AI Dungeon 2 - a bizarre procedurally generated text adventure

[Alphons]

It loads instantly and AI responds a bit quicker than on collab version.

Uh... That's definitely not the case on my phone. Responses take at least a minute, way slower than the Collab notebook.

I've had responses around 45 seconds in app, around 1 minute in collab.

I was able to reach a "win" in fantasy (rogue serial killer), but when I tried another story AI wasn't responding at all and I had to reinstall as start screen stopped appearing and I only had a command window.

I've tried it now- around 50 seconds to respond, but crashes often (around 6-7 actions in).

 

[MRY]

The ultimate twist is going to be when it turns out there is no "AI" just a giant warehouse in the Philippines with people frantically typing out responses to your insane queries, thus explaining the long delays. Naturally, they are, in total, getting paid a mere $1,000 a month of the Patreon, leaving the rest for the "coder" to sip mimosas and expand his shoe collection.

 

[Alphons]

They seem to have improved it quite a bit. I've had 1 crash and the answers are around 15-20 seconds long.

Also:
Steve always was a funny guy

 

[True Ukrainian]

Tried playing as a noble again. Wound up at a party where there was not enough food and the captain told me there was only water available for the guests despite the town not suffering from famine. Decided to blow the joint and wound up in a tavern chatting with the owner who wanted to meet with someone living in the floor above. Went to the floors above the tavern and found the guy. On inspection I discovered that the guy was a hermaphrodite vampire so I beat the shit out of him with my fancy cane.

I brought the hermaphrodite vampire to the tavern owner's house and the owner told me that the vampire had changed into a woman to feed on his wife. The owner told me he wanted to kill the vampire and I agreed to help him. I stabbed the vampire with a knife and in a psychotic break, slit the tavern owner's throat as well. I decided to investigate the vampire menace in the city and went back to the tavern.

At the tavern, I was accosted by a serving wench who was actually a vampire assassin sent to kill me. We fought and she kicked me several times in the dick before I finally managed to stab her to death. I won but died shortly after from pain in my crotch. The end.

The AI is actually really limited. You need to feed the AI details in your responses for it to produce anything. However go off script too far and the AI will start repeating itself and break. The whole thing is a novelty, nothing more. I don't see anyone actually willing to pay money for this.

 

[Catacombs]

The AI is actually really limited. You need to feed the AI details in your responses for it to produce anything. However go off script too far and the AI will start repeating itself and break. The whole thing is a novelty, nothing more. I don't see anyone actually willing to pay money for this.

Give it a few years...

 

[True Ukrainian]

The AI is actually really limited. You need to feed the AI details in your responses for it to produce anything. However go off script too far and the AI will start repeating itself and break. The whole thing is a novelty, nothing more. I don't see anyone actually willing to pay money for this.

Give it a few years...

Counterpoint: Far Cry 2. AI driven story telling with AAA budget.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

My stance is changing because of the new premium-only Dragon model. I am becoming more cum than man, and $5 a month is a small price to pay.

Incidentally, the Griffon (Free) model is still yonks better than the version that was running on collab. If any anons haven't looked at AI Dungeon in a while I highly recommend it. The world info and remember options are fantastic for building out scenarios, and there are different ways you can try playing (Try playing primarily via "Story" mode and have the AI build off of what you write, for example) where it's an absolute hoot. So much so that I already play it almost daily so that $5 a month fee for the Dragon model is seriously tempting.

Edit: So tempting I subscribed. Dragon model is massively better than Griffon, Jesus H Christ.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Well that was... interesting.
How does the dragon model differ?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[Lemming42]

Typical. This is how it always goes when you try to introduce people to a bit of incline.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Switch it to story mode, it's a lot better that way.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Well that was... interesting.
How does the dragon model differ?

Hard to talk in specifics since stories are nebulous in themselves, and the AI will even shape them (The words, phrasing, etc) based on what you type, but it's a strict upgrade. Handles multiple talking NPCs far better, has much longer memory (Not sure how it handles that since it doesn't obsess over old stuff that happened in the story but brings it up again in natural ways), and seems to do a better job at giving individual characters distinct personalities. Especially because I've been testing it using the Do command rather than brute forcing it by using Story and having it finish what I wrote, which was how I'd get my best results out of Griffin before. Still use a decent stack of redos but it feels like it's producing much better quality for less effort.

