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Big Walk’s LLM Disclosure Could Cost It Votes at the IGF Awards

House House says LLM-assisted troubleshooting helped produce a roughly 10-line Unity URP fix, with well under 0.1% of Big Walk's code connected to that use.

Mihaela Kicevski49 seconds ago

0 4 2 minutes read

Four colorful Big Walk characters stand and sit on a rocky coastal overlook beside the sea.

Big Walk‘s LLM disclosure could cost House House’s game votes at the Independent Games Festival Awards, where 19 jurors say they will abstain from voting for any game that used generative AI, including code. Their statement is not an IGF-wide ban or a disqualification, but the disclosure has also drawn a sharp response on Steam.

The jurors argued that programming is creative work and criticized model training that used creators’ work without their consent. They urged the festival to adopt a policy against games containing AI-generated work in future years. IGF leadership approved the statement’s release, but the signatories stressed that it represents them, not the festival or every juror.

Over the past month, IGF judges and jurists have had intense, difficulty, generous, and deeply engaged conversations about AI and the games industry. This statement is the result of those conversations.

— austin_walker (@austinwalker.bsky.social) 2026-11-09T22:42:15.552Z

House House says it used large language models sparingly in the final stretch of development to investigate technical problems and bugs. Developers sometimes used chatbot-generated code snippets as a starting point, then modified them. The studio estimates that well under 0.1% of Big Walk‘s code was connected to this use, and says generative AI played no other role in the game’s development, as outlined in its official FAQ.

One example involved shadow rendering in Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline (URP). House House needed to cull shadow casters by distance from the camera, but URP only allowed culling by distance in the camera’s forward direction. Objects behind the player were consequently rendered at an infinite distance, making the game run 50% slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset. After extensive research and a consultation with a Unity engineer, the team was told its desired solution was not possible. An LLM chatbot suggested a workaround after a few dead ends. The developers heavily modified it, and the resulting fix amounted to about 10 lines of code inside URP.

House House developer Bruno Dias cautioned against describing the disclosure as one blocking bug. He characterized the use as several instances, mostly consultative, rather than a code-generation or agent workflow. House House’s FAQ also says developers modified some chatbot-generated snippets into game code.

Okay, because the cat is out of the fucking bag, I might as well combat misinformation a bit:1. The reason IGF judges are aware of the LLM use in the development of Big Walk is through a disclosure shared by House House.2. This disclosure was required by IGF rules.

— Bruno Dias (@brunodias.dev) 2026-11-10T05:46:51.090Z

House House says it initially drafted the disclosure for its IGF submission after disclosure was suggested there. The studio says Steam does not ask developers to disclose code or chatbot use. Dias said that, to his understanding, Big Walk‘s use did not breach Steam’s separate AI disclosure policy. House House published the information once it became a matter of public interest, while cautioning that voluntary disclosures could help normalize the technology. It described the disclosure as neither an endorsement of AI nor an argument for using it.

The studio apologized to people working to limit generative AI’s harms, saying Big Walk‘s use might not meet their standards. House House also acknowledged that the game was developed without an internal AI-use policy, called that a failure, and said it would work toward a more developed policy.

GamesRadar’s Nov. 10 Steam review snapshot counted 156 negative reviews for the day, with 36% of that day’s reviews positive. Its comparison showed one negative review on Nov. 9 and three on Nov. 8. Big Walk launched on Aug. 4, a little over three months before the disclosure. Some reviewers raised refund concerns, including one who said more time had passed since purchase than they could afford to wait before seeking a refund. On Nov. 10, the game’s overall Steam rating remained Overwhelmingly Positive.

Should award juries distinguish AI-assisted debugging from AI-generated art or writing? For more on studio AI policies and jury responses, stay connected with us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.