A Little Bit of Self-Help | AI and Games Digest - November 2024

Plus a Goal State update, GOTY and more!

Welcome to the AI and Games Digest: a monthly series for paying subscribers where I discuss topics outside of the scope of our regular newsletter. Each issue digs into books, articles, games, and videos that intersect in part, or in full, with the AI and Games remit, plus games I’m playing and answering questions form the community.

You can read part of each digest issue for free, and then catch the rest with a paid subscription to AI and Games

---

Hey all,

Tommy Thompson

here and welcome back to the

AI and Games

monthly digest! Boy has November been a crazy month. The conference is over, the Goal State Kickstarter is - at the time of writing - just passing its funding target, and now I’m wrapping up my final client projects for 2025 while also trying to wrangle control of my content creation schedule. So I figured let’s make this months digest about stuff that helped me along the way. I didn’t think the two people who would be a big influence on me in 2025 were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Reggie Fils-Aimé but hey, we’re going to talk about their books!

But first some updates.

---

Announcements

AI and Games GOTY 2024

A reminder we’re looking for a couple of paragraphs on your 2024 Games of the Year - a game that you played, but was not necessarily released, this year.

Drop me a message in the AI and Games Discord in the #gaming-grove channel, or via the messaging app here on Substack to be considered for publication in December!

Goal State is Funded - Stretch Goals Are Live!

At the time of writing, Goal State is funded! I can’t believe it. We raised the initial £25K in just over 3 days. We’re now entering the phase of crowdfunding where we start talking about stretch goals. A big thank you to everyone who has supported thus far. I thought I’d be fighting right up to the closing hours to get it funded. To have it all happen within the first 3-4 days has been absolutely wild!

The Goal State Kickstarter is Funded! Stretch goal season begins!

Check out the link above for more info on the stretch goals, but critically we have three types of bonus content to add to the campaign:

• Tutorial materials that show you how to build your own game AI systems in popular engines including Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot.

• Source code deep dives where we do feature-length analysis of code bases from classic games including Doom and Half-Life. I explain how they work, and show how it all ties into the material covered in the course.

• Our distant stretch goal is our second course dedicated to showing how to use machine learning in game development.

Thanks once again for all your support. A reminder that if you support on the Goal State tier or higher - critically any tier that gives you access to the course - then you get all of the stretch goals included. Please share it around your networks as the more people who sign up and pledge to the campaign, the more it benefits everyone else!

---

A Little Bit of Self-Help

So I figured for this issue, I wanted to talk about something a little outside my regular remit. Critically, I wanted to talk about preparation, and getting ready for what has been a very - very - intense period for me work-wise.

It’s been busy, but boy did this come together really well.

As you’ll know, we ran the inaugural AI and Games Conference this month, and then but a week later I launched the Goal State Kickstarter which is now in its stretch goal era! On top of that we have this here weekly publication, my monthly releases on YouTube, my public speaking engagements and of course all my day-to-day work as a consultant working for games studios. So yeah, I’m a busy guy right now.

Now this isn’t some big pat on the back. I’m like anybody else in this space who works to build a business: I work hard. But certainly in the last few weeks I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I’m getting by. What’s my mental health like in all of this?