Panoramic Mode, Time Tracking, and more
[h2]Time tracking[/h2]
[h3]Calendar[/h3]
Calendar info and start date will be generated at the start of each new scenario. They can be configured in the new game calendar tab. The standard Gregorian calendar will be used in most cases, but some fantasy scenarios may bias towards a custom calendar. Calendars are one per universe.
The datetime will be displayed at the top. Left click on the datetime to change the display format. Change whether it’s am/pm or 24-hour in game options.
[h3]Events and time tracking[/h3]
The journal now has a new tab called “Events” where you can add or keep track of existing events. Events have a start time, duration, recurrence, recommended location, and optional “missed effect” which injects text into the prompt if you missed the event. The event checker can also add, edit, delete events, or mark events as attended.
The event checker can also increment time. Some game elements previously using turns will now use time logic, such as status effects.
The default minimum time per turn is 10 minutes, which can be configured. Time can also go backwards if the story demands it, though this will only be reflected in the datetime.
[h3]Place changes and entity reshuffling[/h3]
If you come back to a place after a long time, the place description may be regenerated to match the current time (e.g. if it was daytime before and now it’s nighttime). Entities may also be reshuffled in this manner, if it makes sense for some entities to have left or entered since then.
[h2]Algorithmic Narrative Style[/h2]
Overhauled the story generator preamble. There are now multiple preambles to pick from, available under the Narrative Style dropdown. By default, “Adaptive (algorithmic)” will be used.
Non-algorithmic narrative styles will use a static unchanging preamble.
[h3]Algorithmic intensity[/h3]
If an algorithmic narrative style is selected, the game will use the specified json file to determine narrative intensity based on historical story turn intensity (determined by an event check). "Adaptive (algorithmic)" attempts to balance peaceful with stressful sections in the story. It forces peaceful turns if previous turns were too chaotic, and also encourages tension if previous turns were too peaceful. This logic can be modded.
[h2]Panoramic Mode[/h2]
a.k.a. yet another crazy feature which may or may not actually pan out
Background: The fact that AI Roguelite is currently built loosely like a text-based tabletop RPG is mostly coincidental, because this format happened to be the coolest kind of game AI could run in 2022. However, “best possible genre of AI game” is a constantly moving target because technology improves rapidly. Models aren’t only good at text now, but can use images as input and output, and modern image models even appear to simulate reasoning and rudimentary spatial understanding when creating images. The next logical step in my opinion seems to be making the game multi-modal as well, to leverage this new technology.
Panoramic mode is a new selectable option when visiting a new top-level place, or sublocation of an already-panoramic top-level place. When selecting this mode, a full photosphere image will be drawn around you. On each turn, if the event checker says you stayed in the same location, the current panoramic image will be *updated* to reflect what happened during that turn (for example, something might’ve been set on fire, or an NPC or enemy may have died), while attempting to maintain scene coherence. You can think of this as fake 3D (3D only from a single view point). Potentially, this "fake" 3D effect could become more realistic in the future if AI models improve their ability to redraw the same scene at any arbitrary viewpoint.
By default, no static objects, NPCs, or enemies will be force-included during initial place generation. Instead, the panoramic generator can decide what to put inside, and the entities can be added to the current place as the story progresses. This solves an issue I encountered where specifying too many entities made the panoramic generations awkward.
Disclaimer: Panoramic mode is super expensive and experimental. It’s currently only available for Sapphire subscribers, takes ~1 minute per generation, and has a rate limit of 15 per day. The future of this feature depends on how much people like it. If Panoramic mode becomes popular, I will try to find a way to relax this rate limit and/or make it available to everyone. Initially, I had a “low-cost” version I wanted to make available to everyone, but it was so bad that I scrapped the idea.
[h3]Image-based actions[/h3]
While in panoramic mode, left-drag a bounding box in the image to specify that part of the image when attempting an action. For example, draw a box around a shovel and say “I take this shovel”. This will be fed to the plausibility and roll check evaluator, as well as the story generator, thus making the experience truly multi-modal.
[h2]Misc[/h2]
[h3]Calendar[/h3]
Calendar info and start date will be generated at the start of each new scenario. They can be configured in the new game calendar tab. The standard Gregorian calendar will be used in most cases, but some fantasy scenarios may bias towards a custom calendar. Calendars are one per universe.
The datetime will be displayed at the top. Left click on the datetime to change the display format. Change whether it’s am/pm or 24-hour in game options.
[h3]Events and time tracking[/h3]
The journal now has a new tab called “Events” where you can add or keep track of existing events. Events have a start time, duration, recurrence, recommended location, and optional “missed effect” which injects text into the prompt if you missed the event. The event checker can also add, edit, delete events, or mark events as attended.
