Despite all the benign uses of artificial intelligence in games, these days, the term mostly conjures up the abomination of generative AI, which is used to turn entire lakes’ worth of water into pictures of people with too many fingers. One of the best demos available in February’s Steam Next Fest centers on a far more exciting kind of AI, that instead flies spaceships and only occasionally chucks passengers into the vacuum of space.
It’s hard to make a tutorial more fun than annoying, but Jitter manages it easily. Even when it’s just teaching you the ropes, it makes it enjoyable while also packing some unexpected twists at the same time. At first, Jitter just looks like a game about piloting a spaceship. You view your ship on a 2D map vaguely the color of a Game Boy screen and move it in any direction using the WASD keys. Since you’re in space, you’ll continue to drift even after you let off the gas, which on its own makes for some fun maneuvering challenges, especially when you need to dock with other ships and floating structures to move cargo or refuel.
