Watch an NPC reality show unfold in this AI-powered life sim 

Japanese developer Ememe Inc. announced the AI NPC-spectating game Ememe on December 14. The game is scheduled for Early Access release in September 2024 for the PC (Steam/Epic Games). Ememe will be available in English and will be free throughout its Early Access period. 

Ememe is an anime-style life sim in which you watch and meddle with the daily lives of NPCs, whose words and actions are entirely AI generated. The game is set in the city of Ememe Town, inhabited by characters who engage in autonomous dialogue, build relationships with each other and basically live their lives as they please. 

The player can create and add new NPCs to the town, define their personalities and occasionally intervene in their actions. The developer promises a personal “Truman Show” experience, but also warns players not to take things too far. 

Ememe uses LLM to generate dialogue between NPCs in real time, and the AI will make predictions and output facial and body animations to reflect the content of the conversations using a base of over 1,000 motion data types. 

Additionally, it seems you will be able to upload your own 3D model (in VRM format) to the game and have it become one of the town’s AI NPCs. You will be able to set up a personality for them and the AI will do the rest, including expressions and animations included. 
 

At the time of the Early Access launch, the game is planned to include NPC personality settings, NPC life simulation, automatic NPC conversation and animation generation, player intervention in NPC conversation, and 3D model uploading. The Early Access period is scheduled to last at least 12 months, and at the time of official release, the game will also include features such as multiplayer mode, game event creation, character and world creation, digital item sales and mod support. The developer also mentions that the environment will be open-world. 

The game event creation tool mentioned above refers to the creation of TRPG-like events in which players freely-role play to progress through the story together with the AI NPC, who acts like a game master. 

Ememe Inc. was founded by Yuka Kojima, who previously worked in game development at Sony Interactive Entertainment and Gree. She is also the founder of the company that developed “FOVE 0,” the world’s first eye-tracking VR headset. The goal of Ememe is to create a new storytelling platform that involves both humans and AI. 

Ememe is planned for Early Access launch in 2024.  

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-12-14 17:34 JST)