The One Thing AI Can't Put In Your Game

Look, you know, uh, AI slop is here. Um, I think I did a video a couple years ago about how the AI zombie apocalypse is is going to be upon us. And it is upon us, but it's I I've been thinking a lot about it and I just don't think it's as scary as people think. One of the reasons is because well, there's one thing there's one thing that um AI cannot do. There's a couple things that AI cannot Well, there's a lot of things that AI cannot do, but I want to talk about the one thing that I think is really, really, really important. I just tweeted about it. Um, there's one thing that makes you stand out as a game developer. Um, in the sea of AI vibecoded games that are going to tidal wave the industry, there's one thing that I'm just like, man, the I just don't think AI could do it. There's a lot of things, but there's one that it really just cannot do.

And that thing is story. And I know that sounds weird. It's like, okay, Thomas, shut up. No, but seriously. Um, [laughter] seriously, look, let let me show you something. Let me show you my tweet here. [snorts] Um, where is it? Oh, here it is. Yeah. Yeah. So, I realized yesterday one of the key ways to stand out in a sea of AI slop and not slop because frankly a lot of vibecoded games are they're not going to appear as slop. They're going to be full fully adequate games. Um, one of the key ways to stand out coming in our in 2027 is story. Story. Telling a really interesting, really unique story in your game. And hold on. I know what you're thinking. is like, "No, Thomas is about gameplay. No, Thomas is about fun." Yes, that's what games are. The foundation of games are are gameplay. I get it, but hang on.

Story is one of the key ways to stand out. And by the way, a side note, story is not the only way to stand out, obviously, uh, as a game developer in 2027. Um, I actually have a workshop below. It's called the full-time gamedev challenge and it's a three-day challenge where I'm going to walk you through step by step my battle plan on how to generate a profitable indie game idea. And by profitable, I mean it stands out. It's unique. People see it and they want to buy it. Generate a a game idea that's profitable. Create a prototype. Create a demo. And well, frankly, release a game, a 1.0 launch that actually makes you money. That is easier said than done. And so if you want to learn from an actual indie game developer who's released three commercial releases, went full-time before the game was released, aka got investment, got publishers, if you want to learn from a game develop developer who did that and talk with me, you and me, one-on-one, there's a link below to join the challenge. There's

limited seats available. Can't wait to meet you. Anyway, let's let's keep going. I know that sounds really odd, but when I think about my games, so my games are Pinstripe, uh, Never S. Let me go grab it really quick. Hold on. these games here. Yes, they are um they have gameplay, they have um cool mechanics kind of uh they have really cool uh art, but what they what they have what they have is a story that nobody else could tell. Nobody else could tell that story. The story in Never Song is a story that came from Thomas's mouth. I mean, that's that's basically what it is. It's I'm telling something that comes from my heart, comes from my brain, comes from my experience, my family, my religion. Um, whatever it is about you that makes you you and unique, your unique personality, you can embed that in story

and give that to players. Let's move on here. I'm getting excited. Sorry. Let's continue here. Um, I don't really worry about AI copying my games, whether it's copying them by like decomping them or putting out a demo and then someone taking that demo and then and then building upon it and stealing it, right? I don't worry about that. I would worry about that. I would worry about that if my games were purely about a single gimmick and it had like a minimalistic art style. That's that's where I would suddenly be worried. I'd be worried, oh my goodness, they're going to steal my gimmick. They're going to steal my art style and boom, game is copied, replicated on Steam, and now I can't compete. I don't worry about that for my games. I don't worry about them being copied. I don't worry about them being decomp.

