Update: "AI tools were used strictly as a coding assistant"

Image credit: PiqFocus Interactive

Update 10th August: Seems I may have been naive about this one! While there's no AI disclosure on the full Steam page for The Carcass, there is a disclosure on the separate store page for the demo. Here's the disclosure in full.

"The entire vision, design, and core structure of this game are the result of human effort. AI tools were used strictly as a coding assistant during development—to speed up programming, debug, and optimize performance. This project is the result of a year of hard work; it was not 'generated' with a few simple prompts."

Disclosure aside, there are a bunch of Steam reviews of the demo accusing the developer of using generative AI to create the game's writing and art. I've mailed PiqFocus for further details.

Original story below: Hitherto, Turkish devs PiqFocus Interactive have specialised in cosy, laidback games like Lepidarium, in which you watch caterpillars bloom into gorgeous butterflies, and Easy Bubbles, in which you chillax with an aquarium of cute little fishies. Now they are making The Carcass, a text-based roguelike in which you carve out a colony inside the corpse of a spacegod.

I am… curious to know what happened. The obvious explanation is that PiqFocus employ or commission a variety of people with different tastes and interests – some are passionate about recreating the charming orange-black livery of the Gulf Fritillary, while others really get a kick out of things like *checks notes* "bile fermentation" and the concept of a floating "clot bazaar" where people gather to trade dried blood.

Still, I'd love to hear that some Lepidarium writer just went a bit screwy after researching 160,000 varieties of moth. I picture them giggling over the Wikipedia page for human botflies. Myself, I'm a fan of both creature collecting sims and colonisable dead gods. What can I say – I contain multitudes.

The Carcass is out tomorrow on Steam, but I figured you'd like to hear about it now because there's still a demo as of writing, and this does feel like a game you'll want to Try Before You Buy. "The corpse is your world," explains the Steam page. "A continent of rotting organs, bone corridors, and forgotten chambers, rendered in retro terminal ASCII with authentic CRT glow."

Image credit: PiqFocus Interactive

You will "harvest biomass, calcium, bile, and neurons" as you seek to transform your seemingly not wholly dead surroundings into a tumorous sunken city, populated by factions of citizens with different traits and skills. You will research "combat, production, diplomacy, and forbidden arts", unlocking occult mutations as you send forth permakillable warriors to exterminate the other parasites squirming for possession of the divine cadaver. And the more you do these things, the more the carcass will "understand" you. "There are five main endings - "Dominion. Symbiosis. Awakening. Escape. Transcendence." - together with four secret ones.

The devs add that this is aimed at people who like Caves of Qud, Dwarf Fortress, Cultist Simulator, and Sunless Sea. I'd add Anoxia Station to that list - "fraught, delphic, and emotionally crushing" insectoid petro-horror. In general, it feels like a good pick if you like overripe "hand-written" descriptions (incidentally, there's no generated AI usage disclosure on the Steam page).

I'll be giving it a go. Perhaps I will buy that Lepidarium game and run them side by side – apparently, there's the option to release your butterflies and moths from the app, so they can flutter around your desktop. We shouldn't have to choose between looking at a Snowberry Clearwing and quarrying a slain deity's gizzards.