The story behind the game
The artwork of Taiji
The artwork of Taiji
My plan for Taiji’s first official edition is to commission Chinese artists to illustrate all 875 cards from scratch.
The AI-generated images in the current draft are temporary artwork for development and beta testing. All money raised through the paid beta will be reinvested in the company, helping fund those commissions.
That ambition has never changed. But reaching it has been one of the greatest challenges of this project, and I want to explain how I got here.
Nearly ten years ago, when this was still a game I was making for my family, I imagined using pictures I had found online. The moment I began thinking seriously about printing the game and offering it for sale, my plans changed. I wanted to commission original artwork.
Then I faced the scale of what I had created.
There are 875 cards. Even at a hypothetical budget of 1,000 CNY per illustration, the card artwork alone would cost 875,000 CNY. That would be before the other illustrations the game needed, before production, and before considering the time involved in commissioning so much work.
For one person funding a project himself, that was beyond reach.
This came close to ending Taiji. Before AI image generation became available to me, I had almost given up on the possibility of turning it into a commercially available game. I commissioned a piece here and there, as I could afford it, but at that pace I could see another decade passing and my savings disappearing before I had something ready to share.
AI gave me a way to keep going. For me, it has been a godsend: a way to bring the draft together, put the cards in people’s hands, and find out whether the game I had spent so long creating could find an audience.
As funding allows, I intend to commission Chinese artists to create original artwork across the entire collection.
That means starting each illustration from scratch. I want artists to bring their own imagination, understanding, and skill to these beings and stories.
The artwork is the soul of the game. It shapes our first encounter with a creature, gives a landscape its atmosphere, and makes us want to look closer. For a project rooted so deeply in Chinese culture, the people creating those images matter enormously to me.
My ambition for Taiji has never changed. I want to make something my boys and I can be proud of, and something that shares my love of Chinese culture with others. AI has helped me reach a stage I once thought impossible. The finished game I dream of will carry the work of the artists who help bring that vision fully to life.