I grew up dog-earing COYA and holding three pages with my fingers like an improvised undo stack. Later it was Suikoden II on a beat-up PlayStation, chasing branching story lines and watching a single choice ripple for hours. The throughline the quiet thrill of being inside the story and having it remember me when I came back.
For a bootstrapped AI project we stumbled into that same space, but from an unexpected angle. Our initial vision was grand, abstract: an interaction layer for stories. When we started building, we assumed gamers and tech folks would care. We were totally wrong, our early users, predominantly women 18 to 35 who grew up on Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural etc. They were using our characters to practice difficult conversations, testing an episode where you’re the love interest, the savior or co conspirator.
Ppl were genuinely writing novella-length interactions daily. 60+ min avg sessions. 100 day streaks. Turns out the human need for deeper story-engagement is stronger and stranger than we imagined...
For a bootstrapped AI project we stumbled into that same space, but from an unexpected angle. Our initial vision was grand, abstract: an interaction layer for stories. When we started building, we assumed gamers and tech folks would care. We were totally wrong, our early users, predominantly women 18 to 35 who grew up on Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural etc. They were using our characters to practice difficult conversations, testing an episode where you’re the love interest, the savior or co conspirator.
Ppl were genuinely writing novella-length interactions daily. 60+ min avg sessions. 100 day streaks. Turns out the human need for deeper story-engagement is stronger and stranger than we imagined...