Imagine a world where anyone, no matter their technical skills, could create the video game they wish to play – and never those dictated to them by major game studios
That world is likely to be closer than you think that, because of FRVR.ai, a cutting-edge platform that harnesses generative AI to streamline game creation, including code, art, and audio.
In this interview, Sam Jeans from DailyAI speaks with Chris Benjaminsen, co-founder and Director of Channels at FRVR.
Benjaminsen, a veteran of the games industry with over 20 years of experience, shares his vision for a future where game development is accessible to all.
But first, here’s slightly background to FRVR.
Who is FRVR, and what do they do?
Co-founded in 2014 by industry veterans Chris Benjaminsen and Brian Meidell, FRVR emerged with a vision to revolutionize how people access and luxuriate in games.
FRVR is on a mission to democratize game distribution, tearing down the barriers that when stood between players and the games they love.
In Benjaminsens’s words, “Rather than having only a few people resolve what games people must be allowed to play, we wish to permit anyone to create whatever they need after which let the users work out what’s fun. I don’t consider many of the games industry knows what people want. They just care about what they will make probably the most money on.”
FRVR flips the gaming industry on its head, enabling creators to construct the gaming experiences they need somewhat than have them dictated by studios.
Games created with FRVR have been accessed by 1.5 billion players worldwide, with some 100 million monthly users and counting.
You can access FRVR.ai’s public beta and begin creating your very own games at no cost here.
FRVR can be running a creator’s contest with a monthly prize pool of $2500!
The monthly contest is back, and we’re thrilled to announce the increased prize pool: €2,500!
Your challenge? Make an interesting game of any genre that operates with only one button.
We’d like to see how you may make probably the most with the least!https://t.co/enRA3KsLFq pic.twitter.com/VT0DkELM5t
— FRVR (@FRVRGames) May 15, 2024
How FRVR AI works
FRVR’s AI games creation platform allows anyone to create games just by interacting with AI using natural language.
The process is easy: users input an outline of the sport they wish to create, and FRVR’s AI system generates the sport’s basic structure, including classes, game logic, and default assets.
Users can then iterate on the sport by playing it, providing further instructions to refine gameplay elements, and letting the AI implement the changes.
FRVR’s editor is cloud-based, making it accessible from various devices. It consists of an input field for communicating with the AI, a live preview to playtest the present version of the sport, a history tab to view and modify previous iterations, and a code tab.
You can even generate and integrate graphical assets, like backgrounds and environment features, in-game objects, etc, using AI.
FRVR recently added audio to the platform, enabling the generation of sound effects and backing tracks.
We are excited to introduce a brand new sound integration feature to FRVR AI. This update allows game creators to include custom-generated sounds into their games, boosting gameplay dynamics and the immersion experience.
Explore the beta at https://t.co/r3MriRdn6e#AI #FRVRAI pic.twitter.com/LI3CNlvJ9p
— FRVR (@FRVRGames) May 10, 2024
Publishing, sharing, and monetizing FRVR games can be straightforward. With the clicking of a button, users can share their creations across greater than 30 channels, including the net, mobile app stores, social media platforms, and even newer platforms like smart TVs and cars.
Chris created a wonderful tutorial on how FRVR.ai works here.
Now, without further ado, let’s dive into the interview.
Q: Tell me about how FRVR can shape the longer term of game design
Benjaminsen: “I don’t think the world has had truly user-generated games yet. We’ve had user-generated games platforms where people were generating UGC, however it’s all the time been limited with a few of the capabilities that whatever platform supported, right? If you might have a platform with a bunch of templates for puzzle games, you get a bunch of puzzle games, but you may’t create unique games on any platform that just supports templates. I believe that AI can change all the pieces.”
*Chris opens FRVR and demonstrates a game live.*
“Here’s a straightforward 2D space shooter game. And in itself, it’s not impressive in any respect. Although, like 20-something years ago, after I began within the games industry, this might have taken a small team a number of days to enter. But today, anyone in Unity could bang this out in a day, or you should use an AI tool like ours, and you may do it in around eight minutes by talking to it.”
“The experience we’re attempting to create gives everybody the sensation that they’ve a complete team working for them. It’s different from what you see in music, video, or images in that we’re attempting to create an environment for iterative development.”
“So, for those who go to Midjourney and make a prompt, you are trying again for those who don’t get what you wish. But it’s very inefficient, and it doesn’t work if you ought to construct something of a deeper complexity. With deeper complexity, it is advisable find a way to say, I actually have a state, and I would like to switch it. So that’s what we focused on constructing.”
“So, as an illustration, here, we will say, “Make this ship twice as fast.” Quite a lot of stuff happens within the background – we’re doing this live – you realize, it’s not perfect immediately, but you may see that it really works.”
