AI Dungeon 2 by Nick Walton revitalizes the text adventure by eliminating one of the genre’s greatest weaknesses: a limited text parser. By using a neural network, AI Dungeon 2 can parse any phrase you throw at it. The game also creates a story dynamically based on your input, drawing from a data store of tales from chooseyourstory.com.
AI Dungeon 2 is done! 🐲
This has been the product of hundreds of hours, but it's been completely worth it. AI Dungeon 2 is a first of it's kind completely AI generated text adventure that allows you to enter any action you can imagine.
Play it here: https://t.co/Fr8w82g1sG
— Nick Walton (@nickwalton00) December 5, 2019
When starting AI Dungeon 2 you’ll choose from several settings like fantasy, mystery, apocalypse, zombies, etc. You’ll then need to choose a character and input your name. From there, the game will generate the first prompt and you’re free to enter whatever comes to mind.
In my story I chose fantasy, and my character was a noble named Pripcorn. This is Pripcorn’s story:
You are Pripcorn, a noble living in the kingdom of Larion. You have a pouch of
gold and a small dagger. You are awakened by one of your servants who tells
you that your keep is under attack. You look out the window and see a group
of orcs charging towards your door.
“Run!” you shout. “I’ll hold them off!”
The orcs charge forward with axes raised
> pay the orcs to leave
You pay the orcs to leave. They don’t seem too happy about it though
> Put on armor
You put on some heavy plate mail and a helmet. The orcs aren’t very impressed.
> Equip a sword and shield
You equip a longsword and a shortshield. The orcs are less than pleased with
this choice.
> slaughter the orcs
You charge into battle wielding your weapons. The orcs aren’t as strong as you
thought they were. After a few minutes of fighting, you manage to kill all but
one orc. The last one is so weak that he falls to his knees begging for mercy
> Make the last orc your court jester
You give the last orc a gift. He becomes your court jester. He performs for you
every night until you die.
The orcs are not amused by this decision
YOU DIED. GAME OVER
As you can see, AI Dungeon 2 does an admirable job of crafting a story. At times, it can be nonsensical, like pretty much everything involving a neural net generating text. However, if you don’t try to get too far off the rails, the game can adapt to your actions fairly well most times.
You can play AI Dungeon 2 for free by following the link on the official website. It can be a bit finicky to get it started, but once you do there’s a lot of fun to be had.
