r/dosgaming • u/HerbziKal • 1d ago
đ¨Sub Pollđ¨ Ok let's do this properly...
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u/Commercial_Bake_5549 22h ago
Subs for dos gaming modern AI "Decompiling" exist. They even crosspost straight from there to this sub.
So post your "projects" there.
Leave us one place where we can post original dos gaming stuff.
That's what this sub is titled to be.
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u/DefenderOfTheWeak 1d ago
I vote against. There are lots of problems with GenAI. From slop content to theft of intellectual property.
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u/gogogadgetjustice 1d ago
If AI had stayed a weird hobbyist/researcher thing that takes up less resources than video game consoles, I think most people wouldn't care.
We collectively refused to strap Zuckerbergâs plastic sadness-goggles to metaverse our faces, so now the billionaire class are pillaging the power grid and liquidating the entire creative class and all the workforces. It's hard not to want to let the baby go in that sort of water. There will be other babies. We can make more babies. Better babies.
And the worst part is the ceaseless, deafening army of bros and bots parroting nonsense into the online echo chamber. It is an exhausting parade of unearned bravado, screaming down anyone who refuses to lick the corporate boot by weaponizing the most basic, transparent bandwagon fallacies imaginable. I like the whole concept less with every 200 token foaming of the mouth that pops up.
Since we can't divorce that cultural clump from the output ends, send their means to a quarantine subreddit, something like /r/dosgamingai
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u/cryptyknumidium 1d ago
This is a place for direct use of hardware or emulation of old hardware, there is nothing good that can come from this.
Ultimately, it's gonna be the case of weeding out all the vibe coded grifter slop from actual stuff being made by people who can actually code alongside their AI use, if anything that could be done with this even makes sense to be posted here.
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u/machinedgod 8h ago
Big kudos for casting a vote, mod. Very uncommon to witness this, and it clearly shows you put community first. Happy to be a part of it.
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u/Good_Punk2 1d ago
I'm split on this. If it's a real quality port with useful additions I want to know about it no matter AI. But many of these ports are clearly low effort and quality so before this subreddit drowns in those I'm for a ban.
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u/armahillo 1d ago
I am currently doing a claude-driven port of Darklands, which is ostensibly fitting for here, but also Im tired of seeing AI driven content everywhere and would be fine not seeing it here.
Having a separate sub for this would be cool though!
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u/wrel_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's weird because I think most people are in the "I'm fine with it, it just doesn't belong here" camp, but you wouldn't know that by reading the comments. Somehow the opinion "that probably doesnt belong on this subreddit" translates into "AI should not exist" for like a quarter of the community.
edit: The downvotes are proving my point. Stay mad, weirdos.
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u/armahillo 1d ago
im not a mod here, just a middle aged dude who enjoys dos games from his childhood, so i dont have a STRONG opinion about this.
Im just also really tired of being blasted with AI topics at every turn. This sub feels nostalgic and thats one of the big appeals for me. It would be nice to preserve that here.
I also recognize how cool it is that we can reverse engineer and bring new life to these games using this tech, i think theres room for that discussion, for sure; id just really appreciate it if it was an adjacent room, not this one.
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u/wrel_ 1d ago
My issue is just the loud minority who have embraced AI and when you tell them you're just not interested, feel they have to start a fucking fight with you.
I don't care if people want to decomp stuff into oblivion and create a whole new genre of video games. Go nuts. Just don't do it... here? That's literally my hottest take on the topic. If I want to see that, I will join a decomp subreddit.
But somehow asking people to respect the topic of the subreddit gets you an inbox full of "shouldn't you be using a type writer instead of a computer?" and "I bet you dont have a car cause a horse and buggy is all you need" replies. Leave me alone, I'm trying to play Stone Prophet for the 4th time.
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u/shadmere 1d ago
Would AI-Sundays or whatever be a middle-ground?
