I just bought it, and can’t wait to try it. Red Storm Rising[1] was easily one of my favourite games growing up. The combination of strategy on the war map and tactics during the encounters, weighing the pro/con of using sonar, and weaving around the thermocline was my happy place. Submarine sim games are truly a special niche, and I’m so excited to try this one out!
The game has quite the AI smell, which I think does it a disservice. The website feels AI designed, the game (transparently) uses AI graphics; it's hard to tell where the line between handcrafted and generated lies. Immediate question that shoots in my mind is: "How much of the game design is just LLM hallucinations?"
As someone who's played around with using AI for games too, this makes me not even want to give the game a chance. Which is a shame, because I think the concept is really cool. Its just tainted by something that subconciously signals me that you dont really care much about your creation.
I'd also like to hear what AI smells you are picking up in the game.
The only AI graphics in the game (as described on Steam) are literally just clean-up jobs of existing historical maps. That is it.
This is very much a hand crafted game. The design is my own - what I heavily used AI for was the coding side of things as well as for creating my own tools for myself to design things like ships, instrument dials, shipping lanes, etc.
Not OP. I can't claim whether it's AI or not, just why it could possibly raise such concerns.
I think the UI elements and layout look very similar to how LLMs like to create them. It's hard to describe, but something about the rounded-edge, thick outline buttons equidistantly placed on the side bars, and heavily dependent on tabbed layouts in sub-menus. I'd argue there's parts where menus have too much empty space, which typically hints that a menu hasn't been thought out completely. It's also the most common type of game/dashboard view that LLMs are capable of: canvas in the middle with interactive buttons on the sides.
For an example of an immersive and good looking UI I'd look to something like Sunless Sea. It's a different type of game and is more narrative driven, but it doesn't have any of the more web-like UI qualities.
Wow, hadn't heard of Sunless Sea till now, what I'm seeing of it looks gorgeous, thanks.
For Silent Shark, the map being kind of the "protagonist" if you will and then having the trays of buttons or instruments on the side was also kind of the idea in my head from the beginning.
Till now at least from sub sim fans I've heard nearly only praise for the design. But to be fair, most of the more famous submarine sims aren't necessarily known for beautiful clean UI anyways, so it's not like there are high expectations I suppose. :)
I just wanted to say that I too got the AI vibe. Which doesn't mean I would hate it! I don't care how you code. But it probably does send a slight signal of the level of effort and professionalism.
I think part of it is the UI/website text: AI tends to be verbose. And the look just feels slightly off, like the parts don't fit together. (I think AIs are better at image generation than at visual UI generation right now.)
You've got a promising product... could you hire someone to polish the UI side?
Sure, I completely understand that UI has different needs from a sim's perspective. Given that I haven't tried a sub sim before, I have yours bookmarked to try out :)
Can you explain more please? I recognise some Claude-isms when reading text, and I recall image generators that added more fingers than are usual, but I don’t know what the 2-d graphics on the app home page signify in this respect.
> They say idiotic things like, "is the whole game hallucinated?"
You say this as if you can't even faithfully reproduce text that is at the top of your context window, which would explain the rest, such as hallucinating anyone saying anything about play testing.
> angry [..] bitter [..] mediocre
I detect no trace of that in the comment that sent you, and all the more in yours. Probably a coincidence.
It is astonishing how many submissions on HN now have a top comment doing the AI sniff test bullshit, usually based upon literally nothing. Aside from being angry gatekeeping assholes, these people really want to show how super advanced their AI-dar is, but it's just a gigantic waste of time for everyone else and just false positive matches everything: Every comment, image, website, game or app, book, and so on, it's all AI to these people.
Many haven't yet caught on that these people think everything is AI now -- that they desperately want everyone to know that they haven't been "had" -- so people still sincerely ask "why?" like some secret tell will be revealed, when really it's just worthless nonsense.
There are two extremes though. On one side people who feel immediately offended if they believe they are served LLM-made something. On other people deeply hurt when anybody notices LLM work, and pretending it's impossible to say.
I suppose, the healthy position is not to deny reality:
1) LLM leaves its signs in texts, code, and imagery.
2) It's not necessary a reason to be outraged. Like, for a game it's not a major thing to judge really.
Ah, a made up dichotomy. Did the AI generate it for you? Hilarious stuff. Then implying that I'm "denying reality" for pointing out that people are declaring everything AI.
There are things that are obviously "AI", in a detrimental sense. But there are many, many more things where asshats doing a purity test are running around declaring everything AI.
Clean website that follows norms and expectations of affordances? AI!
Text that you spent time to try to refine? AI!
Basically anything that doesn't look dogshit, amateur hour garbage? AI!
That is where HN is at, and these "AI purity test" comments appear constantly, in basically every show HN. You aren't seeing the "signs", you're backwards luddites that think you can shame people actually creating things, and it has reached a farcical point where it's just noisy nonsense.
Every "this looks like AI" comment should be flagged to oblivion if HN wasn't basically a retirement home for industry washouts. But it is, so they always rise to the top. Every discussion ends up tied up in worthless noise where people who've created nothing try to dismiss everything.