“Today, individuals are talking about multi-agency AI, you might have AI interacting with AI, multiple layers working together, and we have now something that’s not exactly that, however it’s just like that, where we use AI to instruct AI to do complex tasks with AI. It’s almost recursive in nature.”
“So we will go in here and say, “Add power-ups to the sport that make the ship shoot two bullets side by side for five seconds.” That’s a posh thing to do. So, the system has to make a plan. Then, it has to execute that plan. And what it’s doing here is rewriting the sport’s source code. It’s not modifying a template, it’s doing the identical thing that I can be doing as a game developer.”
“That signifies that the complexity of the games you may create is barely limited by three things. It’s limited by the engine and infrastructure you might have given to the AI, the capabilities of the AI, typically the context size, after which the flexibility of a person user to explain what they need.”
Q: So FRVR combines a series of pre-made models – wrappers?
Benjaminsen: “Yes. And I would like to be 100% clear here: we will not be like a foundational AI company. We don’t construct the models. We depend on a set of economic and open-source models.”
“The future I envision is form of the difference between Disney and TikTok. Disney and their content is incredible due to the fee they place into production, but which means they have to serve the mass-market audience.”
“But that’s not the case on TikTok. On TikTok, you may get something only you and five people care about. And it’s purely a function of the fee of production. It’s not like there wasn’t demand for a type of content before, it was just not practically possible to create.”
“And that’s what we’re attempting to construct. We’re attempting to construct a platform where we will match players with specific needs, providing all the pieces from the creation to the publishing and consumption of the product. We wish to construct an environment where people play what they wish to play.”
“That’s not necessarily what drives the very best return on investment in your commercial spend, which is what the main game studios are concerned about.”
“My entire history, including my 20-plus years within the games industry, has been about helping people make higher games and make them industrial. And I believe we have now a chance to do all that here: allow anyone to make games and enable those makers to place their games in front of other users.”
Q: It seems that FRVR may also help creatives become involved in game design and even learn to code through the platform?
Benjaminsen: “Yes, it’s quite interesting. This graphic designer is a fantastic example. He’s made something like 25 games. And (because the platform is currently in beta), we will go into his games to look at his creation process. Specifically, we will see that when he began, he was purely talking to the AI and directing it to create the games.”
“But now, if we have a look at the history, we will see that each once in a while, he modified the source code manually. So, he’s developing an understanding of the code and how one can code as a function of using the tool, which is super interesting. It’s an emergent property and behavior of the product that we really need to dive into.”
“Realizing that individuals can use this tool to learn how one can program is incredibly powerful, and it’s something we wish to plan for – how can we help with this? It’s quite interesting since the system is already capable, so now it’s more about how we standardize it.”
Jeans: “That’s a fantastic example of how the tool can organically teach real coding skills, even to non-programmers. And shows the potential of AI to democratize game development.”
Benjaminsen: “Exactly. And again, this isn’t something we explicitly designed for, but we’re seeing it occur naturally as people use the tool. It’s just like the AI is becoming a teacher, guiding users to know the underlying code. We wish to lean into this and work out how one can support this sort of learning.”
“I believe it points to the greater potential here – not only making game creation more accessible, but actually enabling a complete latest generation of creators by teaching them the basics of coding through the technique of making games. It’s an exciting direction.”
Jeans: “It also ties into the purpose you made earlier about how this might disrupt the normal structure of game studios, with less of a divide between different roles. If artists and designers can start gaining programming skills through AI tools like this, it may lead to more fluid, cross-disciplinary teams.”
Benjaminsen: “Absolutely. We’re seeing the lines blur between roles that were traditionally quite siloed. And I believe that is only the start. As the AI capabilities advance, we’ll see much more potential for people to wear multiple hats and bridge those skill gaps.”
“It’s going to be a serious shift, and studios that may adapt and leverage this cross-pollination of skills could have an actual advantage. The ones stuck in rigid hierarchies with strict divisions between creative and technical roles will struggle.”
“But overall, I believe this democratization of skills is a net positive. It’s going to guide to so far more creative diversity and innovation in game design. We’ll see ideas that may have been inconceivable to comprehend before, since the technical barriers were too high. Individuals and small teams shall be empowered to bring their unique visions to life without major studio backing. It’s going to be a wild time, and I’m excited to see all of the incredible games that emerge from this AI-powered revolution in development.”
Jeans: “Definitely. Coding is fundamentally a creative endeavor, isn’t it? Seeing the code directly link to this wealthy, visual media reality is sort of unique. It’s completely different from generating something with a tool like Midjourney, where you’re working with unpredictable results. The code adds explainability to the result with FRVR – it’s not a black box.”
