Thanks, I appreciate the offer and the honest feedback. I’d politely disagree on one point: AI is being used across pretty much every field now, and I think it will soon be hard to compete without it. The real question isn’t whether it’s used, but how. I’m pretty new to game development, but not at all new to programming, and nothing generated goes in without being reviewed, measured and, if it’s needed, reworked. Without a solid grasp of architecture and software design best practices, and a good understanding of the mechanics, AI can’t do much on its own.

The website does what it needs to for now. Where I’d really welcome human hands is exactly where I’d most like to move away from AI: art direction and polish, world design, mob design, instances, VFX, and sounds and SFX in general. Most of the sounds and some model are actually CC0 packs, not AI, but they’re not at the quality I’m aiming for. If any of that is your thing, I’d be glad to hear from you.

I use it a lot for writing code, creating shaders and textures, and getting inspiration for the settings. But all generated content gets analysed and rebuilt over and over until it’s something I consider acceptable for where the game is right now (just to give an idea of what the process looks like). Game design decisions are mine: AI can help refine the mechanics, but I decide what kind of game it should be, and of course I “borrow” mechanics from the games I love :)

No dragons, no science, just a lot of evenings 😄

Hi fraksken. That’s not accurate. As stated in the comment above, the launcher only talks to playharling.com, plus Cloudflare’s servers for voice chat. Nothing else. If you saw other domains, please name them and I’ll look into it…

Hi Pomal, I bought the domain when I started putting things online, and the realm went up at the same time. The Lemmy account was made for this project. The game itself had been in development for about 4 months before any of that (it started as an experiment and grew day by day). Any other mysteries I can clear up? 😄

Hi man! The game is free, and there’s no plan to change that right now. Development, maintenance and servers do cost money, though, so if the game gets even a little popular I’ll need a way to keep it going. My first idea is cosmetics or similar. Pay-to-win never: I’d rather make the game paid than make it pay-to-win.

As I mentioned in my comment above, AI was used throughout development, both for writing code and as support for the art direction. I’m not an artist :) and the “concept art” shared on the website is the base used to develop some of the places in the game. Today it’s standard practice to use AI extensively at every level of software development, from solo devs to large studios. It still doesn’t make a game on its own (not yet at least XD): there have been months of design, manual adjustments, testing and fixing behind this one, and that’s exactly the part where I’m looking for help.

Not tested on a Deck yet. The AppImage should run in desktop mode, and there’s Xbox controller support, but I haven’t tried it there.

Thanks for actually trying it, this is the most useful report in the thread. The launcher only talks to playharling.com (game files, updates, login and game server); voice chat uses Cloudflare’s STUN server. It should follow your system language: if it came up in Italian on an English system, that’s a bug and I’ll look into it. You’re right about account deletion: until it’s in the launcher, email info@playharling.com and I’ll delete the account and its data.

Fair ask. There are six in-game screenshots at https://cecchigl.itch.io/harling for now. A gameplay video will come when there’s something worth showing in one.

Hi all, dev here. First, sorry for the silence yesterday: I posted and then wasn’t around, and on a brand new account that looks exactly as bad as you say. Most of the criticism here is fair, so here are straight answers.

Who I am and what this post is for. I’m GianLuca, an independent developer from Italy, not a studio. Harling has been in development for several months and will need many more. I wasn’t looking for players yet: I was looking for people who’d enjoy helping with testing and development at a very early stage. I should have said that more clearly.

AI. Yes. AI has been used throughout the process, both to support the art direction and to write the code. I should have said it up front, and calling AI images “concept art” on the site was a poor choice.

Real screenshots. Six in-game screenshots, only cropped to hide the HUD: https://cecchigl.itch.io/harling

Privacy, terms, contact. You’re right, they’re missing, and I’m adding them to the site. Until then the contact is info@playharling.com, and if you made an account and want it gone, write there and I’ll delete it with its data.

What the launcher connects to. game.playharling.com (game files and updates) and realm.playharling.com (login and game server). Voice chat uses Cloudflare’s STUN server. Nothing else.

Money. It’s free, there’s nothing to buy, and no crypto or NFT of any kind.

If you’d rather wait until the legal pages are up and there’s more to see, that’s completely reasonable. Thanks to those who actually tried it and reported what they found.