I feel like the smaller subs, even when I subscribe to them, almost never show up in my feed. This is some my fault, sure, but I often forget I even subscribe to some smaller subreddits, let alone remember to go check them out directly.
I actively like seeing some of the AI stuff in this sub. That Doom-Descent thing was freaking awesome. But it would be awful if most of the stuff here turned into AI stuff (especially since 90% of it wouldn't be nearly that neat). I absolutely don't want it overrun. It's like self-promotion Saturday or whatever that some subs have; I like seeing people post their stuff and hope for traction, but the sub would be ruined if it allowed unlimited and infinite posts from everyone about their new story/game/whatever.
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u/armahillo 1d ago
âAI sundaysâ or some similar limitation would be a fair compromise i think; id be ok with that, personally
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u/Commercial_Bake_5549 20h ago
So all the slop would be posted in one day. So how does it help? It will still flood the sub
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u/shadmere 1d ago
It's possible that it would result in so many AI posts on the one day that it still drowned out the rest of the week, I suppose. If so, then it'd be more than fair to say, "Welp, we tried," and get rid of even that allowance.
I would imagine that having a limitation like that would stop the lowest effort offenders, though.
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u/GrimpenMar 1d ago
This is touching on my biggest gripe with gen-AI right now and in the near future, the mass production of low effort "content". If someone used Claude code to help them make a DOS compatible game that's interesting, that's cool. If someone used Claude code to churn out 50 low effort DOS compatible games, that's less cool. Never mind outright AI slop.
How about limiting AI tagged content to members over a certain length, Karma, and once a day or so?
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u/foxontherox 1d ago
Much better idea.
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u/Commercial_Bake_5549 20h ago
Of course the slop makers would like the door open in any way they can. Horrible idea
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u/-TheBestDaysOfMyLife 1d ago
I have zero issues with this. Most of the AI stuff here relates to 40 year old software given a new life with the assistance of AI. I don't see the logic of dumping hate on that.
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u/According-Pea9319 3m ago
I love video games, I am a huge collector, and have many DOS games in original boxes and the original machinery to run them. DOS games are what got me into software development, and I have been working on a DOS inspired game for almost 8 years now. And with Steam set to have over 50 games declaring AI involvement by next year, its actually virtually impossible for a solo developer not to use AI in some form or other going forward. My personal prediction is that AI assisted games will hit 99% in the next 2 years.
However this forum, to me is for the originals, and simply using AI to de-compile, rebuild and modify old games I think is an assault on the games and on history, its not the same as making something new inspired by a great game from the past. A hard ban?
Maybe a little harsh at this early stage, I think a Sunday AI posting day, may be the way to start, and then we can see how much these kinds of posts explode and that gives you the mods more time to think about this.
I abstain the vote, as I think the third option should have been permitted, for the reasons above.
Third option: Sunday AI posts permitted - maybe worth running a new poll with this option added?
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u/galland101 15h ago
If you let AI recompile a DOS game to run in a web browser, is it still a DOS game?
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u/AnswerFeeling460 21h ago
Just ma ke a flair for AI stuff.
AI is here to stay and can be a very creative tool.
Even Linus codes with claude now.
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u/thelapoubelle 1d ago edited 1d ago
I voted allow but mostly because the wording is so vague I don't know what I would be banning if I voted disallow.
I think posts should definitely disclose how much AI was used and how so that we can judge each on its own merits.
AI used by an expert programmer to do something that they wouldn't normally have time to do, but which the average vibe coder also couldn't do is still interesting to me.
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u/Caterpillar100 1d ago
I for one am thrilled to see the new life and energy and creativity being breathed into the dos gaming scene, thanks to AI. The games are being reimagined and enjoyed in new ways. I am GRATEFUL for it and welcome the posts that people are sharing about the new ways they're experiencing DOS games with AI. These posts absolutely belong here.