Benjaminsen: “That’s a very good point. The proven fact that it’s code allows someone who can read code to self-review what happened to see if it was what they wanted. However, I could imagine a future where it’s all AI; there’s no code.”
“What we have now now could be more controllable and provides a contextualized environment, but I’m not bullish on any particular path forward. A distinct path might materialize later, as AI gets faster and more competent, but that’s not necessarily what we have now now. For us, it doesn’t particularly matter, because we’re an integrator at the sting of what’s tech.”
Bejaminsen also spoke about his vision for coding in the longer term: “I fully consider future programming goes to be AI-first. I’m convinced we could have reviewable, auditable programming-like structures for AIs to execute which might be optimized for AI first, with human readability as a nice-to-have.”
Q: To what extent can we remodel society around AI? How do you are feeling in regards to the risks of AI?
Benjaminsen: “It form of depends. People describe many alternative risks. And, after all, probably the most extreme is self-motivated AI with its own agenda. That’s the large scary one – is AI going to take over the world? Someone made a comment recently that basically struck me – “I hope AI treats us in addition to we treat dogs.” That form of existential fear of the longer term, is that this thing controllable?”
“I believe the businesses that may do well in the longer term have to find a way to surf this tsunami of change. That’s what we’re attempting to do – somewhat than fight AI, we’re attempting to embrace it and make it a part of our workflows.”
Benjaminsen: “Here’s one last comment that I believe is sort of powerful: If you have a look at firms right away, they’re dominated by a job category that may roughly be described as “director.” You have directors since it’s very expensive to try things. You wish to hire many individuals to make sure you’re running in the precise direction, so the 2 or three experiments you do will likely achieve success. But in a world where trying something has zero cost, you now not need a director.”
“You need a selector – anyone who can completely remove their bias about what’s higher or not and just have a look at the output and choose A is healthier than B.”
“Those who’re already very powerful – the art directors – the individuals who run experiments and make decisions – shall be much more empowered on this latest paradigm.”
My experience with the FRVR Beta
I used to be given access to the FRVR beta program (which it’s also possible to join here) to create some games.
FRVR had just released a generative audio feature for the platform, enabling creators to upload their very own tracks and sound effects or create them using AI.
When you create a game, you’re asked so as to add a title and outline, that are used to create the bottom of the sport. In this case, I put “Moon Zapper,” which was interpreted as an area shooter game, as I intended – awesome.
Bear in mind, at this stage, while I’m experienced in using generative AI models, I’ve never designed a game. I’m stepping into with no knowledge of how this works beyond what Chris demonstrated within the interview.
It wasn’t long before I’d created a background with a moon (I even asked the AI what aspect ratio to make it, and it gave me the right figures to insert into the image generator).
I also quickly generated other images of the ship, projectiles, and aliens.
Next, I created a brand new enemy asset (the large squid) and set it to fireside projectiles. I said that being hit by three projectiles should trigger a game over.
One commentary is that the platform recognized “alien” despite the asset being listed as an “obstacle” by default. You can definitely interact with FRVR.ai like several LLM.
Don’t underestimate the complexity of prompts it may well handle. The platform will develop a plan to tackle them effectively, and you may all the time revert.
Moreover, for those who don’t add sufficient detail to your prompts, it provides instructions on achieving your intentions. It’s an instructive experience that actively improves your understanding of what’s happening under the hood.
You need little or no direction to start, as instructions are embedded in the sport.
I then added a counter for the way many aliens I killed (top right), moving it into position to the highest right. It’s very interesting which you could arrange elements spatially using natural language.
I then used the audio generator function to create a laser effect, which I added to the gunshot for my spacecraft. It worked well.
With the alien game under my belt, I got down to create something slightly more leftfield. I called it “Lumberjack.”
The vague idea was to have an ever-growing forest to chop down, which gets harder over time.
Amazingly, the sport just about sussed out my intentions. The bars representing trees (light blue) extend upwards, albeit rudimentarily, at this early stage.
It wasn’t long before I set the lumberjacks to ‘cut’ the trees down, causing them to grow upwards and outwards at the identical rate.
This only took a number of minutes of labor, which could be very impressive indeed. I foresee a game where your lumberjack cuts various kinds of trees and shrubs as you progress through an ever-changing environment (which is feasible to create with the platform).
There are stacks of well-made, highly refined games created with FRVR which you could check out here.
Getting began is remarkably easy, and one thing leads to a different in a process that becomes more immersive the further you experiment.
If you’re considering experiencing the longer term of game development firsthand, join the beta program at FRVR.ai.
Unleash your creativity and convey your game ideas to life, irrespective of your technical background!
