My latest game, The Legendary Hero, is an action card game that required illustrations for 13 different cards. I saw this as an opportunity to try AIs for generating art and learn more about this new technology. This post compares the results from 4 AIs: Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, Lexica Aperture, and Craiyon.
My evaluation is based on their applicability to this project and my requirements.
Goals
My requirements for an AI image generator were:
As a hobbyist working on a month-long game jam project, I needed it to be free.
It needed to generate smallish (60 x 70 pixels) images to use as card art.
The asset pack that I used (https://schwarnhild.itch.io/peacefulpixels00) was pixel art, so I wanted the card art to be in a pixelated style.
The game and card effects had medieval and magic themes (spells, potions, etc), so the AI needed to generate images with those themes.
Last, but not least, I wanted each AI-generated image to be a consistent style that wouldn’t cause an untrained eye to balk. This, to my understanding, is one of the hardest pieces to get right with AI image generation.
Not Goals
I was NOT trying to generate sprites for the character, tiles, objects, or anything else in the game. Only for card art. I haven’t seen an AI image generator (keep in mind - this post is written in mid-2023) that produces crisp pixel art sprites. The results usually have stray and inconsistent pixels. Plus, I haven’t seen AIs that can produce animations for you.
Finally, I was NOT making a commercial game. This was a game jam project. The results only needed to be “good enough”.
Comparison
I tried 5 different AIs: Dall-E, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, Lexica Aperture, and Craiyon.
I provided each of them with the same prompt:
“pixel art medieval traveler sitting by a campfire at night”
Here are the results:
Dall-E
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F99518908-fd24-4e28-90f2-b8b1aaceb066_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff97214fd-5e80-47ee-9fa6-bee8eba1255c_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9c808d42-842c-4a02-8938-f1bcb9301ad5_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F952b670f-7b76-428f-910c-441b069a6fc6_256x256.png)
I quite liked these results. They’re a little cartoonish, but relevant, consistent, and charming. In fact, three of the cards in the final game came from Dall-E.
However, I decided NOT to use Dall-E because I realized you have limited “credits” (requests) in the free usage tier, which was a deal-breaker for me.
Free Tier: Limited credits per month (I think 15?)
Paid Tier: As of May 2023, $15 for 115 credits (each request is a credit)
MidJourney
I’ve heard that MidJourney provides the best results.
The weird thing about MidJourney is that to get free results, you have to post your prompts in Discord. I didn’t like this.
I attempted to join the Discord and try it because of the good things I’ve heard. However, I couldn’t figure out how to get it working after 10 minutes.
Ultimately, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and that I wouldn’t use MidJourney if it was this difficult to get started.
Stable Diffusion
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F69ee2fc2-62e8-41e9-b89e-59294a1aafd5_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F14177824-f992-4713-a01b-f09274dd837d_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F59c27019-4716-4533-8085-da81f457f71c_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8819b314-7661-4021-82de-544ea82d3ec7_256x256.jpeg)
I really didn’t like these results because they barely resemble pixel art.
Free Tier: As far as I can tell, this is all that Stable Diffusion offers and is unlimited.
Lexica Aperture
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec03f991-7a17-4268-b251-e692285be728_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc553dd71-58a9-4876-ba58-6c5bd253a545_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc2597346-8349-4bf6-8cc8-4fd71139c5df_256x256.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9a5c8d00-833f-44ca-a519-baa420ab12c5_256x256.jpeg)
While I kind of like this art, it’s a weirdly specific style. And for some reason, it really likes putting laptops in the “medieval” setting.
Free Tier: Limited to 100 queries per month
Paid Tier: Ranging from $8 per month to $60 per month
Craiyon
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0141e5fa-3b1c-4633-9d67-41f9cf0f5759_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac8fca5c-713c-4661-8a1e-3f6dcd57c7ae_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0d8d87e-5418-4c96-b06a-07d4703ee8ab_256x256.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc4104803-8f52-4da7-94c4-27a5934bfcba_256x256.png)
Craiyon took a while to generate results (usually about 1 minute). But it was worth the wait - the results perfectly fit the style I wanted for my game. You can see how the pixels aren’t crisp, but it didn’t contrast too much from the other game assets and was acceptable for card art in a game jam (but it wouldn’t work for sprites).
Free Tier: Unlimited queries as far as I can tell but it can be slow (~1 minute) to generate results
Paid Tier: $5 per month to $24 per month (no watermark, no ads, faster)
Conclusion
Craiyon served my purposes best: its free version did not have quantity restrictions and I was pleased with the pixelated art it produced for my cards:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F31bf9cc6-546f-48a9-9123-0e3c01a56132_60x70.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F316d49df-dcaa-4c2f-bf14-43dbc8917012_60x70.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F037fd21c-8908-4d97-868e-e8710cf51b63_60x70.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F08cb21bd-d254-4aae-8cef-cf2ce9987590_60x70.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F17ecee19-a61b-4a9b-81e6-9f0c93b3cce9_60x70.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcf7e1b4d-7608-4622-9a92-7030299ad975_60x70.png)
It was interesting to see how each AI had its own distinct style:
Dall-E was a bit cartoonish
Stable Diffusion looked like embroidery, barely pixel art
Lexica Aperture was crisp and tended towards purple hues & laptops
Craiyon almost looked like paintings
While the AI-generated art served my purposes (free, static art, no sprites or animation, casual game jam), I would not recommend it for commercial games. I think the AI-generated results are too inconsistent and art in a game is too important to settle for the lack of consistent quality.
Again, keep in mind this opinion comes in mid-2023 - AIs will improve and I wouldn’t be surprised if my opinion changes.
I plan to continue looking for opportunities to try AI-generated art for games. I believe the quality of the images is dependent on the prompter and I think I have a lot to learn. Next, I want to try using AI for generating NPC dialogue.