The revelation and the reasons for the delay
The developer of Big Walk, House House, has publicly confirmed that language models were used to a limited extent in the final stage of development of the cooperative puzzle game, to address technical problems and bugs. According to what the company reported and as taken up by the source, the use concerns less than 0.1% of the game's code and stems from a defect in the Unity engine that slowed the title by generating infinitely long shadows. A Unity engineer reportedly deemed the problem unsolvable; after consulting a chatbot, the development studio extensively reworked the suggestion into up to ten lines of code that ended up in the final product. The source also notes that at least one social media user claims the bug could have been fixed with significant human intervention.
House House explained that it did not disclose the use of AI at launch on Steam because the platform does not require it for code or chatbots; Valve's form concerns generated content, not efficiency gains. The Independent Games Festival, however, does not make this distinction, and for this reason the developer included the note in its submission, then making it public because it had become a matter of general interest. In its statement, the company distances itself from AI and says it is concerned that voluntary disclosures like this one normalize the technology.
The rift among jurors and the public reaction
The controversy had been brewing for months in private groups of IGF judges and jurors. On Monday, 19 members of a jury of more than fifty signed a document in which they declare they will not vote for any game that uses generative AI to any degree, citing a significant increase in submitted works developed with these tools and denouncing ecological, economic, psychological and labor harms. The group asked the IGF for a strict anti-AI policy for future years.
The revelation particularly struck some jurors connected to the game, who had described it as a remarkable achievement capable of stirring deep emotions. Nevertheless, for the award evaluation, even minimal use of AI prevailed over the appreciation for the work. On the opposite side, other jurors and observers argued that equating every use is misleading: the case of a last-resort technical fix would not be comparable to games that generate much of the art, music or engine. The title's Steam page received over 400 negative reviews, mitigated by anti-review bombing tools, while overall reception remains very positive.
The precedent and open questions
The debate is not new in the awards sector: last year, the Indie Game Awards, separate from the IGF, revoked awards from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 after the admission that some textures had been created with AI tools, which were later removed. It remains to be seen how the IGF will translate the jurors' request into actual rules and whether voluntary disclosures will become a standard. The source does not indicate formal decisions by the organization or the outcome of Big Walk's submission.
