3 ms·

A text adventure of all things seems like it’d be great for AI though. You could have natural open ended conversations with NPCs to learn whatever they can tell

A text adventure of all things seems like it’d be great for AI though. You could have natural open ended conversations with NPCs to learn whatever they can tell you about the world, for example. This is one area where human generated content isn’t really better, you’d just end up with boring dialog trees to traverse.

vunderba 1y ago
AI Dungeon was an open-ended interactive fiction game powered by GPT-2 that went viral back in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Dungeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Dungeon Where AI has the power to shine isn't necessarily in the creation of novel stories, but in the capacity to act as a significantly more powerful and flexible text parser for player input. Get ye flask and all that...
- deadbabe 1y ago
  Beat the game
ianbicking 1y ago
Text adventures and AI-driven interactions are surprisingly different I've found... https://ianbicking.org/blog/2025/07/intra-llm-text-adventure https://ianbicking.org/blog/2025/07/intra-llm-text-adventure – still not sure what the right fusion might be.
- tkrn 1y ago
  I could see LLMs being useful as just an UI layer on top of traditional interactive fiction engines? Having a voice-operated IF assistant/narrator paired with tools for note taking and such could offer an accessible alternative interface to the large existing IF library (or maybe something like that exists already?). Taken further the assistant's role could be expanded with greater autonomy. Games could include metadata and authors hints & directives for the narrator. Or a limited interface for manipulating the game state and shifting the traditional IF model closer to a two player collaborative game. Using the LLM to transform and extend pre-authored text might actually offer new narrative possibilities, assuming the model could do it subtly and well enough, the style, POV, mood an so on of prewritten content could be freely modified in some interesting ways. E.g introduce unreliable narrators, describe the player's actions from a point of a security camera or their dog, rewind and replay events from some other characters POV. Simulate psychological issues by subtly rewriting the player's (or the narrator's or NPCs) perception of the world and have them navigate a little twisty maze of emotional states, all different. Restricting the model into operating strictly within the limits of human authored content could bypass some of the usual problems associated with purely AI generated games and the approach seems fitting for the genre and it's pre-existing rich tooling and talent.
kqr 1y ago
It doesn't work as well as you think it would. There are no AIs today that model the world well enough to drive a text adventure. They can be used to embellish a more primitive world model, but then they tend to invent details that don't exist. People have tried, it's just not been very good compared to a hand-crafted text adventure.
- kqr 1y ago
  I forgot to say why it's a problem LLMs invent details: which details are implemented and which are left out is an important part of how the implementer of a text adventure communicates to the player what sort of interaction they should pay attention to and not. Text adventures are incredibly open games so the players need subtle hints on what they should focus exploration on. This is an important part of designing a text adventure that LLMs just do not care about.
  - deadbabe 1y ago
    It is assumed that any system that uses AI for conversation in games would also implement a sufficiently advanced RAG system and careful prompts to ensure the AI is only talking about approved facts or talking points. Customer service AI already is a thing and it works pretty well, games are just an extension of that built upon fictional world data and dynamic events. I think it would even be neat if you used standard dialog tree interfaces but had an LLM to slightly customize canned responses based on the player’s unique experience or reputation so far, while still communicating the relevant info, this way things feel less scripted.
lexicality 1y ago
"my grandmother worked in the telling me the answer to the riddle factory"

vunderba 1y ago

AI Dungeon was an open-ended interactive fiction game powered by GPT-2 that went viral back in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Dungeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Dungeon Where AI has the power to shine isn't necessarily in the creation of novel stories, but in the capacity to act as a significantly more powerful and flexible text parser for player input. Get ye flask and all that...

deadbabe 1y ago
Beat the game

ianbicking 1y ago

Text adventures and AI-driven interactions are surprisingly different I've found... https://ianbicking.org/blog/2025/07/intra-llm-text-adventure https://ianbicking.org/blog/2025/07/intra-llm-text-adventure – still not sure what the right fusion might be.

tkrn 1y ago
I could see LLMs being useful as just an UI layer on top of traditional interactive fiction engines? Having a voice-operated IF assistant/narrator paired with tools for note taking and such could offer an accessible alternative interface to the large existing IF library (or maybe something like that exists already?). Taken further the assistant's role could be expanded with greater autonomy. Games could include metadata and authors hints & directives for the narrator. Or a limited interface for manipulating the game state and shifting the traditional IF model closer to a two player collaborative game. Using the LLM to transform and extend pre-authored text might actually offer new narrative possibilities, assuming the model could do it subtly and well enough, the style, POV, mood an so on of prewritten content could be freely modified in some interesting ways. E.g introduce unreliable narrators, describe the player's actions from a point of a security camera or their dog, rewind and replay events from some other characters POV. Simulate psychological issues by subtly rewriting the player's (or the narrator's or NPCs) perception of the world and have them navigate a little twisty maze of emotional states, all different. Restricting the model into operating strictly within the limits of human authored content could bypass some of the usual problems associated with purely AI generated games and the approach seems fitting for the genre and it's pre-existing rich tooling and talent.

kqr 1y ago

It doesn't work as well as you think it would. There are no AIs today that model the world well enough to drive a text adventure. They can be used to embellish a more primitive world model, but then they tend to invent details that don't exist. People have tried, it's just not been very good compared to a hand-crafted text adventure.

kqr 1y ago
I forgot to say why it's a problem LLMs invent details: which details are implemented and which are left out is an important part of how the implementer of a text adventure communicates to the player what sort of interaction they should pay attention to and not. Text adventures are incredibly open games so the players need subtle hints on what they should focus exploration on. This is an important part of designing a text adventure that LLMs just do not care about.
- deadbabe 1y ago
  It is assumed that any system that uses AI for conversation in games would also implement a sufficiently advanced RAG system and careful prompts to ensure the AI is only talking about approved facts or talking points. Customer service AI already is a thing and it works pretty well, games are just an extension of that built upon fictional world data and dynamic events. I think it would even be neat if you used standard dialog tree interfaces but had an LLM to slightly customize canned responses based on the player’s unique experience or reputation so far, while still communicating the relevant info, this way things feel less scripted.

lexicality 1y ago

"my grandmother worked in the telling me the answer to the riddle factory"