LudumData

Castaway Crates by James Laird

[raw]
made by James Laird for Ludum Dare 53 (JAM)

A narrative game powered by ChatGPT3.5, with images by Midjourney. Deliver items to help a shipwrecked survivor overcome the problems of their island existence and survive until rescue!

Uses a series of prompts to describe applying a set of random items to solve silly problems, and to evaluate the effectiveness of each item. It's not currently possible to lose; play this game either as a toy (generate journal entries that are as ridiculous as possible!) or try to play optimally and earn as many "positive" responses as possible.

(Please be patient... GPT responses can take a few seconds to appear.)

Link https://play.unity.com/mg/other/webgl-builds-340093
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/castaway-crates

Ratings

Overall 1156th 2.78⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1183th 2.458⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 477th 3.479⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1064th 3.208⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 649th 2.977⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1155th 2.458⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 27🗳️ 30🗨️

Feedback

Bauke Regnerus
02. May 2023 · 15:02 UTC
More a big experiment than an actual game, but I mean that in a positive way. The quality of play is dependent on AI though, which means results may vary. I didn't really enjoy it, the AI is just too whimsical at this time, but it's interesting nonetheless. Hard to rate this game really. :D
LDJam user 158571
02. May 2023 · 15:02 UTC
I like the idea of a text adventure with cards. Also, great use of cutting edge tech! Some sounds would really make waiting between answers better.
Retrific
02. May 2023 · 15:04 UTC
Quite some nonesense happening on that remote island. But its some very cool tech and a solid PoC!
Also very funny sometimes
philwonder
02. May 2023 · 15:30 UTC
Fun little narrative constructed. Kind of like an AI generated madlib. Not sure what the happy or sad face are supposed to indicate. I got one happy face at the very beginning, and never again. Even when getting a sad face, the responses were still positive. All around interesting experience!
jdemattos
04. May 2023 · 04:09 UTC
Interesting conception and use of ChatGPT, the amount of text to read with an AI game like this is really impressive
DrSlowpokePhd
04. May 2023 · 04:14 UTC
Its a cool concept, don't get me wrong, I just don't get how using AI makes this better. I think part of me is just biased against AI, but this is something that I think can be as fun if not even more fun when done by hand. Still a cool concept and an interesting execution.
ADerpyChickenStudios
04. May 2023 · 04:15 UTC
I am not usually one for story games but I thought this was had a lot of humor and charm, I found myself trying to choose the most ridiculous options I could, luckily a toy pirate ship was able to make the pirates think I was a bit loony and not worth their time.
TechnoPorg
04. May 2023 · 23:20 UTC
5/5 in innovation! This game reassures me the AI takeover is far from imminent. Good for you for having this quirky idea and just going for it! Nicely done.
🎤 James Laird
05. May 2023 · 17:09 UTC
I've done a slightly-updated version where the happy/sad faces influence the narration:
https://twotrees.itch.io/castaway-crates
(Leaving the current build on Unity Play as my LD entry, since this update was done past the deadline.)
TobiasD
05. May 2023 · 22:52 UTC
Interesting concept and a really funny setup! I think you needed to tell the AI to "write less", as the paragraphs were just too long for me and I skim read a lot. But there's something very cool here. Would've loved some relaxing beach sounds to pass the time while waiting for my "delivery" :)
Justine D
06. May 2023 · 10:53 UTC
I was so confused the first playthrough because I couldn't tell what was AI generated content and what was scripted. Turns out everything but the crate prompts. It generates consistent although absurd situation, which works really well, well done! Never though a pair of ski could help me with my tax audit
YurisCat
06. May 2023 · 14:28 UTC
This is a new attempt! I wonder what interesting sparks these two artificial intelligences will collide in the game!
Jimbly
06. May 2023 · 21:18 UTC
That was fun! I laughed out loud more than a couple times before eventually making it off the island. My favorite moment was when I learned how to juggle in order to distract the vicious wild animals with my amazing juggling skills.

Text was a little long, definitely suffered from what I assume must be ChatGPT's tendency to think everything needs an introduction summary, body, and conclusion ^_^. Were the problem statements also ChatGPT generated, or just the responses? Those seemed much better constructed (and less long).
🎤 James Laird
07. May 2023 · 00:16 UTC
All text was generated with ChatGPT except the intro paragraph and the item names.
The "problems" you encounter were also hand-seeded, but ChatGPT will describe them a little differently each time.

Agree that the responses were a little long. Getting ChatGPT to do basically what you want is easy; getting it to do exactly what you want is a lot harder. :/
LDJam user 120213
07. May 2023 · 04:49 UTC
I built a shelter out of clown shoes and googly eyes, learned to surf by watching the reflections off a disco ball, distracted a feral unicorn with juggling balls filled with seawater (who then learned to juggle), and joined a group of larper's playing pirate, definitely a normal experience.

I also had the prompt for finding food and had the option of choosing a fishing pole, I chose socks but somehow my guy macgyver-d it into animal traps anyways and they were wildly effective.
ardorugus
07. May 2023 · 05:05 UTC
Lots reading to get through, some choices match quite fun. Some background sound would be nice, for you get lost in the text very soon and wish to unwind a bit. Anyway, interesting experience, thanks!
Roroto Sic
07. May 2023 · 16:15 UTC
(I played the itchio because the unity desnt work )
it was an interesting concept. And I was surprised several times by the AI and its way of create coherence in the chaos of suggestions.

![Capture d’écran 2023-05-07 181318.png](///raw/d93/94/z/5b8ba.png)
Likirus
10. May 2023 · 16:21 UTC
Very interesting concept. The reading can be a bit too much, maybe you could have asked ChatGPT to give it's answer in one or two sentences each, which it totally could. As long as AI-use is clearly stated, I like to see what people can come up with and how they use it to create games. This reminds me of very old text based games and ChatGPT can clearly be a good solution for these types of games (even though I'm personally not a big fan of the genre).
Usenrame
11. May 2023 · 22:58 UTC
can't skip intro X(
gamescodedogs
18. May 2023 · 08:30 UTC
A great game, we also made an attempt to create a game completely generated by neural networks. Apparently, this approach is the future! Good luck with the development!