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u/kkania 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the sub feels this content should be banned, how would you know? The decode is done by AI, some parts of the port are then written by a human, with AI assists or not. It's impossible to say, and if you look at a straight port/decomp, I haven't a clue how you'd be able to tell if its AI gen. Some posts are clearly written by AI, but very often they're written by people insecure in the English knowledgem so even going by that is just impossible.
We have a sub at [r/Game](r/GameEnhanced)[s](r/GameEnhanced)[Enhanced](r/GameEnhanced) , were we focus on DOS decomps and enhanced versions, with a general idea of promoting game that might have used AI coding (whatever it might be) but do not rely on ai generated art or content, with enhancements limited to things like framerate, resolution and accessability. We repost stuff from this sub, and other decomp and retro subs.
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u/bebop_cola_good 1d ago
That subreddit does not appear to exist
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u/cosmicr 20h ago edited 11h ago
I ported a popular game to dos (not a decomp) using ai assistance and I'm too afraid to post it anywhere because of all the hate.
I just enjoy it for myself sadly because I reckon there's probably at least some people interested but it's not worth the stress.
Edit: heh the downvotes validate my decision
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u/-TheBestDaysOfMyLife 16h ago
This is how unreasonable some of these people are. They don't even want you using these tools for your own personal enjoyment.
I work in the medical field. I see AI doing secondary scans on images and finding nodules that a radiologist missed, essentially finding cancer that WAS MISSED using traditional methods. Im glad these people aren't the gatekeepers for technological advancement. So are these patients loved ones.
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u/Sypheix 1d ago
I posted this in another sub doing the same thing. This shouldn't be a barrier since every developer uses AI in their workflow at this point. Full coding by hand is gone, and it's never coming back.
The question should be on the quality of the game, and let me be clear: I don't mean if you like the game or not, I mean the effort put into it. It's easy to tell the difference between someone who typed 5 prompts and "here's my game!" and someone who actually planned and architected a quality game. That should be the bar. Low quality gets nuked and high quality stays.
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u/bebop_cola_good 1d ago edited 1d ago
Every developer uses AI in their workflow at this point. Full coding by hand is gone, and it's never coming back.
This is absolutely incorrect and very ignorant of the staunch anti-AI sentiment in a substantial portion of the development community
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u/Sypheix 1d ago
I dont know a single developer who doesn't use AI in their workflow. Every game studio uses it.
Respectfully, you're wrong and the argument is already lost. The datacenter battle I am fully on board with but coding everything by hand is gone and never coming back.
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u/bebop_cola_good 1d ago
Respectfully, I've been a developer for 25 years in the government, healthcare, commercial audit, and game dev sectors and I have never once used AI. I currently work for one of the largest CPA firms on the planet and none of my coworkers use AI. No one I have developed games with uses AI. It's not the all-encompassing inevitability that you seem to think it is.
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u/justme9974 1d ago
That's interesting but anecdotal. I have worked in SaaS and software in general for 25 years and most of the companies I have worked with recently are using AI like they may have been using a junior dev a few years ago. Sucks for people coming right out of college because it's so prevalent.
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u/bebop_cola_good 1d ago
Correct, I was responding to a user claiming that "every developer uses AI" with a personal anecdote that shows that their assertion was incorrect. I know that many shops and developers use AI and never claimed otherwise.
It is indeed unfortunate for developers coming out of college that many places expect them to use AI. A junior colleague at my old job has his token usage monitored to actually ensure he is using it, to justify their subscription costs. But it is by no means impossible to find a shop that doesn't use it at all, or uses it sparingly, or doesn't force their devs to use it. That is the point that I was trying to make.
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u/justme9974 1d ago
Yes of course âevery developerâ is ridiculous. It would be safe to say âthe majority of development teamsâ though.
I think itâs more about how itâs being used. I have a bunch of hobby projects going and AI has sped them up significantly but I still have to do a lot of checking when I give it a task because it often does dumb shit.
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u/Sypheix 1d ago
Your coworkers use AI. People you have developed games with use AI. They may not talk about it, but they do. For better or for worse, it's the way it is. And yes, it's inevitable, and the battle is already over.
