# Games with AI NPCs you can actually talk to

> Eight released games where you type or speak to NPCs and an AI answers: platform, price, multiplayer, and whether the AI decides dialogue or outcomes too.

By [Jonah Ease](https://dimetown.com/about/) · Published 4 Oct 2026 · Last checked 4 Oct 2026 · https://dimetown.com/guides/games-with-ai-npcs/

As of 4 Oct 2026, there are eight games you can play today where you type or speak to non-player characters and an AI model answers: Where Winds Meet, Suck Up!, Vaudeville, Whispers from the Star, AI Roguelite, AI Dungeon, the Mantella mod for Skyrim and Fallout 4, and DimeTown. They differ most in one thing: whether the AI only writes what characters say, or also decides what happens. Where Winds Meet is the big free multiplayer option. Suck Up! and Whispers from the Star are the most polished single-player voice games. AI Dungeon and AI Roguelite let the model run the whole story. I make DimeTown, so read its entry knowing that. It is a free browser city where up to 50 players type what they do, an AI judges it, and dice decide.

Everything below about other games comes from their store pages and developers, linked under Sources. I haven't reviewed them here; this is what each one says it does.

## The comparison

Prices are the Australian Steam store's regular prices, checked 4 Oct 2026.

| Game | Platform | Price | Players | Voice or text | What the AI decides | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Where Winds Meet](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3564740/Where_Winds_Meet/) | PC, PS5, iOS, Android | Free to play (cosmetics) | Single-player story, co-op up to 4, shared online world | Text and voice | Dialogue for some townsfolk, plus whether you've solved their problem: affinity, gifts, sometimes hostility | 14 Nov 2025 (PC, PS5); 12 Dec 2025 (mobile) |
| [Suck Up!](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2726370/Suck_Up/) | Windows | A$24.95 | Single-player | Voice | Whether each resident lets you, the vampire, inside | 1 Oct 2025 on Steam |
| [Vaudeville](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2240920/Vaudeville/) | Windows, Linux | A$29.50 | Single-player | Text or voice | Suspects' answers to your questioning | Early access 30 Jun 2023; full 28 Nov 2025 |
| [Whispers from the Star](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3730100/) | Windows, iOS | A$14.50 on Steam | Single-player | Voice, video call or text | Stella's replies and what she does, including whether she survives | 14 Aug 2025 |
| [AI Roguelite](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889620/AI_Roguelite/) | Windows | A$21.95 | Single-player and multiplayer | Text | Nearly everything: world, NPCs, items, and how plausible your attack is, which feeds a dice roll | Early access 2 Mar 2022; full 25 Oct 2023 |
| [AI Dungeon](https://aidungeon.com/) | Web, mobile apps | Free; optional subscriptions | Single-player and multiplayer sessions | Text | The whole story: narration and consequences | Live; iOS app updated Sept 2026 |
| [Mantella](https://art-from-the-machine.github.io/Mantella/index.html) (mod) | Skyrim SE/AE, Fallout 4, both in VR | Free mod; you need the base game | Single-player | Voice or text | Dialogue, plus 20-odd actions such as following you, fighting, trading and travelling | v0.14, 21 Apr 2026 |
| [DimeTown](https://dimetown.com/play/) (mine) | Browser, desktop or phone | Free | Up to 50 players per city | Text | What you meant, how risky it is and how well it's pitched; 2d6 dice then decide the outcome | Live at dimetown.com |

## The games in a sentence or two

**Where Winds Meet** is a free wuxia open-world game. Only some NPCs are AI-driven: townsfolk and shopkeepers rather than story characters. Their chat is tied to rewards. AllThings.how's Nov 2025 explainer says the chatbot judges whether your replies address that NPC's problem, and the NPCs "can't create new items" or rewrite quests. It's the closest thing to a large multiplayer game with AI NPCs.

**Suck Up!** puts the AI in charge of the win condition: you talk your way into homes with your real voice, and the store page says it uses ChatGPT from OpenAI.

