I’m making a visual novel about AI. To make it authentic, I turned it into a meta-experiment and used an army of AI tools to build it. (Echo File: Zero)

Hey everyone,

I’m primarily a UI/UX designer by trade. For a while now, I’ve been working on a dark, gothic-themed visual novel called Echo File: Zero. The core premise of the game is entirely based on artificial intelligence and a dystopian future.

During the development process, I had a thought: "Since the game is about AI, why not hand the entire production process over to AI and see what happens?" I put on my "art director" hat and managed the AI like a team of employees.

To pull this off, I ended up using a massive stack of AI tools: Antigravity IDE, Claude Code, Cursor IDE, Windsurf, Trae, Gemini, Kling AI, and Veo 3.

• Coding & Architecture: Using those IDEs and models, I had the AI write all the dialogue trees and game mechanics. I just acted as the bridge connecting the systems together.
• Visuals: I generated all the raw visual assets to fit the dark aesthetic I wanted. My real contribution as a developer was using my UI/UX background to design a clean, professional interface that turned those raw AI generations into a cohesive, playable experience.
• The Audio Struggle: I really wanted to handle the audio myself. As someone who had never used it before, I spent weeks trying to learn FL Studio from scratch to create robotic voice effects. Eventually, I hit a wall, completely gave up, and pivoted to ElevenLabs AI for the audio production.

The final result feels like an AI is literally telling its own story by coding its own game. I know the community can be highly critical of AI-generated assets, but instead of hiding it, I made it the very core of the game's identity.

One major takeaway, though: having an "AI team" doesn't mean instant game development. I've been directing this project for over 5 months now, and to be completely honest, I haven't even finished the demo yet. Piecing all these AI outputs together into a logical, working game is a massive undertaking on its own.

The game isn't published just yet, but it will be released soon under https://gurui-studio.itch.io/

What do you think about this kind of "meta" approach? Can using AI not just as a shortcut, but as the actual "narrator and creator" of the game, resonate with players?