Chequered Ink, a UK-based company specializing in fonts, game assets, and indie games, has released an extensive pack containing 10,000 game assets with a stated goal: to provide budding developers with a viable, human-made alternative to generative Artificial Intelligence.
The comprehensive pack includes over 9,000 graphics suitable for platformers, RPGs, puzzle games, and board games, alongside more than 700 sound effects. The two-person team behind the project insists that all assets are 100% human-made and created to “save developers time and money so they don’t feel the need to turn to AI to make their games.”
“We know that the use of AI, especially for image and audio generation, is causing a spike in energy demand, bills, and carbon emissions,” the team stated. They also pointed out the common legal issue in the AI industry: “The most popular AI models are often trained, without permission, on copyrighted content.”
Chequered Ink said that human creativity remains essential to storytelling, arguing that “Stories will always be better told when they’re crafted with human hands, even if teams need to turn to existing assets to fill in the gaps in their projects.”
The asset pack is available for 20$, though a 50% launch sale currently brings the price down to 10$. Developers are granted highly flexible licensing terms, allowing them to use the assets for “ANY and ALL uses including commercial use, with or without giving credit.” The only condition is that developers may not sell or redistribute the unaltered assets as their own.
