AI Use in Big Walk Deepens Disarray Across the Indie Game Community
Jurors draw a firm line
The signatories included Sam Barlow, creator of Telling Lies and Immortality, and Celeste composer Lena Raine. They stressed that their statement did not represent the IGF as an organization or every juror; some members worried that signing could bring professional blowback.
House House describes its use
House House, the studio behind Big Walk and Untitled Goose Game, said it used AI sparingly near the end of development to address technical problems and bugs. It estimated that well under 0.1 percent of Big Walk’s code involved chatbot response snippets used as starting points for modified code.
The studio said its main use of large language models was researching problems in third-party code. In one case, it adapted suggested code to fix a shadow issue after extensive research and speaking with a Unity engineer.
Disclosure and future policy
House House said it disclosed its AI use in its IGF submission, but not on Big Walk’s Steam page, which it said does not request disclosure of code or chatbot use. The studio said its account was not an endorsement of AI tools and apologized to those who felt the use fell short of their standards.
The developer also said it had no AI policy while making Big Walk and called that a failure. It plans to develop a more comprehensive policy going forward, while voicing concern that voluntary disclosures could make AI seem normal or inevitable.
Key points
- Some IGF jurors said they would reject games made with generative AI in any capacity.
- House House estimated that well under 0.1 percent of Big Walk’s code involved chatbot responses.
- The studio disclosed its AI use in its IGF submission but not on Steam.
- House House said it lacked an AI policy during development and plans to create one.