u/PtitSerpent
You return from a long week-long trip, and the first thing she does is give you a big hug because she thought you were d...
984
u/JESS_ai_game
bro i just want to come back from a supply run and she's sitting there reading a book and says "you look terrible, there...
129
u/JESS_ai_game
I feel that the team are really attentive to collecting players' opinions and feedback, and I am really looking forward...
34
u/Entropy Games
having someone at base who reacts to you, who's been cooking while you were out, who asks how the run went, that changes...
19
u/Yicheng
the model drives behavior, not just text. when a companion says "i'll cover you," that's not flavor text, it triggers th...
14
u/conduffchill
Ngl im not an ai believer by any means but as a video game lover when i first tried using llms this kind of thing was li...
12
u/MlecznyHuxel99
As someone who hates generative AI, I have to admit this feels like a good way to use LLMs. For an immersive sandbox exp...
10
u/Luozhu
using AI to replace what humans already do well is just making things worse for less money. writers, voice actors, desig...
7
u/DiamondHeightz
They also create the illusion of being helpful more than needing help, too. (they don't actually help that much all thin...
5
u/Bella-Chai
a companion that only says nice things isn't a person, it's a yes man. the flaws are what make you actually believe them...
4
u/PtitSerpent
You return from a long week-long trip, and the first thing she does is give you a big hug because she thought you were d...
984
u/JESS_ai_game
bro i just want to come back from a supply run and she's sitting there reading a book and says "you look terrible, there...
129
u/JESS_ai_game
I feel that the team are really attentive to collecting players' opinions and feedback, and I am really looking forward...
34
u/Entropy Games
having someone at base who reacts to you, who's been cooking while you were out, who asks how the run went, that changes...
19
u/Yicheng
the model drives behavior, not just text. when a companion says "i'll cover you," that's not flavor text, it triggers th...
14
u/conduffchill
Ngl im not an ai believer by any means but as a video game lover when i first tried using llms this kind of thing was li...
12
u/MlecznyHuxel99
As someone who hates generative AI, I have to admit this feels like a good way to use LLMs. For an immersive sandbox exp...
10
u/Luozhu
using AI to replace what humans already do well is just making things worse for less money. writers, voice actors, desig...
7
u/DiamondHeightz
They also create the illusion of being helpful more than needing help, too. (they don't actually help that much all thin...
5
u/Bella-Chai
a companion that only says nice things isn't a person, it's a yes man. the flaws are what make you actually believe them...
4
u/Ok_Specialist3150
This might just be the greatest project yet. Hoping for your guys' success.
288
u/PuffHerbs
This is gonna be huge. Thanks so much for the work you all put into this!
96
u/Entropy Games
solo the game hits different when there's actually someone waiting at base. that's the whole reason we built this
27
u/zombo546
I'm glad to see the AI will work locally instead of a cloud! Thanks for your efforts, and I hope this is a big success f...
18
u/Bella-Chai
I think if you're babysitting the companion then it's failed at its job. the whole point is they free you up to play you...
14
u/Luozhu
local is the whole point for us honestly. a companion that costs you money every time they open their mouth isn't really...
12
u/Eastern_Mechanic_686
Come on man you cant make them that realistic, its gonna break our hearts if we let them die 😂😂. Awesome work man, can't...
10
u/Yicheng
people cried when their horse died in RDR2. named their swords in dark souls. held funerals for minecraft dogs. we've be...
7
u/Donkston
I love everything about this. Really looking forward to trying this out when you've got it ready for testing and beyond.
5
u/Entropy Games
isn't every game character you've ever cared about just pixels with extra steps
4
u/Ok_Specialist3150
This might just be the greatest project yet. Hoping for your guys' success.
288
u/PuffHerbs
This is gonna be huge. Thanks so much for the work you all put into this!
96
u/Entropy Games
solo the game hits different when there's actually someone waiting at base. that's the whole reason we built this
27
u/zombo546
I'm glad to see the AI will work locally instead of a cloud! Thanks for your efforts, and I hope this is a big success f...
18
u/Bella-Chai
I think if you're babysitting the companion then it's failed at its job. the whole point is they free you up to play you...