And that's because they have just they have a story that only frank frankly only I can tell it. Not even if I even if I put my story's premise into AI. the dialogue, the characters, the payoffs, the beats, those interesting, quirky, strange things that only Thomas can do or only you can do when you're telling your story, AI, II can't. It just can't. And and even if even if it was highly effective at doing this, highly effective at telling a specific story, it's just not yours. You're uniquely you and you have your own experiences and when you put that into a story, it's really special and it's almost this spiritual thing. Any game being able to steal the traffic of my game, I'm not worried about. [snorts] I think it's because the games are so

story driven and the story can really only be told by me. It's not that the stories are genius. It's not like I'm telling some amazing, "Wow, this is the most genius story ever." It's just that they're Thomas' stories. And look, you might not be very good at telling stories. You might struggle telling stories, but I see nothing to lose by just saying, you know what, I'm going to make the next Vampire Survivors or whatever. I'm going to make the next gimmicky game. I'm gonna make Needle in the Haystack, but I'm gonna put my story in it. My voice, my unique spin on the world, the characters, the dialogue. That's a big one for me. I think about dialogue. I'm like, any game I'm making, I'm I'm working on a potentially new project where it's it's much more gameplay focused. It's multiplayer focused. There might be a little bit of friend slop in it, but I'm like, why not throw in dialogue and story that only

Thomas can do to make this game grounded in a unique voice that cannot be duplicated. It cannot be vibecoded. Nobody else can tell my story. And I don't even think I really don't I don't think what I'm saying is hypers spiritual or woo woo or um cheeky. I'm like no truly embedding a really unique story with a unique voice with unique characters and unique dialogue into any kind of vibecoded or friend slop or whatever. And I'm not saying those are the same thing by the way. I'm just saying any game that can be quickly remade and duplicated, when you embed a story with characters and unique dialogue and your story and your voice and your perspective and your worldview. Heck, even your religion, your beliefs, you put that in, dare I say, politics, [laughter] you put that into your game. No AI can't

replicate that. It can't duplicate that. Let's read some comments here. Okay, let's read some comments. Games are about, this is from Chris 9000. Games are about gameplay. You might be better making videos if you want to push some narrative. Thanks. Well, first off, story isn't pushing a narrative. That sounds like you're pushing like your politics onto other people. I said games are certainly grounded in gameplay, but I'm talking about standing out, not what a game is about. Okay? So, I'm not saying story makes games. No, I'm saying yes, of course, fun. Minute-to-minute gameplay, mechanics, that's what makes a game fun. Obviously, that's what makes a game a game. But when you embed it with story and your voice and your perspective, that is when it suddenly becomes

Irreplicable. Is that a word? How about unclonable? Unstealable. Unvibecodable. Ricardo Diaz says, "If Thomas' stories keep building on each other, returning players bring context from the earlier games." This is an interesting point, Ricardo. Ricardo. Um, what I take from what you're saying is this is audience building and this this is a broader conversation about brand. When you when you when you build an audience, you're building a brand around your voice. Think about all of the vibecoded AI slop or gimmicky games. Again, they're not all the same. I'm not saying they're all equivalent, but I'm just saying games that can be quickly made, churned out, that don't have like a unique perspective. Um, it's hard to build an audience on that

studio or that the the de the developer who made that game because they are g they they they are focused on a gimmick and it's hard to replicate gimmick gimmick gimmick gimmick gimmick and build a brand around gimmicks. Instead, it's much easier to build a brand brand around a perspective, around a a a visual flare, around uh the kinds of worlds that you build. It really it's like it's like being a writer. It's like being a writer. Um when you read a CS Lewis book, for example, you know what you're going to get. And when you when you when you when you buy the screw tape letters, you you know that when The Great Divorce comes out, it's going to have a similar flare. You know, when The Chronicles and Arty come out, it's going to have a similar flare. It's always pretty much the same voice. Building a brand creates what? Returning players. And so, obviously, Ricardo is saying

something a little bit different differently here, which is context from earlier games coming into the next one. Um, exactly. Forgot the snare says, "The secret is to make games that don't make an absurd amount of money, but make enough to live on, be happy." I like this. I like this. I think that's kind of cool. So, it's not that um it's not that you want to make a barely any money to live, like just barely enough to live on. It's not that. [sighs and gasps] It's that you're willing to I what I'm going to take from this is you're willing to take a risk and be yourself and put your voice into your product. Um and be okay with it only selling just enough. When I'm serious, I I've had this problem myself. When I try to when I try to turn a game into a money maker, my voice immediately starts to get distilled every time. I start to make strange

