The Ink Splotch Effect: A Case Study on ChatGPT as a Co-Creative Game Designer

TL;DR

This study explores how large language models like ChatGPT can serve as creative collaborators in game design, assessing their impact on game quality and designer intent through prototype development and user feedback.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential and limitations of LLMs as co-creative game designers by integrating them into the development process and evaluating user perceptions.

Findings

AI-assisted games received mixed user preferences.

ChatGPT can generate feature ideas but may lack nuanced design understanding.

User feedback highlights both benefits and shortcomings of AI in creative roles.

Abstract

This paper studies how large language models (LLMs) can act as effective, high-level creative collaborators and ``muses'' for game design. We model the design of this study after the exercises artists use by looking at amorphous ink splotches for creative inspiration. Our goal is to determine whether AI-assistance can improve, hinder, or provide an alternative quality to games when compared to the creative intents implemented by human designers. The capabilities of LLMs as game designers are stress tested by placing it at the forefront of the decision making process. Three prototype games are designed across 3 different genres: (1) a minimalist base game, (2) a game with features and game feel elements added by a human game designer, and (3) a game with features and feel elements directly implemented from prompted outputs of the LLM, ChatGPT. A user study was conducted and participants were asked to blindly evaluate the quality and their preference of these games. We discuss both the development process of communicating creative intent to an AI chatbot and the synthesized open feedback of the participants. We use this data to determine both the benefits and shortcomings of AI in a more design-centric role.