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The Star Fox-style roguelite whose dev refused to use AI voices to cut costs is adding an entire "anti-capitalist revenge" campaign about a cat-girl destroying AI (www.gamesradar.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by FiniteBanjo to c/games@lemmy.world

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Since the Link isn't working for some:

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/roguelike/the-star-fox-style-roguelite-whose-dev-refused-to-use-ai-voices-to-cut-costs-is-adding-an-entire-anti-capitalist-revenge-campaign-about-a-cat-girl-destroying-ai/

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[-] minibyte@sh.itjust.works 81 points 3 weeks ago

Whisker Squadron: Survivor

[-] Gamers_Mate@kbin.run 34 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks just had a look at the game on steam it looks interesting. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2140100/Whisker_Squadron_Survivor/

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Man I played way to much star fox. This looks very nostalgic

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

It’s honestly giving big Starlight Brigade vibes.

[-] Gamers_Mate@kbin.run 3 points 2 weeks ago

Wow Starlight Brigade has great animation I wonder if that was the inspiration.

[-] Caboose12000@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Woah my favorite band, mentioned in the wild

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 26 points 3 weeks ago

So wait, the AI is destroying cat-girls?

[-] FiniteBanjo 20 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, support your local cat girl VAs or they will disappear forever.

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 6 points 2 weeks ago

Nyaaa~ OwO

[-] Lukewarm_Tea@lemm.ee 13 points 3 weeks ago

The robots took our jobs

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

I've never been more am enemy of AI than this moment.

[-] brsrklf@jlai.lu 23 points 3 weeks ago

Hey, they did Race the Sun, that was fun. Interesting.

I am going to wait till it's finished though.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

refused to use ai voices

Have we just started handing out awards for anything that isn’t AI? They didn’t use ai for this! They didn’t use ai for that! Like okay we get it, how about just list what they did use AI for and be done with it

[-] FiniteBanjo 11 points 2 weeks ago

At this rate we are in fact going to need to have separate awards shows for non-LLM artistry.

To answer your question, though, it's more than just the refusal but the addition of an anti-AI story campaign.

[-] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's an amazingly click-baity headline.

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

I like the idea and gameplay, but man am I tired of that color palette

[-] catalyst@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

Nice. I had this on my list already, this just makes me want it more. I’ll probably wait for a full release though.

[-] MHLoppy@fedia.io 10 points 3 weeks ago

FYI if you're one of the people who just sees an image, the original includes a link to this:

[-] MBM@kbin.run 5 points 3 weeks ago

I was wondering what was up with that

[-] FiniteBanjo 3 points 2 weeks ago

Strange, the link is working on my post for me.

[-] MHLoppy@fedia.io 6 points 2 weeks ago

Probably a quirk of having different software. I'm on Fedia which runs on mbin, as does kbin.run which MBM is on. You're on lemmy, so I guess something was just handled differently for you (and most users!) vs kbin/mbin users.

[-] xnx@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

Hopefully they do well and can make a version that’s like the GameCube starfox game

[-] Beryl@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

That's how you land on my wishlist !

[-] furzegulo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

awesome! gonna buy this game later!

[-] Nacktmull@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Race the Sun was beautiful and I enjoy roguelites, wishlisted!

[+] Zerfallen@lemmy.world -10 points 3 weeks ago

Maybe a good balance could be a human voice actor for main dialogue, supported by ai trained on their main dialogue to voice sidequest and deep lore dialogue. It could enable fully voiced dialogue-heavy games that would otherwise be too expensive to produce, something like generative RPGs or Morrowind, if all the books could be voiced, and more easily translated while remaining fully voiced. But keeping humans to fill the main campaign contributions, emotional beats and determine character personality. I'm just comparing Morrowind to Oblivion, which was voiced, but the dialogue and conversation trees were heavily reduced in volume as a result.

[-] FiniteBanjo 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Maybe a good balance would be hiring a person to speak lines into a microphone. It could employ a person and create art with an acceptable bare minimum quality standard. If you can't afford that and would rather push the costs onto government subsidies for power and emissions, maybe instead just do text dialogue or pull a classic Banjo and Kazooie single dialogue line randomly jumbled up and pitch shifted for every interaction.

[-] richmondez@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago

I assume you also only buy hand crafted porcelain items, only buy hand picked produce and generally avoid all automation amd modern convenience. Take your clothes to a local hand-wash rather than using a washing machine too do you? I agree that the energy cost should be taken into account before we declare it to be cheaper to use "AI" generated content.

[-] FiniteBanjo 3 points 2 weeks ago

If vases at the store were Handcrafted by LLMs, as if that made any fucking sense, then I'd rather go without, yeah.

[-] richmondez@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Like LLMs just spontaneously create lines of audio? They need a human operator to direct them to generate audio just like machines that make most vases are human operated but allow the person to make far more and more quickly than they would by hand. An LLM is still just a tool that needs a person to wield it, it doesn't replace them it just changes their role and makes them more efficient.

[-] FiniteBanjo 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Using machine learning to clone voices required building upon millions or maybe even billions of lines of dialogue to reach the current point, and only now that it is here can you easily approximate a person's voice without them even knowing. So yes, it does magically generate sound with minimal input, that is how that works.

The machines that are currently used to shape and paint ceramics are not Machine Learning models. They're simple and precise automations. Like a program that packages audio to .mp3 format. The equivalent to that would be a machine that designs the vase based on thousands of older examples, designs the packaging, and designs the machinery that prepares it. It's going to do a shit job that negatively impacts consumers but in the process it displaced thousands of workers in one go, so enjoy the profits.

[-] richmondez@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

You missed the point of what I said. Machines that manufacture goods put many people out of the job and yet you now very few people think that is an issue. At the time however the same kind of arguments I see made against LLMs putting people out of work were being made about these machines making soulless products that missed the human touch. LLMs are just a new tool we've invented to make life easier for ourselves. In time the same thing will happen with LLMs once the hype dies down and they just become part of the tool sets we all use without thinking about it.

[-] FiniteBanjo 0 points 2 weeks ago

I didn't miss shit, your points are just ass.

[-] richmondez@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

If you understood my point why didn't you address it rather than meandering around it asserting that somehow this particular invention is totally different to previous disruptive technologies that we accept as having been beneficial and no on opposes amymore? How exactly is it different this time in history where it never really has been previously? It may well be of course, but history is against it being so.

[-] squirrels@midwest.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

[-] knitwitt@lemmy.world -2 points 2 weeks ago

Using a robotic voice could make the game more accessible to blind, partially sighted, and dyslexic individuals. I'm not sure how an AI voice is inherently different than the voice that comes out of a screen reader, especially if it's trained on the voice of employees or volunteers.

[-] FiniteBanjo 4 points 2 weeks ago

I don't think the vast majority of games which could make use of AI Voice have the sort of accessibility features to be played by those individuals even if they could hear the dialogue. It's such a rare occurrence for a blind person to beat halo or an RPG that news articles get written about the examples.

[-] knitwitt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

What about partially sighted or dyslexic individuals? Sure, a game like halo would need a lot of modification to be fully blind accessible, but a visual novel, for instance, might not. In my experience most visual novels are built as passion projects on shoestring budgets.

Lots of existing games have robotic narrators already (e.g minecraft), they just speak with a monotone voice. By incorporating more advance machine learning capabilities the same narrator could be capable of outputting a more nuanced and pleasant delivery for those that need it.