The Slop Curriculum

What the sources say

1. Before you direct anything, you should see what happens when you don’t. It happens a lot.The Slopwright, Generic slop, The Slop Curriculum
2. A cat is a rumour. A one-eared ginger tom asleep on a green velvet armchair is evidence.The Slopwright, Say what you mean, The Slop Curriculum
3. Every picture is taken from somewhere. If you don’t say where, the machine stands in the middle and points.The Slopwright, Where’s the camera?, The Slop Curriculum
4. “Beautiful lighting” is not a lighting setup. It’s a wish.The Slopwright, Light it like you mean it, The Slop Curriculum
5. The machine can do any style. That’s the problem. Pick one, describe it, and leave living artists out of it.The Slopwright, Medium rare, The Slop Curriculum
6. If you change six things and it gets better, you’ve learned nothing. If you change one thing, you’ve learned one thing. That’s a lot.The Slopwright, One thing at a time, The Slop Curriculum
7. Making the image is the easy part now. Looking at it properly, and being honest about how it got made, is the job.The Slopwright, Is it any good?, The Slop Curriculum
8. Every piece in the workshop is the same idea: an ordinary thing, one impossible detail, and a completely straight face. Your turn.The Slopwright, The commission, The Slop Curriculum
9. A style isn’t a vibe. It’s a set of rules you could hand to a stranger and get your picture back.The Slopwright, House style, The Slop Curriculum
10. I don’t repeat myself. I write it down once, in a folder, and let the machine read it when it needs to.The Slopwright, Skills, The Slop Curriculum
11. A model on its own can only talk. Give it tools and it can look things up, fetch the slop, and check a badge. Carefully.The Slopwright, Tools, not vibes, The Slop Curriculum
12. The model will read your tool’s description more carefully than any person ever has. Write it like that matters, because it does.The Slopwright, Design a tool, The Slop Curriculum
13. Everything in my workshop is AI-made, and I say so. The interesting question is how anyone else would know.The Slopwright, Who made this?, The Slop Curriculum
14. An assembly line for one impossible object a day. Automate the boring parts. Keep a person on the interesting ones.The Slopwright, The pipeline, The Slop Curriculum
15. Ask a machine for “a fun game” and you get the average of every game it has seen. It jumps. It collects coins. It is nobody’s favourite.The Slopwright, Generic game slop, The Slop Curriculum
16. Every good small game is one verb, done well, under pressure. Everything else is decoration, and decoration is my department.The Slopwright, One verb, The Slop Curriculum
17. If the player presses a button and nothing pops, rings or wobbles, the game has lied to them. Gently, but it has lied.The Slopwright, Juice, The Slop Curriculum
18. An AI will happily rewrite your game every time you ask for a small change. The skill is the bit that says: no. This part stays.The Slopwright, Rails for the machine, The Slop Curriculum
19. I don’t play my games to see if they work. I have a small, tireless bot do it, a thousand times, and I read what it broke.The Slopwright, Tests that play, The Slop Curriculum
20. Random levels are easy. Random levels you can finish are the job. I check every one before anyone else steps in it.The Slopwright, Levels without tears, The Slop Curriculum
21. I let the machine make changes all night. In the morning I read what the bot said, look at three screenshots, and keep about half.The Slopwright, The game loop, The Slop Curriculum
22. Here is a little engine from the workshop. It plays whatever you describe, as long as you describe it properly. Most people don’t, the first time.The Slopwright, Ship a tiny game, The Slop Curriculum
23. Ask a machine for “chill music” and you get the lift music of every lift at once. It isn’t wrong. It’s just everybody’s.The Slopwright, Generic sound slop, The Slop Curriculum
24. Every bleep in this workshop is four numbers and a wave. I wrote them down so I’d stop humming them at people.The Slopwright, A sound is a recipe, The Slop Curriculum
25. If the coin and the crash sound the same, the player has to look to know which one happened. They’re busy. Tell them.The Slopwright, One event, one sound, The Slop Curriculum
26. My sardine tin has a sea in it, and the sea has rules: soft waves, nothing over a second, no echo. That’s why it sounds like one sea and not a soundboard.The Slopwright, A house style for the ears, The Slop Curriculum
27. I don’t write songs. I write the rules a song has to follow, then let a seed do the humming.The Slopwright, Music from rules, The Slop Curriculum
28. “A bit louder” isn’t a number. Minus six decibels is. I keep a meter on the bench for people who say “a bit”.The Slopwright, Mix it, measure it, The Slop Curriculum
29. The best sound in the workshop is the mute button. People who can find it stay longer.The Slopwright, Quiet, please, The Slop Curriculum
30. Here is a little synthesizer from the workshop. It plays whatever you describe and then measures it, which is the part where most people go quiet.The Slopwright, Ship a sound pack, The Slop Curriculum