Indie studio releases 10k human-made game assets so devs “don’t turn to AI”

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Independent game developers received a welcome boost today when a studio released a large collection of handcrafted game assets at a very low price.

Man, 2025 was wild for gaming. Suddenly, everyone was talking about AI and how it was being used in games. It wasn’t just big stuff either – people were questioning everything, from the little sprays in live service shooters to the trailer for Stamina Zero’s Little Droid, and even those Mario Kart World ads Nintendo was running. It really made you think about where everything was coming from.

Epic Games recently faced legal issues due to problems with the AI controlling Darth Vader in their game, which has created some skepticism as they prepare to reveal their next project.

New indie asset bundle offers creators a non-AI path forward

Chequered Ink, a small UK-based studio specializing in fonts, game engines, and independent game development, has released a large collection of 10,000 assets. They created this pack to help developers, especially beginners, avoid using AI-generated content and make game creation more affordable and accessible.

The creators highlighted that all 4,708 high-definition sprites and 4,574 pixel art images were made manually. The collection also features 792 sound effects, 35 3D models, a font, and assets suitable for a wide variety of game genres, including platformers, RPGs, and board games. They created this pack as a conscious alternative to the growing concerns about the environmental impact and copyright problems associated with AI-generated art and audio.

Chequered Ink aims to help developers be more efficient and cost-effective, reducing their reliance on AI tools – particularly given worries about AI models using copyrighted material without permission.

The team believes stories are more impactful when crafted by people, even if they use pre-made elements. They support this by offering a straightforward license: developers can freely use their content in commercial projects without needing to provide attribution, as long as they don’t redistribute the original files themselves.

Okay, so the game initially cost $20, but they had a huge 50% off sale, bringing it down to just $10! What’s really cool is that they’re promising to add even more stuff to the pack for free as they keep creating new art and sounds themselves. It sounds like they’re really committed to keeping it updated and fresh, which is awesome.

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2025-12-04 20:48