Saturday Wars AI Art keeps getting worse
Arclight Phoenix, a Magic the Gathering card, somehow appears in Saturday Wars
(Disclaimer: Do not harass anyone involved with Saturday Wars.)
CORRECTION, 04/02: Arclight Phoenix appeared in the original serialization of Clock Striker, as pointed out by BradResGames in the podcast’s comments section.
BradResGames did not reply to my most recent comment.
Original post continues below.
Saturday Wars, the card game from Saturday AM and Resurrection Games, has a LOT more AI than I first realized. I initially thought it was just a few backgrounds here and there, but I suspect that some pieces were predominantly AI.
So just how much of this is AI? Could they have used AI to write their game? It would explain some of the stranger cards (like “players switch hands” and never shuffling)…
I didn’t wanna get too conspiratorial, so I asked.
Image Transcript:
Tapirclip: That's a great mindset to have. Hopefully you'll get lots of feedback and make a stronger final product
The strongest feedback I can say is I hope there's no Al art in the final product
Res.Games: We are committed to making this project about the art and the artists. That's why we've done things like included the artist signature on every card and have the open call for submissions for artists to submit their ideas. All the cards from set one are either original art pieces or colored/extended versions of panes from the manga. We couldn't have made this set without the hard work of those artists and colorists (many of whom are here in the discord).
Tapirclip: Was Al used to help generate ideas for the game?
(I'm asking for my own personal curiosity about the creative process, not trying to start a debate)
Res.Games: So funny story about this....
we actually at one point plugged the rulebook and all the card info into an Al model to see if it could come up with some unique card combinations or decks that we could try out in playtesting. It did not go well.
Al kept trying to come up with cards and game mechanics that did not exist. And it kept trying to incorporate rules and ideas from MTG - which is not a good comparison because this game is very different from MTG.
In the end we gave up and went back to our usual methods of playtesting with focus groups and getting some advanced players to build out deck ideas and concepts.
Tapirclip: That's interesting, never thought of using Al in that way
I appreciate you sharing that behind-the-scenes story, would love to hear more about the creation of the game and the inspiration
Big important piece of info comes up here:
Resurrection Games says that AI wasn’t used to help write their game.
So, I wanna know why Arclight Phoenix, a card from Magic the Gathering…
…is making a special guest appearance in this card game
…especially since this doesn’t happen in the manga.
I ran the Arclight Phoenix card through some AI image detectors and they all said it’s AI. I know these image detectors can have false positives… but just look at the damn thing. They’re not making eye contact, light source is blasting everywhere, and Cast’s facial features are different from how she looks in the manga.
I know I could ask Res Games again, but let’s be real. I don’t like confrontation, getting this “involved” is making me feel pretty on-edge over something that’s just, like, a kid’s card game. If I look like I’m nervously kowtowing in those Discord screenshots, guess what! It’s because I am! Newsflash, asshole: every “angry pngtuber” has an anxiety disorder and cries when talking to cashiers.
I know any and all findings related to this will be dismissed, since the Saturday AM gang has written me off as one of those ~*trollz*~. Best I can do is point out what I find.
I go into more detail about my AI findings in the latest podcast episode. I open with this written statement:
I want to start this podcast by saying I do not want to interfere with anyone’s business or fun. I do not want to point fingers at resurrection games and especially none of the artists involved. I want to say good luck to Resurrection Games, I hope you get this sorted out and this is just a negligible bump in the road for you.
I will never tell anyone to not buy the Saturday Wars card game, if you’re really into Saturday AM as a concept, if the concept of Diverse Manga overrides any ethical implications related to AI art, that’s your business, but for me, this is a big deal. I don’t know who in the production process got duped here, but I know I feel very hurt realizing I’ve been talking about an AI card game.
If this is your first time here, on the last episode of this podcast I discovered the Saturday Wars card game was using AI assets in their card game art. Between the time I recorded that episode and right now, I found a lot more AI. It’s made me incredibly paranoid about what is and isn’t AI in this game. I don’t want to point fingers, but a lot of the jankiness in this game could be explained if a chunk of this was written by AI. I’m not saying the game itself was AI written, since Resurrection Games claims it wasn’t, but I’ll get to their statement on the issue in a little bit.
And I don’t want any gotchas, so I’ll say that I have played with AI art before, I used it to help me write my terms of service for commission art, I follow AI artists on Deviantart. I have said to people in the past, especially people who have commissioned me, if there’s something about my art you don’t like, you can hire another artist to touch it up or fix it in AI, I do not care, what happens to my art after I post it does not matter to me. I don’t want that being taken out of context. I was thinking of this more for individual, personal consumption and enjoyment of the art.
So I’m imagining, what if I was approached by a card game company and they said they wanted to use my manga art for their game. I would say, that sounds cool, I’m in.
But if the final product had a bunch of AI slop, I would be fucking furious. It would make my art look cheap. OEL manga already has a hard enough time being seen as “real” manga, if it’s going to be surrounded by AI assets, it’s going to degrade the movement. This is something I take very seriously, as a foreigner who works within the Japanese manga ecosystem. I want the OEL manga movement propped up, I want more foreigners in manga, I want more diversity in manga. AI art in your diverse manga card game makes you look shitty, and gives people more of a reason to dismiss you.
I’ve been very public in the past about how I wanted to support this game financially, I can’t do that unless I know there’s no AI art. I feel like I have to walk back a lot of the support I’ve given for this card game until they can show there’s no AI.
The trickery is what’s really getting in my head. If I was asked to review Goddess: the Convergence TCG, which is a game that is very open about their AI art usage, I would be more okay with that, I wouldn’t feel like I’m being duped, what’s more is I don’t have as big of a personal emotional stake in what they represent. Someone fucking around with international manga hits me a lot harder.
If you want the whole story, the podcast goes into more detail:
My biggest hope is the final product doesn’t have AI… and if it does, well, I guess that’s something for future artists to consider if you’re going to apply to Saturday AM.
If they keep the AI: the best case scenario for Saturday AM now is you get serialized, get a tankobon, and someday your art gets turned into merchandise with a veneer of disgusting AI slop. That’s just something you have to live with now.
I’ll sign off by again saying DO NOT HARASS ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THIS PROJECT. I don’t care how much you hate AI, that’s not a reason to be an asshole.