These games about a vampire and a Yandere girlfriend enable real-time conversations with NPCs, reacting to your words and providing dynamic interactions between game and player are possible.
One of the most successful genres of video games is that of role-playing games. Regardless of the form they take, players enjoy stepping into the roles of fictional protagonists, experiencing fantastic worlds and adventures through their eyes.
A crucial aspect of this experience is the interaction with NPCs. Games like the Mass Effect trilogy and Baldur's Gate 3 consistently demonstrate the powerful combination of excellent character design and player freedom in shaping the narrative.
As AI continues to gain relevance, this will soon take on even larger dimensions and the ways we interact with NPCs could completely change. Some games already show where we might be headed in that regard.
A Vampire And A Yandere Girlfriend Show How AI Works For Dynamic Dialogues
Large Language Models (LLM) like ChatGPT should be familiar to most of you by now. They allow users to interact with an AI through text-based messages and images, utilizing advanced machine learning technology to generate responses that sound natural and are relevant to the conversation.
It was only a matter of time until games also seized the opportunity to explore this potential of AI. Let's be honest, we've all wished at some point to have a real conversation about our favorite anime with our beloved companions in Baldur's Gate 3.
Some of you may think: AI-generated NPCs are lame, what do we need them for? In general, AI-generated content has often sparked discontent in the past, especially concerning art and voice acting in games. But don't worry, the characters in question are still written by humans, possess intricate personalities, and tell an overall predetermined story. They just are more flexible when it comes to conversations.
A few quirky games demonstrate how it can work. In the following examples, players are given the ability to talk via their microphone to NPCs about whatever comes to mind.
Suck Up! Convince Your Neighbors To Let You In So You Can Drink Their Blood
In this game, you play as a rather cute vampire with a not-so-cute agenda. You're thirsty and need to canvass the neighborhood to find someone to feed on. For each neighbor whose door you knock on, you have a short timeframe to convince them to let you in. The possibilities are nearly limitless, but beware: each neighbor has their own personality and reacts differently to your antics.
If you manage to find a suitable topic to make them receptive, they'll let you in, and you can do your thing. If not, they'll slam the door in your face. Another crucial aspect is your appearance. In the game, you can put on the clothes of your victim and engage with other neighbors in a role-playing scenario. Their reactions to your new identity also vary, so you have to come up with new ideas continually.
| Platforms | Windows and macOS |
| Price | $12.99 |
| Where to buy | playsuckup.com |
| Supported languages | English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German |
Suck Up! uses a custom-designed language module that currently produces responses in 1–2 seconds, which enables maintaining the role-playing atmosphere and adhering to the rules of gameplay.
With You Til The End – Yandere AI Girlfriend Simulator
Of course, one of the first examples for the use of AI interactions in video games is a dating simulator. These types of games already utilize branching storylines with multiple possible outcomes, making it a natural fit to leveraging the capabilities of ChatGPT.In With You Til The End – Yandere AI Girlfriend Simulator, you have been captured by a 'Yandere,' a young woman obsessed with you and determined to have you all to herself. She keeps you confined in her apartment, and your task is to persuade her to let you go. (Yes, I just realized it's basically the opposite of Suck Up!)
There are several ways to convince your 'girlfriend' to let you go. You can subtly search her apartment or hack into her computer to find out what she's into. This helps you in conversations to gain her empathy. However, be cautious! If you anger her, she'll pull out a knife and come after you (That's what the 3 lives on the top right are for).
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Price | free/pay what you want |
| Where to get | itch.io |
| Supported languages | English, German, French, Russian |
The Yandere AI Girlfriend simulator works with ChatGPT, so you'll need to set up the OpenAI API in order to make the game work. The game also supports AI-generated voice lines for the girlfriend, which poses a big issue for these types of games.
There Are Some Problems
That all sounds very promising, but there's a catch. AI models like the ones used here cannot be handled by conventional PCs, as they lack the computational power needed. This means that developers have to process AI interactions server-side or use some form of third party AI provided by other companies. This, in turn, not only adds to the costs for developers but also prevents these games from being played offline, one of the big advantages of many single-player RPGs.
Also, the absence of 'real' voice lines is one of the limitations that come with this type of dialogue generation. When texts are procedurally generated, they of course cannot be voiced by voice actors beforehand. Currently, there is no way around also generating voices using AI. Understandably, this would be a significant incision in one of the most important features of modern RPGs.Through small games like these, we can gauge the possibilities that future gaming holds. AI is becoming an increasingly important part of all our lives, so why not have a bit of fun with it? That sounds wrong... you know what I mean.
What is your opinion on the usage of AI in games? Do you see more issues arising from this and perhaps even prefer sticking to the traditional way of interacting with NPCs? Share your thoughts in the comments!