AI Level Design Is the New Frontier

The biggest conversation in AI gamedev this week: how do you get from generated quests to generated levels?

@nazimadakli's team on Shatterwake is combining procedural generation, agentic AI, and 3D model gen — constraining agentic choices and leaning on procgen for room counts, branch structures, and key-lock systems. Their approach: limit the agent, let algorithms handle structure. Safer but less open-ended. They're also exploring a hybrid — use 3D generation models for exteriors (decent now), combine with World Labs-style single-asset interiors, and let agentic AI decorate rooms.

@alightinastorm launched Three-Maps, an open-source 2D→3D blockout editor for three.js games — draw a floor plan, auto-generate 3D levels, export to .glb. (Launch tweet) He's also pushing for a proper benchmark for world design by LLMs — standardized test cases for tunnels, bridges, house shapes, and composition — to get model providers optimizing for game-relevant spatial reasoning.

The Rigging Wars Continue

The state of AI rigging: getting better, still painful.

• UniRig is the current favorite — with SkinTokens on the horizon as the next leap
• Meshy's rigging remains controversial. Some developers report twisted models and wrong-facing outputs; others say it's improved significantly in the last 6 months and works well enough for runtime pipelines that need zero human input
• AccuRig + Mixamo still win for hands, which remain the hardest part
• The real unsolved problem: segmentation and item skinning for characters with robes, capes, or moving parts. A knight is fine; a knight with a flowing tabard is not

The emerging full-AI pipeline: UniRig → SkinTokens → HyMotion for animation → Presto for keyframing. Basically Blender for vibe artists.

Projects Worth Watching

3D Isometric Engine on Three.js — @runzhuotao built a full isometric game engine over a holiday break: code-only, no editor, all assets from Meshy. Now building a Diablo/PoE-style game on top of it, with plans to release a Claude Code-friendly version so anyone can build with it. (Demo)

ROM-to-Web Porting via Claude — One developer is running Claude in a loop to go from ROM/EXE of old-school games to working web ports. Works best when the model writes its own disassembler. Massive token burn but functional results.

Capybara Simulator on play.fun — @jtwald launched Capybara Simulator on play.fun, with a three.js game going viral on the platform. (Launch tweet)

Lobby — A new platform pitching itself as the abstraction layer for high-quality vibe-coded experiences: "Building with game engines should be as easy as vibe coding with three.js." Portable assets across experiences. (Announcement)

Tools & Drops

• FalCraft — Open-source 3D structure generation in Minecraft powered by fal.ai. Good as a base for reconstruction in Blender. (GitHub)
• Hunyuan 3.1 Studio — Now has auto-UV and auto-texturing. The auto-UV is useful; the texture atlas needs work.
• Sparc3D — Impressive mesh generation, but feels academic for now. Better for smaller objects than large structures.
• Cursor's big update — Now shows demos instead of diffs; agents use the software they build and send you videos. Trying to be the UI layer, not just a model gateway. (Announcement)

The Cost of Building

Real numbers on AI dev spending: individual developers are reporting $300-500/mo across AI tools, with large monorepo work being the main token drain. The emerging consensus: Claude and Codex pro plans are subsidized — you get significantly more tokens using Claude in Claude Code than routing through Cursor. The providers want you in their ecosystem first, then monetize on enterprise. If you're spending heavily on Cursor, it's worth comparing token-per-dollar against native Claude Code or Codex.

Meanwhile, some developers are building entire 3D editors for $30 total. The spread between efficient and expensive AI-assisted development is enormous.

Industry News

• Microsoft Gaming shakeup — New CEO Asha Sharma (replacing Phil Spencer) declared "no tolerance for bad AI" in the Xbox ecosystem. (Ars Technica)

• Unity AI beta at GDC — Upgraded Unity AI will let developers "prompt full casual games into existence" with natural language. Beta in March. (Game Developer)

• GDC Survey: 52% negative — More than half of developers now say generative AI is hurting the game industry. Only 7% view its impact positively. (Kodex)

• Godot drowning in AI PRs — Co-founder says they're overwhelmed with pull requests from people using generative AI who don't know how to code. (Famiboards)

Procedural Press — AI + Game Dev, Tuesdays