TODAY, a next-gen cozy social simulation game where players cultivate thriving virtual island communities, introduces Dreamia, its next-generation character engine.
Dreamia uses advanced AI to create intelligent, interactive NPCs that are hyper-realistic and dynamically responsive. As players engage, their actions shape the story, making every encounter in TODAY fluid, fun, and deeply personal. No two players have exactly the same experience which deepens the game’s authenticity, complexity and stickiness.
Even as AI companions and chatbots become mainstream, there has yet to be a bespoke engine that infuses cinematic storytelling principles – character arcs, story structure, subtext, complex interrelationships – into a game, says co-founder Michael O’Connor:
We’ve built Dreamia in-house. We are quite literally building the next generation of gameplay. Our bespoke, story-first approach is what makes Dreamia so special: we’re embedding the nuances of real-life dynamics into NPCs so they have emotional depth, contextual awareness and responsiveness.
Dreamia not only makes games more fun but it also gives players more ownership and influence on the outcomes. Players become active participants, shaping their own narrative journey and contributing creatively to their own experience.
Michael O’Connor, co-founder of TODAY
TODAY has multiple PHD level data scientists and AI engineers who are fine-tuning open-source LLMs to enhance their capabilities specifically for the game’s needs.These refined LLMs power Dreamia, enabling a set of core features that introduce a new era of story-rich NPCs:
- Deep Personalities: Dreamia NPCs exhibit lifelike behavior and interactions. They can have profound spoken discussions, understand, and adapt to player actions in real-time, creating a dynamic and engaging gaming experience.
- Sustained Memory: Everything a player does becomes a unique map for Dreamia. It remembers the past and reacts to recent behaviors so that players each have their own continuous evolutionary narrative experience, making interactions feel meaningful and cumulative over time.
- Hyper Contextual Awareness: Unlike traditional NPCs, Dreamia NPCs perceive changes in their environment and react appropriately to new situations based on their surroundings, current gameplay and past interactions.
- Emotional Intelligence: NPCs powered by Dreamia can detect and respond to the emotional states of players, providing empathetic and appropriate reactions. This makes in-game interactions more genuine and emotionally resonant.
- Procedural Animation: Dreamia uses emotion data embedded in dialogues to trigger real-time animations. This creates dynamic and contextual physical responses, making interactions feel natural through expressive body language and facial expressions
As the narrative heart of TODAY, Dreamia creates the emotional energy that imbues the world with humanity and makes players feel comfortably immersed in an emotionally vibrant virtual world shared with others.
As an Oscar-winning writer and director, co-founder and creative director Ben Cleary understands the centrality of storytelling for humans:
Since I was a kid, designing side scrollers and stories on my bedroom walls, I’ve been dreaming up immersive worlds and intricate narratives. My early passion for video games, books and movies shaped my love of storytelling as a multifaceted experience, blending visuals, interactivity, and emotional depth.
I’ve learned that storytelling isn’t just about telling a story; it’s about striking a chord that reverberates deeply within the audience and creates an emotional impact that lingers. As games become more like movies, these narrative fundamentals are crucial differentiators to successfully deliver interactive storytelling at scale.
Ben Cleary, co-founder and creative director of TODAY
Later this year, players, developers and other stakeholders will be able to create their own characters using Dreamia via a visual front-end accessible both in-game and on the web.
Dreamia complements TODAY’s procedural creation tool, which generates buildings and interior designs dynamically based on inputs analyzed and translated by the proprietary LLM. These creations can then be adjusted by players using an in-game module that gives them direct control and ownership of their creations.
To achieve its vision of a more dynamic, responsive and creative cozy social sim, TODAY raised $5 million from Sfermion and Big Brain earlier this year. The team has deep gaming pedigrees, including former leads from Nintendo, SEGA, Epic Games and Unity. TODAY launches in alpha early next year, with the next major play test scheduled for mid-summer.
