Daydream Engine

***Major Update: Claude Sonnet 3.5 is now the best model to use, and it's free! No more paid subscriptions required to play!***

Introducing The Daydream Engine for AI-driven Interactive Fiction

WHAT IS THE DAYDREAM ENGINE?

The Daydream Engine is a set of rules and files to turn modern LLMs like Claude Opus into Game Masters of immersive interactive fiction and fanfiction.

The core engine file turns Large Language Models (LLMs) into the Game Master of a text-based interactive adventure that functions like a rules-lite Tabletop Role Playing Game mixed with a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. 

You feed it to your preferred AI and it will begin a narrative and lightly stat-driven game in your preferred lore. You can make your own using the optional files, or you can simply call upon an established universe (ex: the Narutoverse or the Marvel Cinematic Universe).

The additional optional files are for your characters and worlds so you can flesh them out more thoroughly, save them for later, and share them with other people to try for themselves. 

HOW DOES IT WORK?

You will begin by feeding the core engine file to the AI and type "Begin". The game will ask about your character, preferred setting, starting stats, and how you want the game to begin (ex: the Strawhats find me in the ocean after my ship sank).

You can also include an additional file called a World Seed File which contains those descriptions instead of answering them when you begin the chat. There's an example one in the download files.

If you're missing any of that info, the game should ask. From there, the game will begin, and it will be up to you to direct the story by deciding what your character will do and say in different situations. 

The game is designed to track your HP (100/100), XP you earn, and remember your stat bonuses for a few different categories. 

When you want to say something, you can say exactly what you want by using quotes or just give it the general idea, and when you want to perform an action the game will either perform a [dice roll + stat bonus] to determine the outcome. If it's something simple, it will just narrate how it happens instead.

WHAT'S IN THE DOWNLOAD PACKAGE:

1. The Player Guide: this contains the specifics for how to play and make the most out of the game.

2. Core Engine File: the only file technically needed to play the game. If you simply feed this to the AI and type "Begin" as your first message, it will ask you the questions necessary to begin. 

3. The Sample World Seed File (optional): this is a simple text file that you can fill out about your character, preferred setting, and plots or subplots you might like to include. The benefit of using this file is that you can share it with other people so they can play a similar adventure to your own. This also allows for adventures from your friends where you have no idea at all what will happen when you begin.

4. An Experimental ChatGPT Version for use with ChatGPT-4. For some reason Claude is a much, much better experience with the game's base rules, so I'm uploading this experimental restructuring for ChatGPT so the people who don't have access to Claude yet can still try the game. I will attempt to improve it, but it unfortunately cannot compete with Claude at this time. Any notes are appreciated on potential improvements.

NOTES:

So far this game works the best on Claude Opus. For best results, use the /gm function described in the Player Guide to nudge the system to correct anything you don't like. After a few corrections the game tends to perform very well. 

If you have any thoughts, please share them either here or on my social media. And if you love this game as much as I do, consider donating or following me on social so I can work more on this game and other projects like it. 

I hope to snowball this into a more robust application that will allow for more immersive stats and interactions, longer memory, and mechanics like on screen dice rolling and inventory buttons. So any support you can give will really help me gain the time, resources and motivation to do so!

I also want to make a space for people to share the Daydreams they create, so make sure to keep any that you really like.