Handcrafted Innovation, Powered by People

At its core, SMOKEWOOD is a labor of love—built by real people, for real players. We combine proven tools with bold new ideas, and we’re transparent about how we do it.

Built with Industry-Leading Tools

  • Game Engine: SMOKEWOOD is developed using the Unity Game Engine, leveraging its robust capabilities for open-world design, dynamic systems, and cross-platform support.

  • Programming Language: All game logic and systems are written in C#, ensuring performance, flexibility, and maintainability.

  • Asset Creation: Every 3D model, animation, and texture is handcrafted by our artists using Blender Studio. No AI-generated assets—just real artistry and attention to detail.

Rendering Pipeline: Accessibility First, Quality Always

For the initial release, SMOKEWOOD will use the Unity Game Engine’s Universal Rendering Pipeline (URP). Why URP? It’s all about accessibility—URP allows us to bring SMOKEWOOD to the widest range of platforms, making sure more players can experience the frontier, regardless of their hardware.

While URP delivers solid visuals, it doesn’t reach the ultra-high fidelity possible with Unity’s High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP). We want to be upfront about that: our priority is to make the game playable and beautiful for as many people as possible. If the initial release is successful—or if technology advances and player demand is there—we may explore an HDRP version in the future for those who want the absolute peak in graphical quality.

People-First Development

Every line of code, every asset, and every detail in SMOKEWOOD is created by our talented team. We do not use AI to write code or generate in-game assets. Our world, characters, and systems are built the classic way—by passionate developers and artists who care about quality and authenticity.

Smart AI Integration—Only Where It Matters

Our use of AI is focused, intentional, and transparent:

  • AI Request Manager for Unity: We’re building a custom AI request manager using the provider design pattern, ensuring clean integration and flexibility for future updates.

  • AI Metadata for Assets: Developers assign AI-related metadata to each game asset—everything from handguns to horses. These curated hints tell the AI exactly how each object should be visually rendered in cutscenes, ensuring context, material, scale, and style are always spot-on.

  • Purpose-Built for Personalization: AI is used exclusively to generate dynamic, personalized cutscenes based on your gameplay and morality profile—not to create or control the main game systems.

  • Collaboration with AI Specialists: We’re partnering with leading AI experts to ensure our integration is secure, ethical, and truly enhances the player experience.

Local Video Scene Rendering & Model Training

To render specific video scenes locally we will start by using ComfyUI as our engine and AnimateDiff or Stable Video Diffusion (SVD) as the base model. To restrict the AI to our specific scenes, we will train a LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation) using Kohya_ss or Ostris AI Toolkit. This biases the model heavily toward our specific style/scenes so that it renders them reliably from minimal inputs (like simple sketches or text), effectively ignoring outside concepts. This will work initially, however our implementation will evolve, and we hope to be able to train our own AI model on how to understand the map, characters, and assets in the game. In the end, it is our goal for our model to understand both the rendering and technical aspects of the game in order to produce the best quality cut scenes and game endings for SMOKEWOOD.

Why This Matters

We know there’s a lot of concern about AI in gaming. That’s why we’re clear:

  • SMOKEWOOD is coded and designed by people.

  • AI is used only where it creates unique, cinematic moments—never to replace the creativity or craft of our team.

  • All AI-driven visuals follow developer-provided metadata, so every scene stays true to our vision.

The Bottom Line

SMOKEWOOD is a handcrafted, next-generation RPG that combines the best of classic game development with smart, responsible AI innovation. We’re building something new—and we want you to know exactly how we do it.

Questions about our tech or process? Reach out any time. Transparency is part of our DNA.