Written August 8th, 2026.

This page explains how Artificial Intelligence (as it is known in 2026) is used in the production of Tinydark's games. I am Vael Victus, the studio's sole producer.

When AI Is Used

Programming. Writing, refactoring, and debugging code. AI has been a huge productivity boost, and it's given me more time to focus on game development, and not have to make compromises for time.

Assets. I research the style I want for the project, then produce images. For pixel art, I use Retro Diffusion, who have trained on their own licensed dataset. I make a conscious effort to ensure the assets I create don't have mistakes or an obvious "AI-generated" feel.

Music. Occasionally I'll generate music, though I'm just as likely to use licensed human-composed tracks.

When AI Is NOT Used

Game Design and Content. I did not become a game developer so that I can offload the fun part to a machine!

Writing. I write my own blog posts, I write my own in-game prose, and you'd definitely notice if I didn't.

SFX and soundscapes. I quite enjoy sound design.

Marketing. If I can't sell someone on the game in my own words, we have a serious problem. ;)

Model Training

Your data will never be used to train any AI models.