House House Discloses Minimal AI Use in Big Walk Amid IGF Jury Opposition

House House, the Australian development team behind the indie hit Big Walk, issued a statement via its FAQ page detailing a previously undisclosed use of AI “in the final stretch” of the game’s development.

The disclosure was made as a voluntary part of the game’s submission for the Independent Games Festival 2027 awards.

According to the statement, large language models (LLMs) were used “sparingly” to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs.

The studio estimates that “well under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had anything to do with this usage,” and stresses that generative AI was not used in any other context when making the game.

House House cited a performance issue that caused the game to run 50% slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset; after consulting a Unity engineer, the team turned to an LLM chatbot, which suggested a fix that, after extensive modification, resolved the problem.

Big Walk launched on 4 August 2026 as a cooperative adventure title and is among the games presented at the IGF 2027 competition.

Prior to the disclosure, a selection of IGF jurors issued a signed statement indicating they would not vote for any game that used generative AI in any capacity, citing environmental, economic and creative concerns.

The jurors’ position applies to AI use in code, visual and audio content, meaning any amount of generative AI could affect voting eligibility.

Despite the jurors’ stance, the studio has not been officially disqualified from the IGF 2027 awards.

Steam requires a generative AI disclosure on its storefront but does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage.