Veilborn

Veilborn is an ambitious text-based RPG I built for the web. It combines turn-based combat with deep strategy, character building inspired by Soulslikes, and a persistent world where AI drives the storytelling and world generation.

This is essentially a technical demo of a system I've wanted to make for a long time: an AI-driven RPG with a fully bespoke game system designed to pair well with AI while still feeling like a proper video game.

The main gameplay loop happens through chat as the player is placed in a world with real data backing its locations, characters, and items. You can navigate via text or by menu, and you can talk to or fight any NPC you come across. Each NPC has their own personality, goals, and inventory.

All game assets (NPCs, locations, dungeons, weapons, consumables, armor, etc.) are nodes of data that exist in a database and are queried to generate the game world. This allows the world to scale effectively infinitely: assets can be vetted for quality and consistency by me, while also being mass-produced by AI since everything is text. Even the portraits were AI produced and those could all be generated on the fly as well.

The leveling and progression system is heavily inspired by Souls games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls. Each weapon scales with the player character's relevant stats (like strength or dexterity). This powers a bespoke turn-based combat system that's meant to feel like a proper video game. One issue I had with many other AI-driven RPGs is that they feel like a text adventure rather than a proper game. In those systems no real state exists, and no actual mechanics are in place. That's the main problem I wanted to solve with Veilborn.

The game system is intelligent enough to determine when combat is initiated and which creatures are participating. It's also intelligent enough to know when the player is intending to move, or interact with their inventory. These systems are powered by having mini agents listening to the game chat. Each agent has its own prompt, goal, and access to tools that directly affect the game state. They all run during normal gameplay after each message.

I had a lot of fun building this, especially the game design work around how all the systems and mechanics tie together. Veilborn is at the intersection of my interests, I felt like a game designer programmer and dungeon master at the same time. Building Veilborn really stretched my systems thinking and software design skills. I had to design and build an entire game system from scratch while ensuring it was AI-compatible. It opens up a lot of interesting possibilities for the future of game design.

The streaming chat system I wrote about in Unbreakable AI Chat powers the in-game dialog system.