**Vaudeville** is a detective game. You question suspects by typing or speaking, and the store page says the dialogue is "generated with the help of a conversational AI".

**Whispers from the Star** tells its story through your conversations with Stella, a stranded astronaut. In the store page's words, "Everything you say shapes what I do and if I survive."

**AI Roguelite** comes closest to DimeTown's idea. Its store page says an attack's success "depends heavily on its name and description, the AI-determined plausibility of your proposed action, and a dice roll check".

**AI Dungeon** is a long-running AI text adventure: you write an action, the model writes what happens. Multiplayer sessions are listed on its App Store page.

**Mantella** is a free, open-source mod. NPCs "remember past conversations with you" and can act, and it runs on a cloud model or a local one. Its v0.14 release made a free Gemma model the default.

### Left out, and why

- **inZOI**: Zois' actions and thoughts "can be influenced with text", but its store page describes no free conversation with them.
- **AI People** (GoodAI): it launched as an alpha in 2024, but its site now redirects to GoodAI's homepage, which doesn't mention it. I couldn't confirm you can still play it.

## What makes NPC AI work in a game

A chatbot in a costume is easy to build and gets dull fast. The NPC says something charming, and nothing in the world changes. The games above that feel like games give the AI a job with consequences: Suck Up!'s door, Where Winds Meet's affinity, AI Roguelite's plausibility check. Three things decide whether that works. Here they are with DimeTown as the worked example, because it's the code I can show you. The overview is in [How DimeTown works](https://dimetown.com/guides/how-dimetown-works/).

### 1. The model judges; code keeps the rules

DimeTown's NPCs run on Jev, [TypeSafe's](https://docs.typesafe.ai/concepts/system-one.md) "System One" model. Jev doesn't write text. It answers typed questions with probabilities. Everything that has to be fair lives in code: the dice, the money, the effects.

Type `*slides the guard a fifty*` and this is what happens (`server/interact.ts`):

1. **Intent.** Jev picks which game action you're attempting, from the verbs your role allows plus "just roleplay", and who it's aimed at. At 0.75 confidence or higher, the action runs. Between 0.40 and 0.75, you get a **"did you mean…"** prompt with the two likeliest actions and "Just roleplay" (`server/verbs.ts`). Below that, it stays an emote.
2. **Guards.** In the same request, four checks ask whether you're declaring your own success, deciding someone else's reaction, talking out of character, or harassing a real person. Above 0.7 the action is blocked and you get a strike. Above 0.35 it goes ahead with a −1 "Sloppy RP" modifier.
3. **Judgement.** For a bribe, Jev scores how tempting the offer is to that person, how much risk accepting puts them in, how well your words would land with their personality, and your history with them (`server/verbs.ts`). It also picks a **position**: controlled, risky or desperate.
4. **Dice.** Code rolls 2d6 from a fresh random seed and adds the modifiers. Your role's stat, training and a signature move (+1) count, and so does being hurt (or, for physical moves, tired). Jev's modifiers are capped at ±4 combined, so the dice always matter (`shared/dice.ts`). In a risky spot, 6 or less fails, 7–9 is "yes, but…" and 10 or more succeeds. Double six always wins; double one is always a comic disaster. The seed and the result are logged.

So a hustler bribing a cop might roll 4 + 3. They'd add +1 Charm and +1 Signature move, then +1 for a tempting offer, −2 because taking it is a serious risk for a cop, and nothing for history. That totals 8: a partial success. The cop pockets the cash, and "They'll want more next time." That roll is made up to show the arithmetic; the rules are the code's.

The model never chooses the outcome. It answers the questions a good game master would ask, and the rules do the rest.

### 2. Memory lives in game state, not a chat log

When an NPC is the target of an action or hears you speak, the request includes their personality, their attitude to you and their three most recent memories of you, from the city's database (`server/world.ts`, `server/interact.ts`). Insult someone and they remember "insulted me". Pay them off and they remember that too. That history becomes a modifier on your next roll. NPCs also pass rumours to each other, so your reputation travels.

