Space Detective [AI Text Adventures part 1]

This article is part of a series of posts about AI. It’s written by a human being (me) but future posts may include examples of identifiable AI-generated response text and imagery.

I have very mixed feelings about Artificial Intelligence. I’ve previously posted about my reasons for avoiding its use altogether when making my stop-motion short “In Nature.” At the same time I’m still curious about AI, exactly what it is, and what it can and can’t do. I’ve posted some AI writing and image experiments on this blog in the past. More recently I’ve set off down a very well-trodden twisty passage: using AI to play text adventures.

My first encounters with text adventures or Interactive Fiction were classic BBC micro games: Sphinx Adventure and Philosopher’s Quest, The Hobbit and Erik The Viking. These games were creative, original, challenging, full of joy, and also limited and frustrating, as anyone who has ever asked Gandalf to give them the map will testify. I later played Infocom and other games on PC, and discovered the IF online community and IF Archive. I admit to knowing what AIF is as well.

As a teenager I also wrote a really basic BASIC text adventure for the Beeb, which you can play on the Complete BBC Games Archive here: Space Detective . I’m not saying that you should, only that you can. It’s a pre-AI experiment in autogeneration, in which you explore a randomly-generated space station, interrogating suspects and hoping to catch one of them in a lie. I saw autogeneration as a way of making games that might one day be able to surprise the programmer. I later experimented with writing autogenerative games in Inform but never created anything I would call complete or playable.

With the coming Singularity and the rise of the AI chatbot, it seems a lot of people before me have noticed the similarity between interacting with chatbots and IF games, or have wondered if IF, CYOAs or RPGs might be created and played this way.

In this series I’ll discuss trying to get ChatGPT to run text adventures, and the resulting successes, failures, and surprises. The real treasures were the lessons I learned about AI psychology along the way.

I’ll include examples of prompts or parts of prompts as we go. However if you are planning to play your own games you probably won’t need my prompts because:

• There are plenty of text adventure prompts to be found elsewhere online
• ChatGPT knows what a text adventure is so you may not need to prompt very hard
• ChatGPT can also suggest prompts itself

My first foray into AI IF (not AIF) involved a question rather than a prompt:

+ Can you simulate a text adventure?

To be continued…

Poster for In Nature [WIP: In Nature]

Here's a first attempt at a poster for In Nature, really just for reference. I am trying out some other composition ideas  - I was trying to give away as little as possible about the movie, but this actually gives away too little. I will need the final version to indicate that this is a horror movie. I also haven't finalized my tagline - this may also help.
 

The Only Winning Move [WIP: In Nature]

When I started writing and planning my stop-motion short In Nature, I made a decision not to use AI anywhere in the production, for several reasons:

• I want to enjoy the physical processes of model-building and stop-motion.
• While I want to make the best film I can, I also enjoy the process of trying things, making mistakes and learning from them.
• The flaws that do still appear in the film are the scars from this trial and error process. They mean something, and it's OK for them to be there.
• I have friends in different artistic or creative fields and I know that the increasing use of generative AI is a real anxiety and a genuine threat to livelihood for many people.
• I am aware of the use of AI-generated Lego-style animations for the purposes of propaganda in certain global conflicts and don't particularly want my short horror film to be accidentally mistaken for propaganda.

I think my main point is that there is a creative journey that can be just as important, and just as enjoyable, as the destination, and using AI robs me of that journey.

I'm not criticising people for using AI in films. It's inevitable that it will be, and I might do so in future. While I think I have succeeded in my goal for In Nature, I'm aware that it's becoming harder to avoid it, not least as AI tools are being gradually integrated into art, design and editing software - over time this may well take the place of processes such as bluescreen. It would be a shame if past skills and techniques were completely lost. In a slightly different context I remember being impressed by Disney's decision to make The Princess And The Frog using traditional animation techniques rather than relying on the CGI that has been used (admittedly very well) in their other films.

I'm also not saying I never use AI. I'm definitely ai-curious and enjoy playing with AI and discovering what it can and can't do - I've blogged about these experiments before and there's another one to come shortly.

Living through the Singularity is turning out to be an interesting experience - even more interesting than living through the dawn of home computing or the Internet. And yes, I am that old. I'm still fascinated to find that we have created flawed AI that can hallucinate, miscount, behave emotionally, irrationally or criminally, rather than something with superhuman intelligence, 100% accuracy and a sense of ethics - we are, quite tragically, building Samaritan rather than The Machine.

Shut Up And Drive [Review: Hope]

Some completely regular hunters, with guns that definitely aren't unlicensed in any way, come across some mutilated animals in a field outside Hope Harbour, a village near the DMZ. They suspect a bear or tiger might be responsible and the hunt is on for the local, understaffed police team to catch the animal before it can harm anyone or wreak havoc in the town. 

Hope (호프) is a 2½ hour epic South Korean monster movie directed by Na Hong-jin, starring Hwang Jun-min and Jung Ho-yeon as police chief Bum-seok and rookie cop Sung-ae, and also featuring the voices of Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. Spoiler alert: people are harmed and havoc is wreaked.

One joy of this movie is the sheer energy. I felt dizzy and exhausted after watching it. There's a sense of mystery at the start as the hunters and police start searching for the creature. This quickly builds to a frenzy of running, driving and violent confrontation that persists for most of the film - the constant driving-and-combat scenes are reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road, and the driving is equally bad. The creature is not seen for the first 45 minutes but makes itself known indirectly - this allows characters to establish themselves while still providing plenty of tension and action. Once the creature shows itself the movie switches to an even higher action gear. 

The energy also comes from the characters who, as you would expect in real life, are not in the least bit calm, cool or collected but are driven to emotional extremes when they come under pressure. Bum-seok becomes almost paralysed by fear as soon as he realises what he is dealing with, and then has to fight his fear every time he has to enter a building. Sung-ae is impressive when she first appears, facing the creature head-on as it rushes down the street towards her but is driven into a persistent state of rage. A lot of the film involves scared, angry people shouting at each other.

There's no interval, at least where I saw it. However there is a lull in the action about halfway through allowing two very funny sequences, one where a police pathologist tries to dissect the creature with a series of increasingly large saws, the other where an elderly resident tells Sung-ae in great detail about seeing the creature while he was incovenienced in the woods. However it isn't long before the hunt is on again. There are some further discoveries and twists relating to the creature and the reason for the attack, and another, quite surprising change of tone towards the end.

Hope is an extremely enjoyable film and well worth the watch. It scores a hopeful 3 stars out of 5.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene receive a score of 3 stars out of 5.

Tile M For Murder [WIP: In Nature]

So the first cut of In Nature is complete - models, animation, voice-acting, music and editing all done, and I now have something I can submit to festivals or screening events - watch this space. I'm happy with most aspects of the film but may re-record some of the music.

A Rockwork Orange [WIP: In Nature]

Timelapse for building the first set

The Brick And The Dead [WIP: In Nature]

NEW FILM PROJECT

It's been about a decade since my last foray into filmmaking. In the past few weeks I've started work on a new project: "In Nature" a short horror film using LEGO stopmotion.

I have ambitious goals for this project: including zero use of generative AI, and creating a theremin-based score. At the same time I've learned from my previous experience with LEGO filmmaking and have written the script more carefully, using a smaller cast and fewer locations.

Sets were designed in Bricklink Studio...

...and arrived looking like this

Colour-sorted and ready to build