AI Town is an open-source project from the venture firm a16z: a 2D virtual town where AI characters move around, talk to each other and remember conversations. The idea is inspired by research on "generative agents," and the goal is a starting point for building your own town, not a finished product. It is more a lab for developers than a ready-made game.

What is AI Town good for?#

  • Learning to build AI agents: a programmer sees how several characters work together with memory and dialogue.
  • Building a game or simulation: a starting point for a small world of smart characters, for example in an indie game.
  • Research and experiments: a student studies agents' social behavior in a simple environment.
  • Changing characters: by writing a description for each character, you create a different virtual society.
  • Teaching demos: a tangible example for explaining agents and memory.

Strengths and weaknesses#

Strengths:

  • Open source and modifiable.
  • Characters have memory, so conversations are more coherent.
  • A good starting point for a personal project.
  • An active developer community and derived versions.

Weaknesses:

  • Not ready for regular users and requires technical setup.
  • Running it depends on external services and language models.
  • Costs and limits of those services are up to you.
  • Docs and interface are in English.

Free version and pricing#

The code is free and open source. To run it you usually need a language model (cloud or local) and some supporting services, each with its own terms and costs. See the official repository for details.

Language support#

Quality in other languages depends on the language model you connect; with a model that handles your language well you can build characters and dialogue in it. The software itself is open source and can be downloaded and run, but the cloud services or models it connects to may need a VPN from some countries, including Iran.

Getting started in three steps#

  1. Get the project repository from the official page.
  2. Set up the prerequisites and access keys following the project guide.
  3. Run it and change the character descriptions as you like.

AI Town alternatives#

  • RPGGO: build and play adventures with AI characters, no coding.
  • Character.AI: simple chats with ready characters, no technical setup.
  • AI Dungeon: interactive text stories for entertainment.