creative decisions that water the game down. For example, one of the things I always tend to do is I start making the game more realistic. I start to make the dialogue a little bit more rigid, a little bit more safe. And like clockwork towards the end of production, it's not working with play testers. And then what do I do? I just go in and I be Thomas. And I strip it all down and I recreate it into the the voice of Thomas. and I make it sharper, um, saltier, spicier, more personalitydriven. I always end up doing that. And it's it's an expensive mistake that I make, which is you try to make it more commercial. You try to make it more um uh uh safer for a broader audience. Well, what do you end up doing? You Well, you put yourself on the shelf with all the other games that are sloppy or boring or not saying anything, and they don't have a voice. So, I totally agree with forgot the snare that it's good to just be okay with making enough and that will give you the courage to have a voice

to tell a story to have a perspective. Gamer D says, "This is such a good outlook. The human aspect will always shine through." Okay. And you might be thinking, "Well, this Thomas, you keep talking about human, human, human, human." I don't I'm not going to give you an opinion on what elements of your game should be human, but I think story should be human. At bare minimum, the story should. At bare minimum, the story should. Um because it's like it's like such a quick way to stand out because your perspective is so unique. Like when I get to know people, it's so exciting because I'm like, tell me who you are. Tell me what you're saying. Tell me how you feel. Tell me what you believe. Let's argue. Let's get in a debate. It's exciting. It's exciting to get angry during a debate. Sure, it might not feel good, but it's not boring. What's my point? My point is is that being you,

even if it offends people, is is much more fun than an AI vibecoded story or an AI generated story or a a story written by you where you're kind of being cowardly in how you approach the story. You're not willing to be honest and say something. It's a distillation of what everybody thinks, aka an LLM. [snorts] Instead being you telling a unique story and saying it from a very salty, dare I say salty or at least precise and pointed way is going to, to Gamer Dy's point, shine through. Being unique and doing what you were created to do will always outshine the tool 1,000%. [snorts] Okay, I'm only going to read the ones I agree with. I'm kidding. Not really. Kind of. Metal Jet says, "I've been struggling quite a bit with accepting there is a big shift taking place in the

landscape of gaming and tech. I've had many ups and downs of inspiration. One moment or a lack of enthusiasm the next. The one thing that grows me is seeing others still pushing. One of the ways, one of the ways that I've been really encouraged when seeing people still pushing is I just I love seeing games succeed because the voice of the game was so um it was so personal. So when I think about there's two games that came out that and they're two heroes of mine that came out and they just had such a strong voice. And I'm not saying that that you have to build your own engine or whatever hand like I'm not saying it needs to be handmade or anything like that. I'm just saying that these developers know how to have a voice. It's like so obviously them and they use tech that's either handmade or they use tech that's old.

So point being it doesn't matter how the game was made necessarily. It's just they have a really they just their voice shined through. You see the game and you're like, "Yep, that's them. That's them. They're saying what they say or they're saying what they always say." It's like recognizing someone's voice in another room. You're like, "Yep, that's them." And these two developers are Edund McMillan and Jonathan Blow. You play their games and you're like, "Yep, that's them." They have a courageous voice. by courageous voice. I mean, they're saying stuff and they're they have a tone and they have a a vibe and they have a way of uh presenting their game to you that is obviously them, right? And for me, what I'm saying is that is what that is one of the hacks with story. Story is a great way to get your voice in there and get your opinion in there very very quickly and

effectively. Okay, that's all I have to say. And by the way, if you like the way that I talk and you're encouraged or you feel like you could learn something from me, I have a challenge uh that's happening at the end of the month. And I would love to have you join the challenge. It's a three-day challenge where I'm going to teach you everything I've learned in my three commercial releases about how to make a game not only finish it, but generate an idea and a battle plan to actually be profitable to stand out in the sea of games on Steam. How do you stand out, actually make money? You're going to learn from me. We're going to talk actually in a call, you and me, with a small group of other developers, and I'm going to walk you through my battle plan. Okay, so click below to join the challenge. I cannot wait to meet you. We're going to have a blast learning how to stand out in this well new wild west landscape of making indie games. I'll

see you there.