Between conversations, NPCs live their own lives (`server/npcs.ts`). Each activity runs for 20 seconds to nearly three minutes: working a shift, eating at Dino's, gambling, gossiping. When one ends, Jev picks the next from that NPC's options, given their hunger, energy, money, the time, the weather and what's on their mind. Up to five NPCs that go idle together share one request. NPCs nobody is near don't call Jev at all; their schedule and needs decide.

### 3. Lines come from a bank that grows

What an NPC says is chosen, not freshly generated every time (`server/lines.ts`). Jev picks the best-fitting line from a bank for the moment, such as a reaction to a failed bribe. It also judges whether a new line would fit noticeably better. If so, and the budget allows (at most 40 lines per situation, 20 writes a minute), gpt-5.4-mini writes one. Jev then checks it's in character, fits, isn't offensive and isn't a duplicate before it's saved and said.

If you asked something specific and no stored line answers it, the writer is given facts to answer from: the time, the place, what the NPC is doing and what they sell. If it can't produce a good answer, the NPC shrugs rather than make something up. The full write-up is [NPC dialogue that writes itself](https://dimetown.com/guides/npc-dialogue-line-bank/).

## The trade-offs

- **Latency.** Every action waits on a model call. The dice start tumbling straight away and spin for at least 750 ms (`shared/encounter.ts`), which covers a normal call. The Jev client gives up after 3.5 seconds (`server/jev.ts`). When that happens, a typed emote just stays an emote, and other judgements fall back to defaults.
- **Misreads.** A classifier will sometimes read flirting as a bribe, or miss a target. "Did you mean" catches the uncertain middle, and the `/` palette lets you name the action outright. Still, a confident wrong read runs.
- **Moderation.** Everything players type is screened before anyone else sees it (`server/safety.ts`). A word list catches the unambiguous cases, then Jev checks for hate, sexual content, sexualising minors, threats or insults aimed at the real player, and swapping contact details. In-character threats and swearing are allowed. Anyone can report or block a player, and a reported AI-written line is never used again.
- **Text only.** DimeTown has no voice input. If you want to speak aloud, Suck Up!, Whispers from the Star, Vaudeville, Mantella and Where Winds Meet all take a microphone.

## Which one to pick

- **Big, free, multiplayer, AI as a side system:** Where Winds Meet.
- **A short, funny voice game:** Suck Up!
- **A mystery to question your way through:** Vaudeville.
- **An emotional one-on-one story:** Whispers from the Star.
- **AI that runs everything, solo:** AI Roguelite or AI Dungeon.
- **Your existing Skyrim or Fallout 4 save:** Mantella.
- **A shared city where you type anything and the dice decide, free in a browser:** DimeTown, at [/play/](https://dimetown.com/play/).

## Sources

- [Where Winds Meet on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3564740/Where_Winds_Meet/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Gematsu: Where Winds Meet for iOS, Android launches December 12 in the west](https://www.gematsu.com/2025/11/where-winds-meet-for-ios-android-launches-december-12-in-the-west), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [AllThings.how: Where Winds Meet and AI, how the chatbot NPCs work](https://allthings.how/where-winds-meet-and-ai-how-the-mmos-chatbot-npcs-work/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Suck Up! on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2726370/Suck_Up/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Vaudeville on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2240920/Vaudeville/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Whispers from the Star on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3730100/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Whispers from the Star on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6743071754), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [AI Roguelite on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889620/AI_Roguelite/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [AI Dungeon](https://aidungeon.com/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [AI Dungeon on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ai-dungeon/id1491268416), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Mantella documentation](https://art-from-the-machine.github.io/Mantella/index.html), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [Mantella v0.14 release on GitHub](https://github.com/art-from-the-machine/Mantella/releases/tag/v0.14), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [inZOI on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2456740/inZOI/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [GoodAI: AI People Alpha officially released](https://www.goodai.com/ai-people-alpha-officially-released/), checked 4 Oct 2026
- [TypeSafe docs: System One](https://docs.typesafe.ai/concepts/system-one.md), checked 4 Oct 2026