Bezi

We're hosting a panel during our happy hour for indie developers at GDC! Learn strategies and best practices for building and shipping indie games from our group of experienced panelists: ? Joe Mirabello ? DICE and GDC - founder & creative director of Terrible Posture Games ? Nate Chatellier ?? GDC - founder & CEO of Nerd Ninjas ? Maitham Mohamed - founder & CEO of M10 Space is limited! RSVP here to secure a spot: https://lu.ma/v6eltoew

Last week, we explored Bezi Sidekick, an AI-powered game development companion in our second Dorkshop? at Parsons Design and Technology. Sidekick streamlines game design by assisting with prototyping, debugging, and iteration, making development more accessible and collaborative—especially for students and designers without deep coding experience. We explored the intersection of creative interaction and programming, reinforcing Sidekick’s potential to reshape game design workflows. We were also joined by Jason Li, my go-to game design source and an adjunct faculty member at Parsons DT, who enriched the discussion, making it more intriguing and expansive across various levels of coding proficiency. ? How Bezi Sidekick Stands Out ? Built on Unity documentation and deep context of a user's Unity project , Sidekick provides tailored support for users at all levels of Unity proficiency, while keeping the creative flow at the center, which is the most important part. The great parts of Sidekick are: ? Reduce barrier to entry: Sidekick helps newcomers start building without spending months learning how to script by providing learning-by-doing guidance and contextual explanations. ? Speed up iteration: natural language prompts (LLM) make refining ideas faster through iteration cycles allow for more experimentation. ? Boosts efficiency and creative focus: AI-led debugging lets builders focus on the creative thinking and execution A key conversation that emerged from the dorkshop? was: ? AI as a Catalyst for Creative Exploration A solid foundation in game and experience design—understanding how systems interact, how mechanics shape player experience, and how code structures behavior—gives students a much-needed perspective on how tools function. With this knowledge, AI companions like Sidekick can become a catalyst for exploration, shifting students from rigid, step-by-step learning to more iterative, playful experimentation and creative refinement. Through my own experience, I’ve seen how Sidekick’s human-centered design transforms AI from a coding tool to an interactive learning assistant. It provides structured problem-solving guidance, streamlines debugging , and educates through contextual explanations—reinforcing understanding rather than bypassing it. Big thanks to Julian Park and Sarah Judge for sharing their insights and leading an engaging discussion. Also, a shoutout to Kyle Li, MFA Director, to provide the right venue for students, Arden S, Dorkshop Lead, MFA Student for your amazing support for organizing this dorkshop and Jason Li for adding a layer of depth and perspective to our conversations. What are your thoughts? How do you balance AI assistance with hands-on creativity? #AI #gamedesign #creativecoding #BeziSidekick #experientialdesign #AIandcreativity #creativethinkikng #criticalthinking #AIandhumancentereddesign

We’ve talked to hundreds of game devs by now, and one thing keeps coming up: game development is creative, but it’s also full of interruptions. When we asked devs what the most frustrating part of their workflow was, we expected to hear about prototyping mechanics, balancing gameplay, or fine-tuning animations. But that’s not what they said. The biggest struggles weren’t the creative challenges—it was the things that break your flow. The small, tedious, unexpected blockers that pull you out of the zone. Devs described the same patterns over and over: “I know exactly what I want to do, but unexpected complications always pop up and take way longer than I anticipated.” “There are always pesky behavioral bugs that surface during testing, and tracking them down is frustratingly time-consuming.” “I spend way too much time just trying to find where things are in the project—especially in bigger teams.” None of these tasks are difficult, but they break momentum. And when momentum breaks, iteration slows down. So the question that we’ve been obsessing over is “How much of game development is actually spent on the creative parts versus managing everything around them? And what would it look like if that balance shifted?” Would love to hear from designers and devs—what kinds of interruptions pull you out of the zone the most? If this is something you have opinions on, I’d love to chat!

?? ?? Snow Day Gaming VIBES ?? ?? What do I do when stuck inside for a 4-day snow day with the kiddo? Make a game of course! Introducing.. ? AVAA Brew Coffee Delivery ? "A pseudo-cozy game where you run a startup Office Coffee Delivery Company. More deliveries = more demand as you grow your business and service the office. Can you make it to the C-Suite?" :: 11-yr-old Must Have's :: ?Rounds get harder as time progresses (delivery time decreases), but the player gets faster as time passes (muscle memory kicking in) ?At the end of each round, you can use your profit to buy a new single-use perk for the next round ?Each round gets more difficult (less delivery time, more orders at a time, more cubicles to service, etc.) ?You can only fail 3 deliveries before you lose S/O to Bezi #Sidekick for the assistance with speeding up the early iteration and frame CS development (AI, player controllers, game manager). Behind the scenes, I also hooked up Ovomind 's SDK to make difficulty ramp up or down based on the player's stress level (gotta be able to keep your cool in a cozy game, right? ?? ) 10/10 recommend Game Dev as a Snow Day Festivity! #FatherDaughterMoments #GameDev #IndieGameDev

The most memorable moments when we play games are often the most chaotic, nonsensical, or absurd. As we've spoken to developers to build new game development tools, we see that they are increasingly implementing "silliness" as a core pillar of their design philosophy. Check out why and how they're doing so here ??https://lnkd.in/gxF-TVZN

Bezi is growing! We’re looking for a software engineer to help build and scale our systems infrastructure. If you’re interested, apply here: https://lnkd.in/gEjQ6p52

Join our team! We're hiring a Game Developer Advocate to work closely with our technical teams in developing our AI product that's transforming the way game devs build with game engines. If you have experience creating games in Unity and are familiar with LLM technology, apply here ??: https://lnkd.in/g8NkfrhW

Come hang out with us at GDC - we're hosting a happy hour for indie devs on March 18! Learn from a panel of indie veterans talking about the ins and outs of shipping a game and join us for an evening of food, drinks, and networking. Spots are limited! RSVP here: https://lu.ma/v6eltoew

This sprint's theme: transparency builds trust. We’ve been adding features in Sidekick to help users understand why it behaves a certain way (more on this later). It’s a tricky thing to balance. If you overdo it, it’s just noise. But if you do it right, then you can earn the trust of users instead of feeling like they’re interacting with a black box. At Bezi, we want to build a product that makes AI feel less like magic, and more like second nature.

A little while ago I had the chance to speak with the CEO of Bezi Julian Park They showed me glimpse of the future of what’s to come and what I was shown truly blew my mind. What I was shown has recently been overhauled so I decided to check it out again. Using their AI model Bezi Sidekick I was able to make this clone of Fruit Ninja in Unity within 20-30 mins having to barely touch any code. The game racks up points, counts when bombs are clicked, ends the game when three bombs have been clicked, and the rate of the fruit spawns increases over time.