The event checker can also increment time. Some game elements previously using turns will now use time logic, such as status effects.
The default minimum time per turn is 10 minutes, which can be configured. Time can also go backwards if the story demands it, though this will only be reflected in the datetime.
[h3]Place changes and entity reshuffling[/h3]
If you come back to a place after a long time, the place description may be regenerated to match the current time (e.g. if it was daytime before and now it’s nighttime). Entities may also be reshuffled in this manner, if it makes sense for some entities to have left or entered since then.
[h2]Algorithmic Narrative Style[/h2]
Overhauled the story generator preamble. There are now multiple preambles to pick from, available under the Narrative Style dropdown. By default, “Adaptive (algorithmic)” will be used.
Non-algorithmic narrative styles will use a static unchanging preamble.
[h3]Algorithmic intensity[/h3]
If an algorithmic narrative style is selected, the game will use the specified json file to determine narrative intensity based on historical story turn intensity (determined by an event check). "Adaptive (algorithmic)" attempts to balance peaceful with stressful sections in the story. It forces peaceful turns if previous turns were too chaotic, and also encourages tension if previous turns were too peaceful. This logic can be modded.
[h2]Panoramic Mode[/h2]
a.k.a. yet another crazy feature which may or may not actually pan out
Background: The fact that AI Roguelite is currently built loosely like a text-based tabletop RPG is mostly coincidental, because this format happened to be the coolest kind of game AI could run in 2022. However, “best possible genre of AI game” is a constantly moving target because technology improves rapidly. Models aren’t only good at text now, but can use images as input and output, and modern image models even appear to simulate reasoning and rudimentary spatial understanding when creating images. The next logical step in my opinion seems to be making the game multi-modal as well, to leverage this new technology.
Panoramic mode is a new selectable option when visiting a new top-level place, or sublocation of an already-panoramic top-level place. When selecting this mode, a full photosphere image will be drawn around you. On each turn, if the event checker says you stayed in the same location, the current panoramic image will be *updated* to reflect what happened during that turn (for example, something might’ve been set on fire, or an NPC or enemy may have died), while attempting to maintain scene coherence. You can think of this as fake 3D (3D only from a single view point). Potentially, this "fake" 3D effect could become more realistic in the future if AI models improve their ability to redraw the same scene at any arbitrary viewpoint.
By default, no static objects, NPCs, or enemies will be force-included during initial place generation. Instead, the panoramic generator can decide what to put inside, and the entities can be added to the current place as the story progresses. This solves an issue I encountered where specifying too many entities made the panoramic generations awkward.
Disclaimer: Panoramic mode is super expensive and experimental. It’s currently only available for Sapphire subscribers, takes ~1 minute per generation, and has a rate limit of 15 per day. The future of this feature depends on how much people like it. If Panoramic mode becomes popular, I will try to find a way to relax this rate limit and/or make it available to everyone. Initially, I had a “low-cost” version I wanted to make available to everyone, but it was so bad that I scrapped the idea.
[h3]Image-based actions[/h3]
While in panoramic mode, left-drag a bounding box in the image to specify that part of the image when attempting an action. For example, draw a box around a shovel and say “I take this shovel”. This will be fed to the plausibility and roll check evaluator, as well as the story generator, thus making the experience truly multi-modal.
[h2]Misc[/h2]
- Added option to add context during click-to-move.
- Fixed dynamic quest starting bug where non-boolean condition wouldn’t be recognized
- Revised init entities prompt to discourage generating NPCs/enemies if not appropriate to the area
- Maybe/hopefully fixed issue where some TTS segments would be randomly dropped before being read aloud
- Added back option to target current location when using item/ability
- Added player class to plausibility and roll check prompts
- Slightly improved location change and mentioned location accuracy
- Slightly improved logic for required item/ability, and made it compatible with both image-based and non-image-based actions.
- Slightly improved travel extender prompt
- Separated General vs Gameplay options into different categories
- Removed maximum depth requirement for exploring new sublocations via the blue question mark
- Fixed error when running console command “task obs” for dynamic quests
- Fixed world presets not saving the disabled state of factions and world status bars
- Fixed cosmetic issue with grid mode buttons being too low
- Alleviated issue for free tier users exceeding token limit by increasing token limit for some prompts. Please let me know if you continue to experience issues.
- Added customization for blue brain icon position/size in ui/blue-brain.txt
- Added option to disable autoscroll
- Fixed typo: Updated CUSTOM_MODELS_TOKEN_LIMIT to CUSTOM_MODELS_CHAR_LIMIT in config file. You may need to update this if you were using it.
- Fixed bug where editing a completed story objective in journal produces task completion turn