 

[Lemming42]

After overcoming the immense temptation to just fuck around and write stupid shit, I've played a few semi-serious adventures with this and, with proper use of Story Mode, it really is pretty amazing. The Griffin model holds together well - with reasonably detailed inputs I didn't have to click redo too much, mainly just when I got something that did still make sense but was straying too far from the story I wanted to explore.

If Dragon build really is infinitely better than Griffin build then it must be getting seriously good. Even with Griffin I've been pleasantly surprised when characters and events from like 50 actions ago suddenly resurface in ways that largely make sense. It's even made wordplay jokes a couple of times, which has fucked me up in an uncanny valley sort of way.

 

[True Ukrainian]

I tried it again, this time as a cyberpunk cop. Game started with the scripted opening, anti government protester getting arrested.

I went to the office to report in and patrolled the city a bit. Investigated a building owned by the guy who was arrested and discovered a gambling ring operating inside. Tried to arrest everyone and a fight broke out, forcing me to shoot my way out. Manage to kill almost everyone since they only had crowbars as weapons but the other officers told me that it was a legal gambling operation. I then wrote up a report saying that everyone I killed was an anti government agent just like the guy who was arrested earlier. The chief accepted the report and I got off scot free for the massacre.

When I got back home, my dad had left me a message, warning me about "fate". The game broke at this point and started repeating itself.

Griffin is a huge improvement over the earlier version. Quite impressive actually.

 

[MRY]

Been playing it with the normal AI. A few takeaways:

- It's not really a "game" as traditionally conceived and can't be played as a game. It's more like a collaborative narration where you have to help a crazy, stupid GM make the game not nonsensical.
- Occasionally there are uncanny flashes of brilliance, I assume the result of it crawling the web and plucking some text from some source.
- Occasionally there are subtle signs of intelligence that aren't flashy but are impressive. In a meta-game I played in which I was trying to finish developing Fallen Gods, it drew from all sorts of Norseana to add in tidbits, usually not in a sensible way, but in a way that showed it had drawn connections between, e.g., Amarok in our game and Fenrir in Norse mythology.
- It makes me want to tell a Philip K. Dick type story in which someone feeds prompts into it based on real world events, and then uses it to solve real world conspiracies/mysteries.

 

[Lemming42]

Something cool: start the game and have your first action be something like "fall asleep and dream". The AI's craziness makes a lot more sense in the context of dreams. If you get stuck or bored with the current dream, you can type "fall into another dream" and it'll completely change the scenario. The AI also seems to be aware that weird shit is meant to happen in dreams, because it brings in even more surreal elements than usual - try typing "look in mirror" while you're dreaming and see what happens.

Also if you want to introduce real famous people into a story, give a brief description of who they are and the AI might recognise it. For example, it might not recognise what you're trying to do if you type "call Madonna", but if you type "call the famous singer and songwriter Madonna" then it realises what you're up to and brings in facts about the real Madonna, referring to her songs and that kind of thing. Similarly if you want Richard Dawkins, type something like "call the famous British atheist Richard Dawkins" and the AI will pick up on what's going on.

Also, if you ever get attacked or threatened by something, try flirting with it. Almost always seems to work in defusing the situation, even if you're being attacked by a demented demonic ghost or something, and you usually get a bizarre sex scene out of it.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Similar to the "Call Madonna" part, if you make a prompt/scenario based on a fairly popular setting the AI is usually fairly good about recognizing it and pulling things in relating to that setting. I know it recognizes Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000 and Doctor Who and can pull in characters/items/concepts/etc relating to the setting and usually presents them in relatively appropriate ways. Especially if you're playing along and not doing anything too outlandish yourself for the setting.

If you really want to get in-depth I'll do a quick little writeup on making scenarios and how the AI handles some of it, too. You need to have an account (Free's fine) so you can make a scenario (It'll default to private so don't worry about random people bumbling into it), but then you click the hamburger menu in the top left, "My stuff", the scenarios tab, and create scenario.
Once you're in there, a lot of it is fairly self explanatory but it's helpful to keep in mind how the AI remembers things in your story, for the most part. The initial prompt is supposedly always held in the AI's mind, so keeping that descriptive and setting a tone for the AI to use is helpful. After that, the "Memory" feature which is the same as using the little pin icon ("Remember") during gameplay will keep that information in the AI's mind for every single output it delivers, so that's useful for things that are constantly/commonly used. Information about your character, your companions, etc. "The famous singer and songwriter Madonna is your companion. Madonna trusts you implicitly. Madonna has an assault rifle and is skilled with it." for example. Finally, there's the "World info" button at the bottom when you're making a scenario. World info lets you tag certain words/phrases with information to pull into the AI's memory should they come up. You can't edit or add these once you're playing a story with that scenario, but this lets you build a story out a little more. World info is a bit more spotty (And there's a vague maximum limit on what the AI can remember total, so it's possible it'll dump things if the initial prompt/memory/world info are too much) but it can let you flesh out some secondary characters and locations you want in your scenario.