A range is not a dichotomy (just a nerdy note). Apparently, you're so mad at me. I'm just not sure why. You can contribute to HN being nicer place by just answering what is written, really.
> How much of the game design is just LLM hallucinations
Is creativity itself not a type of confabulation? Putting aside my confusion on what AI smells you're picking up, surely this would be desired in a game.
I did the tutorial, it was good, I think that what would help is maybe have the arrows where people need to look at have some animation, e.g., pulsating scale or colour, something elegant but hard to miss, took a little bit at times to find them.
Thanks for trying it out and for the feedback! I used to have the red arrows be pulsating and got feedback that it felt "too much" and kind of out of place in the game... probably need to find a middle ground.
I don't buy games anymore, but this one looks like the kind I might have bought had it been around when I did. Was a big fan of Sea Wolf and Silent Service.
This is pretty cool and very detailed , I tried the web browser version and its way more advanced . I think it needs beginners level or (pre-pilot simulation training)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising_(video_game)?...
But I did grow up with Silent Service II. And it turns out, the subsim niche is bigger than I had thought. Very fun!
The only AI graphics in the game (as described on Steam) are literally just clean-up jobs of existing historical maps. That is it.
This is very much a hand crafted game. The design is my own - what I heavily used AI for was the coding side of things as well as for creating my own tools for myself to design things like ships, instrument dials, shipping lanes, etc.
I think the UI elements and layout look very similar to how LLMs like to create them. It's hard to describe, but something about the rounded-edge, thick outline buttons equidistantly placed on the side bars, and heavily dependent on tabbed layouts in sub-menus. I'd argue there's parts where menus have too much empty space, which typically hints that a menu hasn't been thought out completely. It's also the most common type of game/dashboard view that LLMs are capable of: canvas in the middle with interactive buttons on the sides.
For an example of an immersive and good looking UI I'd look to something like Sunless Sea. It's a different type of game and is more narrative driven, but it doesn't have any of the more web-like UI qualities.
Yeah. Guess why. Because they parrot what they have seen in training data! Go figure what that implies.
For Silent Shark, the map being kind of the "protagonist" if you will and then having the trays of buttons or instruments on the side was also kind of the idea in my head from the beginning.
Till now at least from sub sim fans I've heard nearly only praise for the design. But to be fair, most of the more famous submarine sims aren't necessarily known for beautiful clean UI anyways, so it's not like there are high expectations I suppose. :)
I think part of it is the UI/website text: AI tends to be verbose. And the look just feels slightly off, like the parts don't fit together. (I think AIs are better at image generation than at visual UI generation right now.)
You've got a promising product... could you hire someone to polish the UI side?
You say this as if you can't even faithfully reproduce text that is at the top of your context window, which would explain the rest, such as hallucinating anyone saying anything about play testing.
> angry [..] bitter [..] mediocre
I detect no trace of that in the comment that sent you, and all the more in yours. Probably a coincidence.
It is astonishing how many submissions on HN now have a top comment doing the AI sniff test bullshit, usually based upon literally nothing. Aside from being angry gatekeeping assholes, these people really want to show how super advanced their AI-dar is, but it's just a gigantic waste of time for everyone else and just false positive matches everything: Every comment, image, website, game or app, book, and so on, it's all AI to these people.
Many haven't yet caught on that these people think everything is AI now -- that they desperately want everyone to know that they haven't been "had" -- so people still sincerely ask "why?" like some secret tell will be revealed, when really it's just worthless nonsense.
I suppose, the healthy position is not to deny reality:
1) LLM leaves its signs in texts, code, and imagery.
2) It's not necessary a reason to be outraged. Like, for a game it's not a major thing to judge really.
There are things that are obviously "AI", in a detrimental sense. But there are many, many more things where asshats doing a purity test are running around declaring everything AI.
Clean website that follows norms and expectations of affordances? AI!
Text that you spent time to try to refine? AI!
Basically anything that doesn't look dogshit, amateur hour garbage? AI!
That is where HN is at, and these "AI purity test" comments appear constantly, in basically every show HN. You aren't seeing the "signs", you're backwards luddites that think you can shame people actually creating things, and it has reached a farcical point where it's just noisy nonsense.
Every "this looks like AI" comment should be flagged to oblivion if HN wasn't basically a retirement home for industry washouts. But it is, so they always rise to the top. Every discussion ends up tied up in worthless noise where people who've created nothing try to dismiss everything.
Is creativity itself not a type of confabulation? Putting aside my confusion on what AI smells you're picking up, surely this would be desired in a game.
So far, it's really fun and the tutorial is great! A few things that could potentially be added to the game:
- Crew management (nothing fancy, just a bit, like food management)
- Different kinds of torpedoes (if the US had that, I only know about German submarines)
- Countermeasures (like noise makers)
- Seeing resources (number of torpedoes) on the campaign map
- A better indication whether a ship is sunk or will stay afloat (I resolve and don't know if the ship has been sunk or not)
- And German submarines + campaign of course
https://store.steampowered.com/app/15200/Silent_Hunter_Wolve...
Btw. I found the game by watching Wolfpack345's video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7c9LfWvTt8
Correct, this is a sim game, a genre of game that typically puts data at the forefront and art on the burners.