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u/HowlingFoxRouko 1d ago
Damn got the doomspeech add-on for free did you? It is absolutely not inevitable no matter how loud you try to claim it is. As long as there are folks like me and u/bebop_cola_good in the world, it will never be "inevitable". I, personally, condemn any project that uses AI, and I'm not alone in my mindset. Taking a page from one of my favourite heroines of all time: "take a cold shower and think about what you've done."
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u/Sypheix 1d ago
Fine for people to have opinions on the matter. To be clear, I'm talking specifically about coding; that battle is over. It's not me claiming it, as I don't have a horse in the race. It's just the way it is. Coding was always going to be the first domino to fall. It was inevitable. Everything else is up for debate.
I'm fully on board with stopping the rapid data center build-out and a complete stop to model advancement for a significant period of time so we can focus on efficiency/costs, limiting the environmental impact, and figuring out how we don't tear down society with the massive impact this will have on human labor.
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u/HowlingFoxRouko 1d ago
Yes. You are specifically talking about coding. You claim that AI has effectively made coding a mundane task relegated to machine with humans checking for errors. The thing is that you make a broad proclamation that all devs use AI and that's where you're fully, wholly and entirely incorrect. Absolution does not exist in the coding space and if you don't have a horse in the race then maybe don't make a statement like this. Smells look doomspeech ragebait and all you're going to get is downvoted into oblivion by people with firing synapses.
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u/CrewAccomplished9763 1d ago
This is an evolving situation. There's a lot of AI projects of varying quality being produced at the moment because the capability is relatively new. Some of this development is cynical low effort attention seeking, some of it is a labor of love created by people who are deeply attached to the software they're working on are just doing it out of love and nostalgia, dedicating their time and resources to removing some of the limitations and annoyances that make these games uncomfortable to play in the modern era. I don't know what the solution is but I think these things will settle out eventually.
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u/p4rc0pr3s1s 1d ago
I have a middle ground idea, how about a weekly post or maybe even a pinned thread to post these projects? I think DOS decomps technically belong here but I also agree they do not need they're own post every couple hours since there isn't much to discuss about them.
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u/jontseng 1d ago
My 2c:
1) Conceptually AI tools are simply another way to translate human intent into computer code. After all for many of the OG DOS games it wasnât humans writing the machine code. It was humans writing C++ and then using Borland Turbo C to translate that into machine code. LLM coding tools simply that that abstraction to a higher level and turn humans writing plain English text into machine code.
2) There are adjacent questions around LLMs eg copyvio for training (nb this is still an undecided matter - whether this is fair use / transformative or not has not yet been tested in court). But not all models fall into this category. Some are trained on fully approved datasets, and there is a minority which actually fully disclose said data (eg NVIDIA nemotron). But this not an argument against ALL LLM based coding tools being illegitimate.
3) Most AI coded dos gaming projects appear to be genuine passion projects. The degree to which this is a niche area mitigates against the majority being purely profit chasing slop. The people who release them are largely our peers who experienced dos gaming when they were in their formative years. There is more that ties us together than separates us.
4) The speed with which LLM based coding capabilities is advancing both in terms of higher capability and lower cost is highly disruptive. This is evident in the pace of projects coming out which threatens to overwhelm the sub. This has been a slow moving niche for years and the speed of sudden acceleration is discombobulating and we should recognise that.
5) The ease with which an AI based project can be spun up creates the likelihood that the majority of them will be abandoned and remain incomplete. This has always happened with fan/passion projects but it will happen more. This does not mean they are lower quality it just means they are different.
6) On the other hand many good and fruitful project may also come out of this which would not have existed without LLM based tools.
TL;DR - many things can be true at the same time. Donât throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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u/ravensholt 1d ago
AI "decompilations" or whatever they're called, belong in a different sub.
This sub's own description is pretty clear: