Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii shares a game he says he made with AI in 30 minutes

Yuji Horii, the creator of Dragon Quest, has shared a text-based police interrogation game that he says he made with generative AI in roughly half an hour. He linked to the game in an October 11 post on X, as reported by Eurogamer and GamesIndustry.biz.

In the post, Horii looked back on making The Portopia Serial Murder Case in 1983, which he wrote, illustrated and programmed largely by himself. “I came up with the story myself, drew the pictures myself, did the programming myself, and created the game all by myself,” he wrote. Today, he said, someone who can’t draw or program can make a decent game alone just by giving an AI instructions. He also told players: “don’t press the boost button.”

GamesIndustry.biz describes the game this way: players question a suspect named Komiya, a former locksmith, about a break-in at a pawnshop safe. They have until his lawyer arrives at 11pm to get statements out of him and then use evidence to challenge his lies. According to the outlet, he becomes easier to break as his agitation rises, but he goes silent if his resistance reaches 100.

This isn’t Horii’s first public backing of AI. Earlier this year, Square Enix and Google added a Gemini-powered chatbot character called Chatty Slimey to the MMO Dragon Quest X. In a Famitsu interview that GamesRadar translated, Horii defended the move. According to Eurogamer, he said that “Slimey is a conversational partner” that he believes makes it easier for people to start using AI. Eurogamer also notes that VGC has reported Horii is considering an AI-powered chatbot for one of his future games.

Horii is currently working on Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams and on Next: The Portopia Serial Murder Case. GamesIndustry.biz says the latter was announced in September and is due in 2027.

Generative AI in game development has drawn heavy criticism in recent years, Eurogamer notes, as players, developers and voice actors raise concerns about job security. In related news, Unity recently revealed Unity Spark, a browser-based tool for building 3D games from text prompts. According to GamesIndustry.biz, it will launch in beta later this year on Google’s Playground.