AI Dungeon-Maker Latitude Raises $3.3M for Infinite Story Games

Latitude Secures $3.3 Million Seed Funding for AI-Driven Game Development

Latitude, a company focused on creating games featuring “infinite storylines” powered by artificial intelligence, has announced the successful completion of a $3.3 million seed funding round.

AI-Generated Narratives: Beyond Simple Experiments

The concept of stories crafted by AI often evokes memories of experimental projects like “Sunspring.” However, Latitude’s debut game, AI Dungeon, demonstrates a remarkably expansive and logically consistent text-based adventure experience.

Players are presented with a diverse selection of genres and characters to choose from. Unlike traditional text adventures, such as Zork, where limitations in player actions are frequently indicated, AI Dungeon is capable of responding to virtually any player command.

For instance, when a player’s knight character was preparing for combat, a command to “get depressed” resulted in the character sitting down on a rock, visibly disheartened.

The Foundation of Compelling AI Storytelling

“The key to the AI’s ability to construct a compelling narrative lies in its extensive exposure to well-written stories and its subsequent understanding of the underlying patterns,” explained Nick Walton, co-founder and CEO.

AI Dungeon initially began as a project undertaken by Walton during a hackathon. Despite not receiving any accolades in the competition, he continued its development, benefiting from advancements in OpenAI’s language generation models, most notably GPT-3.

Early iterations of the game exhibited coherence at the sentence level, but lacked consistency across paragraphs. Improvements with GPT-2 significantly enhanced paragraph-level coherence, and GPT-3 further refined the storytelling capabilities.

Growing User Base and Future Plans

Latitude reports that AI Dungeon currently boasts 1.5 million monthly active users. The company intends to expand its portfolio with additional AI-powered games.

Furthermore, Latitude plans to launch a platform that will empower other game developers to leverage AI in their own creations.

Breaking the Constraints of Traditional Game Design

Walton emphasized that conventional video games are inherently limited by the creative scope of their developers. Even games featuring procedural generation, like The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall or No Man’s Sky, ultimately present variations on established themes.

He pointed out that towns in Daggerfall, despite being procedurally generated, tend to share similar characteristics. This highlights a core limitation of procedural generation – a lack of genuine uniqueness.

In contrast, AI has the potential to generate “something completely unique” with each playthrough, offering a truly novel experience.

Potential for Cost Reduction and Enhanced Immersion

From a financial standpoint, Walton suggests that AI could dramatically reduce the development costs of AAA games, potentially lowering them from over $100 million to under $100,000.

However, he acknowledged that Latitude is still some distance from achieving this level of efficiency, as they have yet to release a game incorporating graphical elements.

Walton also believes this technology could unlock unprecedented levels of immersion and interactivity.

“Imagine worlds populated by tens of thousands of characters, each with their own motivations and aspirations,” he stated. “This would create dynamic, living worlds, unlike massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, where players often engage in identical quests.”

Investment Details and Industry Recognition

The seed funding round was spearheaded by NFX, with additional participation from Album VC and Griffin Gaming Partners.

James Currier of NFX commented, “Latitude is fundamentally changing the game development process, establishing a new entertainment gaming category driven by AI.”

He further added, “The company is attracting top AI talent and engineers to create games unlike anything the world has seen before. Latitude is already the clear leader in the AI gaming space.”