14
u/Luozhu
local is the whole point for us honestly. a companion that costs you money every time they open their mouth isn't really...
12
u/Eastern_Mechanic_686
Come on man you cant make them that realistic, its gonna break our hearts if we let them die 😂😂. Awesome work man, can't...
10
u/Yicheng
people cried when their horse died in RDR2. named their swords in dark souls. held funerals for minecraft dogs. we've be...
7
u/Donkston
I love everything about this. Really looking forward to trying this out when you've got it ready for testing and beyond.
5
u/Entropy Games
isn't every game character you've ever cared about just pixels with extra steps
4
u/Vayne_Solidor
The emotional damage watching them go down in a horde 😭 definitely adds some stakes to single player!
228
u/Yicheng
a companion can hesitate, miss a shot, get scared, that's character. but honking the horn while you're sneaking or burni...
53
u/Luozhu
the story structure, key moments, character personalities are all designed and written by us. the moment-to-moment dialo...
24
u/Djiaant
Reading all the comments and replies, all I have to say: I’m so excited for what you, OP, have cooking up!!
17
u/Mplays
If I may add an idea: have an animation that leans on a nearby door when you are doing something, something like: "I mis...
14
u/Phoenix042
If death is inevitable, love should be hard. It's the apocalypse. You both know how this ends. The only way you each kep...
11
u/Accallonn
I think it’s the best if companions have different backgrounds just as our characters: The burglar companion, master of...
9
u/Gernund
I feel like that's the best thing to do with NPCs. Have another person with you. You clear zombies together, scavenge fo...
6
u/Professional-Mark301
You have no understanding how revolutionary this is. Those systems create such npcs that no other creator ever tried to...
5
u/Luozhu
if your character dies and you start a new run, the companion doesn't know you. you're a stranger to them. same personal...
4
u/Vayne_Solidor
The emotional damage watching them go down in a horde 😭 definitely adds some stakes to single player!
228
u/Yicheng
a companion can hesitate, miss a shot, get scared, that's character. but honking the horn while you're sneaking or burni...
53
u/Luozhu
the story structure, key moments, character personalities are all designed and written by us. the moment-to-moment dialo...
24
u/Djiaant
Reading all the comments and replies, all I have to say: I’m so excited for what you, OP, have cooking up!!
17
u/Mplays
If I may add an idea: have an animation that leans on a nearby door when you are doing something, something like: "I mis...
14
u/Phoenix042
If death is inevitable, love should be hard. It's the apocalypse. You both know how this ends. The only way you each kep...
11
u/Accallonn
I think it’s the best if companions have different backgrounds just as our characters: The burglar companion, master of...
9
u/Gernund
I feel like that's the best thing to do with NPCs. Have another person with you. You clear zombies together, scavenge fo...
6
u/Professional-Mark301
You have no understanding how revolutionary this is. Those systems create such npcs that no other creator ever tried to...
5
u/Luozhu
if your character dies and you start a new run, the companion doesn't know you. you're a stranger to them. same personal...
4
u/Entropy Games
The moment you define "150% of average = trigger reaction" you've created a rule the player will eventually figure out....
220
u/Naive-Cauliflower711
the fact that a project is making me feel things that $70 AAA games can't is either the best thing to happen to gaming o...
44
u/Yicheng
honestly this is why we bet everything on the game and not some big engine with fancy graphics. AAA games spend $200M on...
23
u/Luozhu
that dynamic works because it's not really about romance or friendship, it's about two people who need each other for di...
16
u/Entropy Games
actual voice. you just talk and they hear you, no typing, no menus, no pausing mid-fight to navigate a UI. we built the...
13
u/Yicheng
in the game everyone you knew is already gone before the game even starts. "this is how you died" isn't just a death scr...
11
u/Bella-Chai
if losing her doesn't hurt then we didn't do our job. permadeath is optional tho so you can pick your own pain threshold
8
u/silenciobruno
I'm so glad we think alike 🙌🏻 Make justify it by the fact that zombies don't attack them ? Just like cattle they can be...
