TL;DR:
I like the idea very much, but it's too "work in progress" for now to give it more than 2 stars. But I see potential, if the Dev does not abandon this game on it's still far way.
But it's not like you read it like
10 times+ before you actually get in the game
(sarcasm; it's hard not to see all the in development disclaimer).
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Ever since I tried the "Herica Mod" for Skyrim, I appreciate the approach to spice up an otherwise repetitive game experience if done well, and I can imagine it could work here very well too. Who knows, it might be able to shine just by the AI, though I doubt that with with such a small model, but running locally just requires to much resources to go way bigger.
The Good:
- The current build can act as a concept showcase if you give it the chance and know how well it can increase replayability for your like 5th+ playthrough or so. It's always something unique.
But this statement is heavily reliant that the rest of the game feels pristine.
- The LLM itself is less resource-taxing than I expected. On my hardware, it made like a 3-5% difference while generating a response at worst.
The Bad:
- Let's address the elephant in the room:
The game runs as bad as it gets. At least it did not crash for me, though the dev mentioned it is a top priority to fix.
(I have a middle-class PC; specs and performance details below for reference.)
- The AI/LLM gets stuck generating the next response quite often, and I haven't found a way to "restart" just the AI while staying in-game.
- I assume the dev is mostly or entirely working alone, and there are not just big issues but also many smaller things that need attention.
Examples include:
- Animations running at 5 FPS while the game runs at about 30 FPS.
- Doors opening the wrong way.
- Getting stuck between a door and a wall because they open automatically once your close, requiring a restart since there’s no save function yet.
- AI jumping randomly from one scenario to another. (e.g.,
Step-sis told me she would report me to the website admin. lol)
- Poorly positioned triggers. (I accidentally exit the house multiple times by getting too close to the main entrance.)
- Walking/running mechanics feel off.
- Optional first-person view has excessive head bobbing even while standing still.
- Limited graphic options for "fine-tuning" performance, making you dependent to find a suitable preset.
- Camera clipping during dialogues, clothing always.
- Key bindings remain active when naked, so pressing the "cum button" while typing earns you some screams... and so on.
The "I Wished":
(These are highly subjective, but may give the dev some ideas. I haven't checked for a roadmap.)
-
Customizable LLM: I tried swapping the current LLM with similar models from HuggingFace, but no luck yet.
the other benefit of it is, the player could decide himself, "how smart VS. how many resources" the LLM is asking for.
- Custom prompts for characters, or a randomizer option for added variability.
- At least while in early state, no or way less stamina consumption, or something like a cheat menu.
(currently exploring isn't fun at all imo, especially with all of the restarts.)
-
And I wish the developer good luck and that the project doesn't die at some point. It's still quite a bit to go but I see much potential in it.
Last but not least, my experience with performance and my hardware:
I'm running a:
- Ryzen 7 3700x (8c/16t)
- RAM: 16GB
(2x8GB), 3600MHz in dual channel (
half of my RAM died not too long ago...)
- GTX 1080 TI with 11GB VRAM
- Game is installed on an SSD M.2 (
I tried it on my 5TB data-grave, but that poor thing was at constant 100% usage 2 minutes after getting in-game—it's a slow HDD though).
No matter the preset—
from high at about 28 FPS to lowest at about 30 FPS—it didn't make much of a difference.
Resource Utilization:
- GPU: Around 75-80%
- CPU: 15-20% while generating responses
(this was good)
- RAM: 13-14GB (
pretty sure Windows allocates more if available)
- SSD: Spiked to around 10% occasionally
If I had to take a guess: If you're below a GTX 1070—maybe even a GTX 1060—you might be out of luck trying to run this.
Cheers
I hope I didn't forget anything.