An update on Lessirova

[Daphne]

We're still hard at work on Lessirova. It has an entirely new engine under the hood compared to Starter Marriage (let's just say I learned a lot from SM), so that's taking more time than I realized.

And then, there's the art.

Right now, we do not have an artist assigned to it. Art for a multipath game is a hard assignment: you have to be fast, good, and extremely reliable, and there aren't that many artists who hit all three. (Hi, PK!)

We are considering using AI assist for the artwork. We know that this is a hot-button topic, and we'd like to get some feedback about it here.

[jwik01]

When I see an AI-generated image that I recognize as being by AI, it massively cheapens and diminishes the image and whatever it's attached to, in my mind. I don't actually have a philosophical objection to AI images, it just triggers a 'this is garbage' emotional response which makes it very difficult to engage with. They call it slop for a reason: it communicates haste and laziness and lack of effort. That said, if I couldn't tell that something was AI-generated or looked AI-generated, I wouldn't feel cheated if I found out it was. After a certain point it's just another artistic tool. And for all I know I see AI-generated images all the time without realizing it, alongside the ones I do recognize.

[fortemp]

I agree with jwik. I guess if I can’t tell (and you don’t admit it) all’s fair in erotic comics, but part of what I imagine myself paying for here is art made by humans. I can go prompt stable diffusion myself, and for a lot less than a MCC membership…

[BenHur Over]

I've always been somewhat indifferent toward AI-generated images, and based on most of the material I've seen, I don't think the technology is quite there yet.

If a project plans to rely fully on AI images, the quality needs to come close to the consistency and detail in Gossip Goblin's videos, otherwise, I'm not interested. That level of polish is genuinely impressive, but it's clearly difficult to achieve.

For me, the best middle ground is using AI images purely as placeholders for the Multipath Story projects. That way we could get our hands on the next version (or an early build) of SM and Lessirova as soon as possible, while the real artwork is still being drawn and later swapped in by real artists. It would also mean the team wouldn't have to prioritize the games over other comics they're working on, such as SJI.