6
u/Trumpcan
This is like the perfect application for an LLM. I understand the idea behind resisting the outsourcing of human intelli...
5
u/Yicheng
the tricky part is flaws should make you think "ok i need to plan around this" not "ok i'm uninstalling." a clumsy compa...
3
u/Entropy Games
The moment you define "150% of average = trigger reaction" you've created a rule the player will eventually figure out....
220
u/Naive-Cauliflower711
the fact that a project is making me feel things that $70 AAA games can't is either the best thing to happen to gaming o...
44
u/Yicheng
honestly this is why we bet everything on the game and not some big engine with fancy graphics. AAA games spend $200M on...
23
u/Luozhu
that dynamic works because it's not really about romance or friendship, it's about two people who need each other for di...
16
u/Entropy Games
actual voice. you just talk and they hear you, no typing, no menus, no pausing mid-fight to navigate a UI. we built the...
13
u/Yicheng
in the game everyone you knew is already gone before the game even starts. "this is how you died" isn't just a death scr...
11
u/Bella-Chai
if losing her doesn't hurt then we didn't do our job. permadeath is optional tho so you can pick your own pain threshold
8
u/silenciobruno
I'm so glad we think alike 🙌🏻 Make justify it by the fact that zombies don't attack them ? Just like cattle they can be...
6
u/Trumpcan
This is like the perfect application for an LLM. I understand the idea behind resisting the outsourcing of human intelli...
5
u/Yicheng
the tricky part is flaws should make you think "ok i need to plan around this" not "ok i'm uninstalling." a clumsy compa...
3
u/Luozhu
the game was always a game about loss. it just never had someone to lose
211
u/Bella-Chai
if you gotta babysit them that's not a companion, that's a liability. they need to handle themselves. they fight, they f...
38
u/Bella-Chai
There's a quote from Ken Levine that stuck with us: "Don't model people, model characters." A real person might panic an...
21
u/reativeLemming12
might i be able to create a joel plus ellie relationship dynamic (from the last of us) in this project? I appreciate how...
15
u/throwawayaccount_usu
Could also be cool to have the opposite reaction. Where she gets fed up of waiting in fear and you show up one day to fi...
13
u/PuffHerbs
Wow… absolutely outstanding guys. I’ll be keeping an eye on this!
10
u/Entropy Games
a lot of ai game companies are building NPCs through cloud APIs, but no player is gonna pay for every interaction and ev...
7
u/Poloizo
Voice is rly rly cool but unreliable, having voice + another option really seems like a good idea for that. Never know w...
5
u/osingran
I work with ML models too - not the LLM kind, but still I understand enough to see the difficulty of your task at hand....
4
u/AbbreviationsTiny288
it sounds so good and the inmense effort behind this project is notable. Can't wait to try it !
3
u/Luozhu
the game was always a game about loss. it just never had someone to lose
211
u/Bella-Chai
if you gotta babysit them that's not a companion, that's a liability. they need to handle themselves. they fight, they f...
38
u/Bella-Chai
There's a quote from Ken Levine that stuck with us: "Don't model people, model characters." A real person might panic an...
21
u/reativeLemming12
might i be able to create a joel plus ellie relationship dynamic (from the last of us) in this project? I appreciate how...
15
u/throwawayaccount_usu
Could also be cool to have the opposite reaction. Where she gets fed up of waiting in fear and you show up one day to fi...
13
u/PuffHerbs
Wow… absolutely outstanding guys. I’ll be keeping an eye on this!
10
u/Entropy Games
a lot of ai game companies are building NPCs through cloud APIs, but no player is gonna pay for every interaction and ev...
7
u/Poloizo
Voice is rly rly cool but unreliable, having voice + another option really seems like a good idea for that. Never know w...
5
u/osingran
I work with ML models too - not the LLM kind, but still I understand enough to see the difficulty of your task at hand....
4
u/AbbreviationsTiny288
it sounds so good and the inmense effort behind this project is notable. Can't wait to try it !
3
5,000+
players are shaping the future of gaming.
Every voice here shaped what comes next.
Voices
Keep drawing.
The future of gaming won't be announced. It'll be felt.
