Recently, I’ve played Per Aspera and it was a nice take on good old Settlers with a slick futuristic UI and a theme of Mers colonisation. The gameplay does get a bit repetitive after a while, but what kept me engaged was the story: you are an AI tasked with the terraforming of the planet. You have to keep reflecting on practical and philosophical conundrums as the game progresses.

This was a great depiction of an AI personality since currently the term “AI” is being diluted by the introduction of image and text (and code, I think?) generation engines on which companies slap the word “AI”. I won’t argue that companies introduce some complex products, but I personally don’t view those as AI. It turns out that there is actually something called the “AI effect” – the tendency to not consider something an AI once it is well understood. Without going into a philosophical discussion about this I will just say that Per Aspera definitely got me pondering on this topic a lot.