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by epaga·1d ago·view on hn ↗
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.

2 comments
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 :)
> I think the UI elements and layout look very similar to how LLMs like to create them

Yeah. Guess why. Because they parrot what they have seen in training data! Go figure what that implies.

If AI is used for the code, why isn't it disclosed? Or did Valve remove the disclosure?
They very wisely removed the code part and specify you only need to disclose GenAI stuff.