From Mario Maker to Rosebud AI: The Story of Radio Biscuit

Purple Biwa Waters is a fishing game with 3D-like action, built on Rosebud's 2D template.

“Fish are swimming around ahead of the player, smoothly submerging and reappearing, changing lanes, and other things like that”, says its proud creator, Robert F., known on our Discord as Radio_Biscuit.

And he adds: “at the last minute, I made the pole more lifelike with a fishing line that actually casts into the water, alternating the pole image to correspond; Rosie helped me put that together quickly”.

Robert is from a smaller Virginia town amid the Appalachians. He studied at a liberal arts college and his interests include anthropology, music, and reading about natural history and science.

That's why he has often made games with animals as characters. Honey Bear, The Baby Monkey Saga, Beach Beetles, and Grizzly Bear Bargains are just a few of the games he's created using our AI Game Maker.

Now, even though he has gotten his hands dirty with some coding and knows a bit about it, Robert doesn't see himself as a coder. “I've considered learning to code”, he muses.

So, how has he managed to create such engaging and detailed games? In this blog post, you can find his story.

From Mario Maker to Rosebud AI

“My insights into game development, in part, come from just my own observations of how my favorite games are designed”, Robert explains. His passion for video games began in the early 90s with titles like Super Mario Bros 3 and the Donkey Kong Country series.

His interest in Nintendo games has led him to research the creative processes behind them, reading the "Iwata Asks" interviews (conducted by Satoru Iwata, former president of Nintendo) and watching live gameplay events such as the Nintendo Treehouse presentations.

However, one of his main influences is Super Mario Maker, a game in which he has been creating courses for years and which has helped him learn about level design.

“As for Super Mario Maker, I downloaded it from the Nintendo eShop the day it came out in 2015”, he recounts. “I've become better able to Mario-tize any concept, ranging from ski resorts to farm yards to remixing other video games. I want to bring all those sensibilities into my Rosebud projects”.

Embracing Early-Stage Tech

In addition to his interest in video games, Robert has always been intrigued by Artificial Intelligence.

A few years ago, he experimented with the software released by OpenAI called "Codex" to create small games using natural language. However, the technology was still in an early stage, so he continued exploring other options until eventually discovering Rosebud.

“For Rosebud, I approached it with the language-model aspect in mind”, he says. “I felt like the director while Rosie was the programmer who I gave instructions to”.

Although he considers that the technology is still in its early stages, he believes it's worth following and trying out.

“Bounce around ideas with Rosie and see how they look”, he recommends to other creators. “You might make new discoveries with her, as well as insights about what the gameplay could be or what you can make happen”.

Robert considers himself to have been ambitious in using Rosebud, which has led him to “see surprising things, like that Rosie's able to get genetic algorithms started given some direction”, and that she “sometimes didn't quite give me what I asked for, but I perhaps liked what she gave me better”.

Patience pays off in AI Game Dev

In his work with Rosebud, Robert acknowledges there has been a lot of trial-and-error, abandoned ideas, and learning experiences. Nevertheless, he maintains that “making games on Rosebud had been fun”.

Since he has been experimenting and doing creative exercises with GPT since before ChatGPT came out, his experience interacting with AIs is extensive. “I've learned that, for now, it's worth it for users to try and see their projects through to the end”, he advises.

“With text-to-game still early on, patience and persistence can work out in the user's favor”, he recommends to new creators. “They'll be attempting many things with Rosie when stuff goes wrong, they might give up on particular ideas in a project, but it's nice to have a completed game to share with folks”.

“I'm feeling pretty good about how fast Rosebud seems to be progressing” he concludes. “In the sign-up survey where I said I'd like to make a complete game with my heart in it, and it's been easier to do that each day”.

Remember that if you also want to create a complete game with Rosebud, you can start here, and join our Discord community to get more insights from creators like Robert.