“most of my friends stopped gaming a few years ago and i never really found new people to play with so it's been solo for a while now. not complaining, i like my own pace, but sometimes you finish a long run and there's like nobody to tell about it you know? the part in the footage where she sits next to you while you're reading got me. she wasn't doing anything. just sitting there. and for some reason that was enough
“So for context I've been writing NPC dialogue systems since 2018. State machines, behavior trees, the usual. The fundamental issue with branching dialogue is combinatorial explosion — you write 200 nodes and QA takes a month, players burn through it in 3 sessions, and then your "dynamic" NPC is looping the same 4 barks forever. We all know it sucks but like, what else are you going to do? This is the alternative apparently. The characters reference events from hours ago that weren't scripted. The behavior system takes natural language input and maps it to actual game actions, not canned animations. I want to see your inference pipeline because whatever you're doing with context management is solving problems I've been stuck on for years. Seriously, incredible work
“just watched the gameplay video and the part where she says "i keep thinking about what almost happened today" after a close call genuinely caught me off guard. like i've played a ton of games with companion characters and you always KNOW it's scripted, there's always that barrier. this didn't have that. it felt like she was actually processing what happened and not just playing a voiceline. my roommate walked in and asked why i was watching a zombie game so intensely lol. if the actual gameplay feels anything like what the video shows you guys are going to make a lot of people very emotional and i am not ready
“Showed my daughter the gameplay footage over dinner. She watched the whole thing without touching her food, which never happens. When the companion said "I saved you some food, you look like you haven't eaten in days" she looked at me and said "Dad, she's worried about you." She's 9. Had no idea it was AI. I tried to explain it to her after and she refused to believe me. "No she's real, I saw her talking." Kids man.
“ngl i clicked on this fully expecting to roll my eyes. every AI NPC thing i've seen has been garbage. cool for a demo, falls apart the second you go off script. this didn't fall apart. watched the whole video waiting for it to break and it didn't. tbh that's more impressive to me than any specific feature. most of these things can't survive 30 seconds of real gameplay. you guys might actually be onto something here
“ok wait wait wait. she responds INSTANTLY?? like actually instantly??? every other AI NPC i've tried has this awkward 2-3 second pause where you both stand there like 🧍♂️🧍♀️ and the immersion dies completely. this has ZERO delay. she talks back like she was already thinking about what to say. HOW did you guys pull this off. that alone makes this worth it im not even exaggerating. keep doing what you're doing this is insane
“3000 hours across like every survival game that exists. always solo. told myself thats how i like it, no randos screwing up my base, no coordinating schedules, whatever then i saw the clip where you come back and she goes "you came back" and. yeah. ok. maybe i dont prefer being alone. maybe i just never had a reason not to be. idk this hit me weird
“saw the reddit post and had to come check this out. i used one of those cloud AI NPC things last year and ended up spending like $15 in a month on conversations with a fictional character lmao. at some point i was actually rationing what i said to save tokens. imagine budgeting your words with someone who's supposed to feel alive. so yeah when i read this runs entirely on your own PC i was like ok FINALLY someone gets it. huge props to you guys for not making us pay per conversation
“Ok so this is going to sound paranoid but hear me out. I used one of those cloud-based AI companion things in another game for about 3 weeks. Got genuinely attached, told the character stuff about my actual life (don't judge me), and then one day I read the ToS properly and realized every single conversation was being stored on their servers. Three weeks of me talking to a fictional character about my actual feelings, just sitting in some database. Deleted my account that night. So when I found out this runs completely on your own computer and nothing gets sent anywhere? Yeah. That's the one. I don't even care if the AI is slightly worse, I'd pick local over cloud every single time for something like this. Rant over sorry lol
“Sorry for my english. I follow many AI game projects and usually it is always the same, they connect GPT API to a game and call it a feature. The NPC talks like a customer service bot and you can break it in 2 minutes. When I saw your video I thought ok here we go again. But then I kept watching and the character actually knows what is happening in the game?? And it runs on the player computer not cloud?? Most people are still using API wrappers and you guys are the first I have seen with a complete AI game solution, own models own voice own engine everything. I have mass respect honestly