If you’ve played The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian or at least searched for it, you can see the players are fighting over one question: does The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian use undisclosed AI art? The debate has exploded across social media platforms like Steam and Reddit.
I have investigated to see what the fuss is all about, and unsurprisingly enough, I’ve reached some interesting results. Let’s see if folks at Schisma Games really did use AI.
What You’ll Read Here
Are These Prince Jerian Screenshots AI Giveaways or Normal Mistakes?
The doubt started with a handful of screenshots. Let’s see:
- A wine glass with two liquid lines instead of one, which means it’s half full and it’s also full to the brim. Can’t happen in the real world.
- Apparently, people used to store their stuff in the fireplace for sure.
- The window arches all have completely different designs from one another. There are six small window frames in different sizes that are supposed to cast shadows, but they’re only casting five shadows. They all also look exactly the same.
- You can see the gentleman’s left hand ends in a knot instead of fingers.
- This looks like a skeleton that looks like it’s got weirdly morphed with dog features. The supposed dog is super fluffy and doing this awkward little squat. The back right leg should be shifted more forward. All in all, it looks like an alien dog who was born out of a dog-sheep romance.
- The guy in the background looks like he has his right leg swapped with some sort of statue.
- The fingers look a bit weird, especially the ring finger, which is too long. The shadow on the middle finger is also off.
- This one is crazy. A chessboard with pawns on the wrong row and pieces stacked on one tile. This is classic AI for sure.
- The front hand is meant to be clasped, with some fingers wrapping around from behind. The ring finger of the hand is hidden in shadow. The hand in the far background is only lightly sketched with a few simple lines. It looks weird to me, though. Not sure about this one.
These all look like classic AI mistakes. The fact that you’ve got a painting of a hand that looks possessed proves this isn’t something a person draws by hand. These are all dead giveaways.
Not everyone seems to believe this supposed AI slop idea. According to the Steam community post, one player who bought early access through the Kickstarter said the art style still matches the original game and that nothing he saw was without a doubt AI.
Another one, who says she has been a working artist for decades and that she has tested AI tools herself, agreed and said this simply isn’t that at all. Others argued that hands are just hard to draw (which is something I definitely don’t buy).
One excuse that was too unrealistic to believe was that indie art always has small errors. I do believe that everyone can make a mistake and they should, because that’s part of what makes us grow. But mistakes like these that go unchecked and make their way into the final game are something you can’t ignore.
One thing people are talking about the most is the chessboard. Some pointed out that the game’s own text describes the game exactly like real chess, right down to which side moves first.
So the messy board is kind of hard to explain as a different game in this world. Others also disagreed, saying the world isn’t Earth, so the board doesn’t have to follow chess rules at all, which is again ironic. Dude, this is literally chess but pieces on the same tile? Come on.
Schisma Games’ Art Lead and AI: The Strongest Evidence
The strongest single piece of evidence came from this part of the thread. Let me quote the person who said it:
Here’s an article, written by this game’s ART LEAD – Alexey Kulakov – talking about how does AI changes the role of Art designer – it’s written by him for an AI firm JetStyle, making AI slop for Russian companies.
https://leonardo.osnova.io/2e25e0b7-7ba1-5d58-822d-ae2ada3797db/-/scale_crop/1300x/-/format/webp
Beyond that – here’s his personal site – the last article he’s “written” – well, they all look like it was all made by AI anyway, which by the way he himself admits – is about how to properly use AI tools. One of the articles mentions that they work closely with JetStyle. In almost any article are references about how regurarly he uses ChatGPT and/or how enthusiastic he’s about using various AI tools.
Do tell, though – what will it take for you to be convinced? What kind of proof do you need?
What Do Redditors Say?
Over on Reddit, the same split shows up. A user who sadly preordered because of their love for the first game said the art in the bonus artbook made him angry. I mean, if you look closely, it certainly looks like AI: a strange beard and an odd hand. It just feels off.
However, another reader answered that most “AI slop” call-outs online are really just normal art mistakes and people are quick to label anything with a slightly off feel as AI-made.
I second this, because the moment I myself see something online that may slightly look off or strange, I quickly jump to the conclusion that it’s AI, which in many cases might not be true at all.
Conclusion: Does The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian Use AI?
So, at the end of the day, where does that leave things? Well, I have to say, based on what I’ve seen and read, no single screenshot proves undisclosed AI art beyond doubt. But there’s also a real, unverified claim that AI was used somewhere along the way and the developers haven’t clearly addressed it, which could be a definite sign that what we’re thinking is true.
To be fair, the honest answer sits in the middle: I believe they clearly used AI to get some of the works done. If so, at least they could’ve polished it, though. If you’re still unsure, it’s worth watching for an official statement before you make up your mind.
I believe from now on that AI is becoming more and more apparent these days, devs should adopt Christopher Nolan’s No CGI approach: no AI unless absolutely necessary.
