In the culinary world, there’s an old saying: "The eye eats first." You don’t just taste a dish with your palate; you experience it with your eyes long before the first bite. The way a chef arranges the colors, the texture of a sauce, the careful plating—it’s all a form of visual communication that says: "This was made with passion, intention, and respect."

Lately, I’ve been asked a few times whether I’m using AI tools to design the mechanics, illustrations, or other aspects for Chef's Choice. It’s a fair question in an age where generative tools can churn out images and code in seconds. But my answer is a firm no.

It might seem ironic, but although I am an AI designer by profession—designing AI tools for our users and building AI workflows to accelerate our internal work processes—I have decided not to use any AI tools for this game. If I’m creating a world built on the joy of cooking, how could I outsource the creative soul of that world to an algorithm? AI might be able to calculate probabilities or generate an image of a vegetable, but it lacks the "human seasoning." It doesn't know the feeling of a late night in the kitchen, the specific smell of a fresh herb, or the joy of perfecting a balance of flavors. It can mimic, but it cannot create with intention.

When I design a card, I think about the weight of it, the color palette, and how it feels to hold it in your hand. These are the things that give a game its "flavor." If I were to use AI, I would be stripping away the very soul I’m trying to build. I want Chef's Choice to be a project where you can feel the human behind the screen—someone who cared about every single line, every rule, and every pixel. There is a unique kind of beauty in the "struggle" of design—the hours spent balancing a mechanic that just won’t click, the revisions of an illustration until the character finally looks like they belong in our kitchen. That struggle is where the artistic quality lives. It’s what makes a game feel cohesive, personal, and alive.