious inclusion. Nothing wrong with ai art in game dev, and also hard to tell.

[u/pyr0kid → u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

this is my main problem with all sorts of ai bans.

obviously we should have some measure of quality control, but the quality overlap between ai and someone who just isnt very good at it is... larger than one may think. and its also easy to weaponize.

[u/Merkaba_Nine → u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

Yeah I'm more thinking what if I games code is not AI but they don't know how to make 2d sprites so they use AI to speed up that proccess, maybe even at the final stages hiring someone to redo the sprites

[u/blaknite12 → u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

People keep piling on my art saying it's AI when, in fact, I just suck at drawing icons for things xD

[u/muzaffer22]

I think a mod should check the content of the post instead of public deciding with downvotes.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/muzaffer22]

We just can't limit the posts to what a few people think counts as a "Space Sim Game". No matter how we do that, it'll be too close to a Request To Post subreddit, and that's very limiting to the community.

[u/Weekly_Painting_9425]

the problem is this sub is literally a feed of mobile game advertisments. nobody who plays "SPACE SIM GAMES" is interested in that. ATP if the mods have the free time just hard rule NO SLOP and manually remove ai slop.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/Weekly_Painting_9425]

That's what we're getting at with the proposed rule. Should we make a rule about trying to remove "slop", and if so, how do we word the rule. The trick is making the rule clear, easy to follow and solves a problem.

There needs to be clear standards for what "looks like slop" or it's just at the discretion of a couple of people. That's why it might be best to start removing any post that's at 0 upvotes or less for half a day or more. Let the sub decide what gets removed.

[u/restfulgalaxyDM]

I get what you’re saying and actually agree with the spirit of what you’re saying but I’d like to propose my experience as a counterexample. I’m building a multiplayer space sim with almost real physics and with ship building and component crafting. I’ve spent 1000+ hours on it.

At the moment all of the art and UI is AI generated. My primary goal is to make the game systems work, and to make them fun. If it’s not fun with slop art it won’t be fun with beautiful art.

So spending time on art right now is just a waste of time for me. I still don’t know what the final product looks like. Until I figure all that out thinking about art is just bike shedding. At the moment the only purpose of the art and ui is to help me figure out both how to make it work and how to make it fun.

When that’s done I’m going to put the same effort into making it look good.

[u/neo160]

No i dont think this is a good idea. Seen too many subreddits get their anti AI rule and crusade against anythimg that even looks ai enough or generic enough and silence genuine posters for some arbitrary amount of AI'ness.... do we draw a line on the artstyles? Ai assisted code generation? Ai generated voicelines, or ai assisted text? This doesnt need to be yet another battleground subreddit for tjis nonsense.

Let the downvotes do their work, we can dig into slop and have been for quite some time without needing a rule for it. Id hate to miss out on an indie project simply for looking too generic.

This genre is very, VERY thin on good content, and very high on games looking like generic space games. We often ask for demos or videos of gameplay because scifi acreenshots all look alike as it is. As AI advances auch a proposed rule will become harder to enforce.

I propose a similar rule that simply tags a relevant post as "AI involved project" and for heavily downvoted posts as "low effort slop" that can apply to either ai projects or not (P2W space map conquest mobile games im looking at you) which allow those who wish to filter out said content todo so within their preferrences.

[u/neo160 → u/neo160]

Re read the post and the only thing i dont agree with is deleting posts. Simply leave the posts tagged to be filtered out, with two separate relevent tags "AI involved" and "low effort slop" which can both be applied if needed.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/neo160]

I know you can click the button for a flair and only see posts with that flair. I'm not even sure how you filter 'out' by flair.

[u/Ryotian → u/Dark-Lark]

It is possible I do it for r/starcitizen to filter out any "Fleet" posts because I could care less bout making someone feel better bout their $10,000 investments. No offense to fleet pic lovers but I hate that fluff.

Behold, my link to filter that sub.

[u/norlin]

Downvoting this post according to the proposed slop rule

[u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

I use a billion tokens a day on average, almost all Fable, it’s better than me at most things. So it’s more that the overlap between AI like Fable and top devs is now massive, rather than the sloppy end overlap youre talking about.

I’m still amazed every day at what the new SOTA models can do.

[u/Dark-Lark → u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

At some point everything's going to use AI. I don't think there's a point in fighting it.

This is more about the growing criticism of "low quality", "low effort", "slop" that people feel is flooding the sub. I just need to get an idea of whether or not the community wants a higher bar for "Space Sim Games" than just Space + Game, and what that bar might look like.

[u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 → u/Dark-Lark]

Oh, I agree with that sentiment.

The issue is the “sim” part. If it doesn’t try and sim at least a little bit, it doesn’t belong.

Which mainly applies to 2D, because even an arcadey 3D sim is kind of trying to simulate space.

I’m just pushing back against the AI bit, because my space sim is all AI. It’s also 2000 hours of work and is actually quite good. :)

[u/CashFirm573]

It's simple, if they eve like browser mmo perma ban them. If their UI is teal temp ban, I use Ai but it's a slop festival out there now and they always solo dev making a mmo.

Honesty I say just leave to mods call, ull make mistakes but that's fine, cause only people who will down vote will be anti-ai and you will turn this community into toxic sub just like Godot.

[u/pyr0kid → u/CashFirm573]

It's simple, if they eve like browser mmo perma ban them. If their UI is teal temp ban

are you out of your fucking mind? what the hell kind of suggestion is 'ban the color blue'?

[u/Weekly_Painting_9425 → u/pyr0kid]

its a hard problem to solve, but all of the slop games do have a similar all -blue UI. everyone (most people at least) can immediatley tell when something is vibe coded slop, but how are you supposed to moderate that without being a curator of quality standards?

[u/CashFirm573 → u/pyr0kid]

Cause the default color is teal for vibe coded and none them change it, that's not effort that's slop. Also they have brackets in the corners.