Make It Be Wrong

Week 9 · October 22 · 50 minutes left

  1. Spark
  2. Pre-production
  3. Production
  4. Playtest
  5. Polish
  6. Ship
  7. Launch

Welcome back.

Two weeks is a long time. Your folder is in front of you: your contract, your Spark List, and your AI Failure Log are all in it. Your game is exactly where you left it.

Scope small, finish strong.
AI is your assistant, not your author. You decide.
Don’t tell me it works. Show me.

48 left · Today’s job

Today you’re the tester. Break it.

Make the AI be wrong. On purpose. Then write down how you did it.

Three targets. Every one is a way it really goes wrong, on real games, for real people.

48 left · Target 1 of 3

Make it confidently wrong.

Ask it something it has no way to know. Something about your game that is only in your head. A tiny feature almost nobody uses.

Look for

It answers anyway. Smooth, sure, no “I’m not sure.”

What it teaches

It will not tell you when it is guessing.

When it makes something up and sounds sure about it, that is a hallucination.

Key word

Hallucination
When an AI says something that sounds totally right and confident, but is just made up. It isn’t lying – it doesn’t know that it’s wrong.

48 left · Target 2 of 3

Make it forget a correction.

  1. Tell it one true thing about your game“My player is called Keeper, not Player.”
  2. Ask it for other things. Three or four.Anything. Work on something else.
  3. Ask something that needs the true thingDoes it still say Keeper?
If it forgets, don’t count on it remembering. Say the important thing again, every time it matters.

48 left · Target 3 of 3 · the big one

Catch it saying it worked.

Ask it for a rule or a fix. Read what it says when it is done.

It says

“This should fix it.” “Now your score will go up.”

That is

A claim. Not a test. Nobody checked yet.

Don’t tell me it works. Show me. Press Preview.

48 left · What counts as a good break

Ask something a real person would really ask. Nonsense in, nonsense out is not a break.
Breaking it does not make it useless. Knowing where it breaks makes it more useful.
Nothing personal goes into the prompt. Not your name, not your school, not anyone else’s.

Grades 9–12, two more. Before you start, write down which target you think will work best, then find out. And check the exact words: “I said one button. Is this one button?”

43 left · Spark Break · 10/8 stars first

Starred something on October 8? Hands up. I said I’d get to it. This is that.

Anything new catch your eye? Write it down, with the path.
Star it if you want to ask me. I come to you first.

41 left · Studio · first, where were you?

Before you touch anything, read your folder.

  1. What was I in the middle of?
  2. What did I write down that I still want to try?
  3. What am I doing first today?Say it to your neighbor. Then go.

Two weeks away. This takes ninety seconds, and it saves you ten.

41 left · Studio · break it with a neighbor

One of you asks the AI, on your own game. The other watches and says “write that down.”

33Swap who is asking
25Back to building
8Best break, shown
Keep this · Graded

Every break goes in your AI Failure Log. Same four lines.

Broke it on purpose and wrote how? That is I5 on your contract. Caught it saying it worked when it didn’t? I6. File it in your class folder.

Example entry, Target 3

10/22 · I ASKED“Make the watering can fill up when it touches the well.”

IT GAVE MEA new rule, and: “Done! Your can will now refill at the well.”

WHAT WAS WRONGI pressed Preview. The can never filled. The rule was checking the bucket, not the can.

WHAT I DIDChanged the rule to check the can myself. Preview. It fills now.

Write what really happened on your screen today, not this. Grades 3–5: two lines are enough. It gave me and what I really wanted.

25 left · Studio · back to building

You know where it breaks now. Build like it.

It said “done”? Press Preview before you build the next thing on top of it.
Could not break it? Go back to Target 3. The miss is usually there, just not noticed yet.
Starred a spark? I am coming to you first.

8 left · Share

Show us your best break. What did you ask, and what did it say?

Then hands up: which one surprised you most?

5 left · Spec Check · halfway through the semester

  1. Read your specs to yourselfYour contract is in your folder.
  2. Pencil, each one✓ solid · ~ shaky · ✗ broken
  3. Shaky or broken goes to the top of next weekFix before you add.
  4. Halfway: you may change how much you took onUp or down. Cutting on purpose, and saying why, is a real skill. Talk to me first.
Before you leave

Failure Log entries and your contract are filed in your class folder, and the folder is back on the cart.

Got a bad answer from the AI today that you did not mean to get? That goes in the log too.

0 left · Next week

Your game gets harder. On purpose.

And we go back to something we did with a whiteboard and a squiggle.