Junior indie game developers in distributed, part-time teams lack production frameworks suited to their specific context, as traditional methodologies are often inaccessible. This study introduces the CIGDI (Co-Intelligence Game Development Ideation) Framework, an alternative approach for integrating AI tools to address persistent challenges of technical debt, coordination, and burnout. The framework emerged from a three-month reflective practice and autoethnographic study of a three-person distributed team developing the 2D narrative game "The Worm's Memoirs". Based on analysis of development data (N=157 Jira tasks, N=333 GitHub commits, N=13+ Miro boards, N=8 reflection sessions), CIGDI is proposed as a seven-stage iterative process structured around human-in-the-loop decision points (Priority Criteria and Timeboxing). While AI support democratized knowledge access and reduced cognitive load, our analysis identified a significant challenge: "comprehension debt." We define this as a novel form of technical debt where AI helps teams build systems more sophisticated than their independent skill level can create or maintain. This paradox (possessing functional systems the team incompletely understands) creates fragility and AI dependency, distinct from traditional code quality debt. This work contributes a practical production framework for resource-constrained teams and identifies critical questions about whether AI assistance constitutes a learning ladder or a dependency trap for developer skill.

This paper presents results of an ongoing interdisciplinary study to develop a computational theory of creativity for engineering design. Human design activities are surveyed, and popular computer-aided design methodologies are examined. It is argued that semiotics has the potential to merge and unite various design approaches into one fundamental theory that is naturally interpretable and so comprehensible in terms of computer use. Reviewing related work in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science provides a general and encompassing vision of the creativity phenomenon. Basic notions of algebraic semiotics are given and explained in terms of design. This is to define a model of the design creative process, which is seen as a process of semiosis, where concepts and their attributes represented as signs organized into systems are evolved, blended, and analyzed, resulting in the development of new concepts. The model allows us to formally describe and investigate essential properties of the design process, namely its dynamics and non-determinism inherent in creative thinking. A stable pattern of creative thought - analogical and metaphorical reasoning - is specified to demonstrate the expressive power of the modeling approach; illustrative examples are given. The developed theory is applied to clarify the nature of emergence in design: it is shown that while emergent properties of a product may influence its creative value, emergence can simply be seen as a by-product of the creative process. Concluding remarks summarize the research, point to some unresolved issues, and outline directions for future work.