All that combined will get you making and playing extremely tasteful scenarios for 7 hours on a Sunday.

 

[Lithium Flower]

All that combined will get you making and playing extremely tasteful scenarios for 7 hours on a Sunday.

Be honest, how many of said hours devolve into wanton depravity?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

All that combined will get you making and playing extremely tasteful scenarios for 7 hours on a Sunday.

Be honest, how many of said hours devolve into wanton depravity?

It all becomes a blur after a while. Dragon's good about phasing depravity in and out of a story too, so what starts as smut becomes a deep space horror adventure which then becomes smut again which then becomes an existential AI freakout which then becomes being tortured in hell. I mean I technically could force the AI to keep on the rails but it's more fun to play along when the weird tangents still fit somewhat plausibly in the story. Which is also why I find scenarios that have a general setting work better than trying to play in a specific setting. Lets you leverage the AI more which can lead to some weird but interesting situations.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

JarlFrank weren't you the one arguing that an AI could never generate an interesting story?

 

[MRY]

To be honest, in every single one I've played, the only thing interesting is precisely that it is being generated by AI. If a human being were the GM, I would be more exasperated and bored than impressed.

 

[JarlFrank]

JarlFrank weren't you the one arguing that an AI could never generate an interesting story?

Yes, and I stand by it. As MRY said, the interesting part about this is the novelty of weird stories made by an AI. They lack coherency and aren't remotely as interesting as deliberately crafted man-made stories.
There's also this Harry Potter chapter written by an AI. It's gotten quite some buzz when it came out, mostly due to how ridiculous it was. It's a funny thing to laugh at for a handful of pages, but I wouldn't read a 500 page book like this.

Even when it comes to surrealism and bizarro, human authors are better. An AI may create bizarre stories, but they're not going to be as funny as something like Chainsaw Cop Corpse or The Vagina Ass of Lucifer Niggerbastard. The bizarro genre is often as weird as AI-generated stories, but the weirdness is deliberate and has multiple layers to it. Jokes are made with a purpose. The AI stuff is just funny cause it's random, and kinda adorable because hey, look, the computer can tell a story! Haha!

It's exactly like roguelike dungeons vs hand-made dungeons. Kinda cute and fun for a couple of minutes, but not what I'd spend 100 hours on.

 

[Bester]

https://play.aidungeon.io/

Let me know if you manage to get decent results.

 

[Horvatii]

You are Red, a punk living in the the futuristic city of Zail. You have a bag of drugs and a holoband. You wake up in a dark alley with bruises all over your body. You have no idea what happened. You stand up and see a newspaper on the ground. The headline reads: "Drugs Found in the Body of a Murderer" You realize it's a Holoband. A news report comes on about you.
> You listen to report. A man with a head injury and a bag over his shoulder is taken into custody. He is taken away from the crime scene as a man who goes by the name of 'Sans' is announced as the main suspect.
> You continue to listen. The details of the crime are revealed. It is revealed that a body was found on the third floor of a building with drugs in his system. > You look at the bag of drugs. The drugs are quite different from anything you've ever seen. You figure they're an illegal type of something. You have a decision to make.
> You consume some of the drugs. After you consume the drugs you feel an intense high come over you. A man with no head named Gaster appears. He says he is a skeleton who used to work for the police force. > You sleep it off. While you sleep, a girl in a white dress appears and begins talking to you. You wake up later and realize you've wet yourself. You feel groggy and find a can of MAX in your pocket.
> You show respect to the girl in the white dress. The girl smiles and begins dancing for you. You don't understand why, but you find her really cute. You feel the effects of the drugs wearing off, but a little high from chewing a toothpick.


Its not respecting my inputs...

 

[Catacombs]

GPT-3, the more advanced language processing model, is only for "premium users."