AI NPC Experimentation

Not since the transition into 3D graphics have I been so excited for a new technology.

I have now completely intertwined my development with various AI assistants, namely ChatGPT and Leonardo AI, but when i started talking to my NPC characters I became enthralled. This is much more than a gimmick. When done right, this will be industry shattering.

Recording voice with a webcam microphone, converting to a text string, then sending this to ChatGPT for a response which gets converted to an AI voice, in near real time. This is what I’ve been worked on all through April this year, and I think I’ve cracked it.

The trick is to train the AI.

How the AI responds is determined by the prompts you give it. Obviously. But there is so much that can happen before and after the response. Namely:

1. Events that occur in the world can trigger the AI NPC

2. Memories can be implanted into the AI NPC

3. Personality can be shaped for each AI NPC

4. The AI NPC can be a character you can visually see, or a voice, like a narrator

Along with these experiements, the biggest breakthrough I had was on my project “Entanglement Theory” where the player investigates a mysterious space station with a group of AI NPCs. In this simulation, I was able to add group AI conversations and dynamics using a series of pre and post processing to the player’s input and the NPC’s output.

And still, I feel I’m only scratching the surface.

Once players get over the “AI is taking jobs away from devs and therefore I’m boycotting anny game that uses AI” thing, this kind of AI NPC interaction will become common and even standard amung all games.

I was skeptical of VR, even as one of the first pioneers to work as a contractor at Oculus, but this is something else entirely. This will take the medium much, much further.

Looking at Rogue-Lite Design

From a development standpoint, I’ve decided I like the Rogue-Lite Design genre. I see many advantages, namely:

1. I can actually “feel” the game loop, as opposed to an open world sandbox where you large have to push yourself to find fun as a player.

2. The loop is much faster, which shortens the game’s overall scope.

3. Because of this, it creates a “less is more” quality. Instead of doing wide with enormous feature sets, you go deeper with a few.

4. The “Lite” part creates room for interesting meta elements and story archs.

5. Procedural levels are really fun to make and play, and take less time to develop.

6. They are usually single player, something I’m looking for after spending years trying my hand at multiplayer.

7. They are usually not “Games as a Service”, which is a huge plus for me as a solo dev.

Looking at subject matter ideas through the lens of a Rogue-Lite leads to a fantastic brainstorming framework. By thinking about ideas as reoccurring loops with the possibility of an overall meta sets my imagination on overdrive, and with the sci fi kick I’ve been in for the last ten years I’ve been able to come up with all kinds of ideas that I feel fit this genre like a glove.

What I’m really looking forward to is refining a smaller, bite size game and making it super polished and dripping with replay value. There’s something about enjoying a project that is well constructed and balanced, and I think this will be more achievable with the Rogue-Like genre than the Survival Crafting genre.

Some ideas that can lend themselves to this genre:

1. Time loops - the player character has amnesia and can only discover more about themselves and the world through repeated runs.

2. Time Travel - waking up at different times or places based on the previous run.

3. Metamorphosis - the idea of death being the only way to advance into a more powerful being.

4. Groundhog Day - the same experience with variations and endings based on player decisions.

5. And many more mind bending scenarios based around questioning reality and what the player receives after a run, being a story or truth.

As a storyteller, this is exciting because it doesn’t have to be about player power or weapons or item gathering. It can be about unraveling a mystery or looking inwards into philosophical conflicts, which is what the best stories usually are at their core.

Style Will Be More Important Than Polish

In the late 1800’s, the camera was invented. If you study art history, you’ll see that the moment this happened, the art world exploded with some of the best artists the world has ever scene: Van Gogh, Monet, Kalinsky, Picasso, Braque, and Dali. All of these artist pushed way past the boundaries of realistic rendering and explored expressionistic style. Essentially, they expressed their feelings, their immediacy, their humanity.

For centuries, to that point in time of the camera, the art world was primarily focused on capturing realism (unless you go way back to the ancient times of the Maya, Polynesians, Egyptians, or earlier where symbolism reigned). The Renaissance gave us blockbuster, epic depictions of the human form and stories of the gods. And by using advances in understanding perspective, shading, color creation techniques (blue was always the most sought after and rare color during this time) artists stove for realism.

To render realism was to be the master artist.

I see a parallel with computer graphics. Since its inception, we’ve pushed towards realism and have fallen in love with the illusion that is created as special effects in movies and now, with amazing advances in real time rendering, photorealistic game graphics. For most of my career as a 3d artist, to be able to capture realism has always been the measuring stick by which you knew your craft and has the most income opportunities, likely because the audience wants the graphics to feel real.

Unlike the moment of the camera invention, computer graphics has had a diminishing experiential curve towards photorealism, so there really hasn’t been a clear moment for realism in CG to be out like yesterday’s news. Instead, it’s been a gradual cross dissolve that the market has been deciding, and especially in the last couple of years.

With game engines becoming more powerful, 3d tools like Blender being free and incredibly powerful, and all the know how you can ever need available for free via YouTube, it’s easier than ever to achieve what was just a decade ago or two ago as a pipe dream.

But if there is a shot heard around the world these days, it’s AI.

AI can render virtually anything photo realistically, though obviously not usable 3d models, but can produce amazing concept art. This tool will allow us to explore more interesting ideas faster, and will give more ideas confidence as AI can create a wacky idea in a way that seems plausible, leading to pour water over those that say “I know it when I see it” when picking projects to fund or green light.

But there’s one thing that all this technology and AI doesn’t have: the human touch. Like the impressionist who purposely had loose brush strokes to capture the immediacy and flair of the moment the artist expressed, audiences will crave the human connection, warts and all. In fact, “bad” art might become refreshing and even more popular than polished, realistic art that AAA studios have centered on since the 90s.

The problem for those AAA studios is that it’s really hard for an entire art team to have a consistent style that is not realism nor is it financially plausible to risk an outlandish style such as seen in indie hits like Lethal Company. Maybe it was a happy accident, maybe it was what the artist on that game could muster, but I can never see a AAA studio agree and champion putting a style like that behind a $20m game project.

I’ve seen players say Starfield is soulless and it could be because it’s a team of veteran professionals who have spent the last 20 years perfecting that realistic style of the big box retail games only to find that they are out of fashion. Like the big hair bands of the 80s that went the way of the dinosaur when Nirvana’s Nevermind was released, style might become more and more critical to establishing that human connection and actually feel something that the artists pushed to express.