The Strange Joy of Turning Yourself Into an AAA Game Menu

I posted a prompt recently that asks three questions and turns the answers into a cinematic AAA game menu concept.

On the surface, it is ridiculous. You upload a photo, answer questions about your life, personality, and tastes, and the final prompt turns you into the central character of a high-budget game universe.

Very serious business content, obviously.

But there is something interesting hiding under the silliness.

Personalisation is not just demographics

Most “personalised” AI content is shallow. It changes your name, your job title, maybe the industry. That is not personalisation. That is mail merge with better lighting.

The game menu prompt works because it asks about identity before output.

• What do you actually do?
• What kind of person are you?
• What do you genuinely enjoy outside work?

Those questions force the model to build from a richer set of signals. Not just “software founder, London, likes AI.” More like: what is the energy of this person’s life, what world would feel like theirs, what would make the output recognisable without turning into a cheap costume?

That is a much more interesting interaction.

Taste is the missing ingredient

The best AI outputs are rarely produced by one clever prompt. They come from taste.

You need to know what to ask for. You need to know what to exclude. You need to understand the difference between cinematic and cheesy, premium and overdesigned, stylised and fake.

That is why the prompt spends as much time saying what to avoid as what to include. No cartoon styling. No fake AI skin. No oversaturated colours. No childish UI. No empty backgrounds.

Negative direction matters because AI will happily give you the statistically obvious version of an idea. And the statistically obvious version of “AAA game menu” is usually a man in a glowing jacket standing in fog while some fake UI floats around him. Lovely. Truly groundbreaking. Into the bin it goes.

Play is useful

I like prompts like this because they are playful but still teach something practical.

They show how to structure context. They show how to move from vague aesthetic desire to usable direction. They show why questions matter before generation.

And they remind me that AI does not always need to be trapped inside productivity theatre.

Sometimes the useful thing is just giving people a way to see themselves differently for five minutes.

That is not a business process.

But it is still a very human reason to use the tool.