Why Early Access?

“AI is a rapidly changing technology. We aim to iteratively improve this game via experimentation and user feedback to gradually make it closer to our vision of a town simulator which never gets boring. This involves tuning or overhauling NPC and prompting mechanics until they become believable characters with meaningful lives and realistic struggles.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“1-2 years (unless AI takes over the world or obsoletes all games)”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Planned features (non-exhaustive):

• Improved or AI-generated animation
  
• More realistic long-term NPC behavior
  
• More event checks and/or NPC actions for richer emergent gameplay

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The player can generate a world with about 5 locations, 20+ interactable objects, and 5 NPCs. The NPCs will plan agendas, talk to each other, interact with objects, and react to other NPC actions. NPCs can also harvest resources, use items, craft new items, and construct new static objects. They have a health bar, hunger bar, and mood bar. They can take damage, acquire status effects, and (in rare cases) die.

The player can place new interactable objects into the world, edit NPCs' goals/thoughts, and override an NPC's current action.

Notice:

• This game uses LLMs to generate future actions/decisions and is subject to well-known pitfalls of AI such as hallucinations and issues with coherence, which will be alleviated but not eliminated over time.
  
• The game is currently in the early stages of Early Access; as such, old saves may break when the game is updated.
  
• When starting a new game, NPCs may idle for 30-60 seconds as they plan their agendas before starting their initial tasks.

”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The price of the full release version will most likely be greater than or equal to the early access version. The final pricing will also depend on the assessed costs of calling the cloud services which provide AI inference.

Notice: The current pricing reflects the estimated cost of running cloud services for an average user, and is not necessarily an endorsement of the quality of the game.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Please send feedback via the Steam discussions page or the Discord.”