A software program engineer who goes by Desimulate on X not too long ago posted a five-second clip of AI-generated pixel artwork that went viral. Assume your favourite Instagram pixel artist recreating Daggerfall with wild parallax scrolling results. It was such successful on Elon Musk’s Grok-infested social media platform that Desimulate determined to try to truly make the sport the five-second clip can be from. However he’s not utilizing AI to do it. Why? “Nicely, proper now, the instruments aren’t actually ok.”
That’s what he advised Ryan Ok. Rigney within the newest version of the Push to Speak e-newsletter. Desimulate stated the viral publish was the results of working very intently with Midjourney, utilizing plenty of particular reference artwork to try to hone the outputs whereas additionally making an attempt to spur them into producing one thing new. “I simply received obsessive about making one thing distinctive, and that publish was the epitome of that for me. And it form of got here out of nowhere,” he advised Rigney.
omw pic.twitter.com/eCiTOrjtzC
— Desimulate (@de5imulate) July 20, 2025
However whereas AI can generate a five-second clip, it’s nowhere close to having the ability to generate an precise sport based mostly on it, not to mention one as bold as an open-world fantasy RPG with extraordinarily detailed pixel artwork. “The meshes are most likely ok to make a fundamental sport,” he explains. “One thing small. However this can be a sport that’s form of demanding, proper? It’s going to be an actual fantasy RPG. So on the finish of the day, it’s going to need to be performant. The 3D technology stuff proper now…the meshes are simply less than snuff. They’re means too many triangles, polygons, and a number of them form of get tousled. And so it truly finally ends up taking extra time to scrub them than it could to only, like, begin from the start. So we simply use it as a visible reference.”
Desimulate shouldn’t be a sport developer. Neither am I. So I can’t inform you whether or not he’s making any sense. However I can inform you that he’s now making an attempt to rent people who find themselves sport builders to show his viral AI GIF right into a sport. I’ve encountered many a online game Kickstarter with vertical slices from individuals who have truly shipped video games earlier than that by no means got here near panning out. If I used to be a Polymarket man, which I’m undoubtedly not, this isn’t the horse I’d be selecting.
However I do suppose the interview gives a captivating and helpful look into the attract of AI instruments like Midjourney and what folks suppose they’re doing after they work with them. It’s clear Desimulate appears like he has possession over what the machine spit out, regardless that his contribution to it’s a rounding error within the grand scheme of issues like coaching information. Rigney requested why he’s the one to make the sport imagined by the folks upvoting his publish. Right here’s what he stated:
“I’ve received the imaginative and prescient, and every part begins with that imaginative and prescient. I’ve received the eagerness to make it occur. In two weeks, I’ve interviewed 40-plus folks, introduced an actual group collectively of actual sport devs, began constructing, designing the sport, and we’ve made a ton of progress. Clearly every part is in an R&D state. However I’m dedicated to creating it occur.”
