With the growing popularity of generative AI more game developers are exploring the use of tools that can streamline work processes or create game content with a simple line of text. In addition some are focused on what comes next, with innovative ideas of what AI tools could be most beneficial for game creators in the future.

One such company is Homa, who recently hosted a hackathon where ten teams had just 48 hours to create and innovate with AI tools. The results were tools with the ability to create 3D avatars that are able to talk using just text prompts and a second tool that allows for the quick creation of in-game assets.

We caught up with Homa’s CTO, Michael Le Bail to discuss the hackathon further, finding out the goals of the event, the power of generative AI and what role it plays for the company going forward.

Pocketgamer.biz: The results of your hackathon event certainly seem impressive. What were your aims going into it? 

Michael Le Bail: The primary aim of the hackathon was to implement innovative AI-based tools which can revolutionise the game creation process to empower our team and tech platform, Homa Lab, with new features.

Generative AI has been a big priority for us at Homa this year as management has been encouraging our teams to leverage its full potential. For us, it’s about more than just using already existing third party tools. We really want to innovate and make full use of the extensive internal data we have at our disposal.

At Homa one of our main goals is to empower game creators by providing them the right tools, training, support and resources to level up their skills and drive success. And this hackathon was definitely fully aligned with this strategy.

What was your favourite or most amazing creation from the event?

I must say that all the projects presented during the hackathon showed crazy potential, and I'm incredibly proud of the work put in by all the teams. Each project aimed to resolve key challenges that game developers often encounter when creating games, and the results were truly impressive.

Just to mention a few, “Talking 3D Avatars” is a very interesting project with high potential to save time, and reduce costs in creating high-quality content by easily animating any of our existing 3D character assets.

Additionally, the "Idea Generator" tool is also truly amazing, and we’re super excited to have it available inside Homa Lab to help studios come up with game ideas with a built-in hit potential, making full use of Homa Lab's data.

What have you learnt and how do you think the event will influence your work in the future?

While we were already aware of the power of generative AI in the mobile gaming industry, this event allowed us to take a significant step forward in exploring what we can contribute to this field. We are now actively building our own generative AI tools and strengthening our portfolio of tools and services, catering to both our internal needs and the game developers/studios collaborating within Homa Lab.

As a key learning, I believe that this hackathon provided us with a clear understanding of the full potential of generative AI, enabling us to identify feasible and impactful applications in order to prioritise our efforts effectively.

It also served to inspire all Homa teams, highlighting the immense potential of AI and encouraging its integration into daily tasks across all departments. At Homa, we will continue to diligently work on bringing more GenAI tools to life. Our objective is to streamline the game creation process and empower the Homa Lab platform with cutting-edge AI capabilities.