Will Wright, creator of The Sims and co-founder of its developer Maxis, has shared fresh details of his forthcoming AI life sim, Proxi.
The game was first announced back in 2018 and a gameplay trailer was shared a month ago by its developer Gallium Studio to explain its concept. Then yesterday, Wright appeared on Twitch to discuss development of the game (as spotted by PC Gamer).
Proxi is a dreamlike life sim where players seemingly train an AI to create worlds from their memories. Players record a memory through text, known as a “mem”, which the game interprets and forms into an animated scene using assets created by the developers (and eventually players too).
These scenes can then be edited by players to tweak the details. Then players “train your Proxi’s mind with each new memory” by placing them on a memory timeline and mindmap to create connections.
Players also place these memories into a private mind-world made of terraformable hexagons, while sentiment analysis will alter the world according to the emotions of memories placed within. Shared worlds will also be possible, constructed with others.
The trailer shows players can add Proxies of friends and family to their world, play games together, and export them to other worlds – Minecraft and Roblox are used as examples.
On the BreakthroughT1D Twitch stream, Wright explained why he wanted to use the real memories of players for a personal experience.
“I found myself getting continuously closer and closer to the player,” he said. “Kind of a saying I’ve lived by, which is that no game designer has ever gone wrong by overestimating the narcissism of their players.”
He laughed: “It goes to figure that the more I can make a game about you, the more you’ll like it.”
BreakthroughT1D is a global organisation funding research into type one diabetes, with a Twitch channel of talk shows and podcasts. The stream was hosted by Simmers Arielehm and Emily Morganti.
The studio website states Proxi is coming soon and doesn’t list platforms.
Wright appears keen for Proxi to explore the varying perceptions and philosophy of memory. It certainly seems like a powerful tool and a clever concept, though six years after its initial reveal the perception of AI has drastically changed. I suspect Gallium Studio has an uphill battle explaining Proxi in full.
AI is changing the future of game development as it becomes more widespread across the industry. Recently Google unveiled its Genie2 tool it claims can create playable 3D worlds.
fbq('init', '560747571485047');
fbq('track', 'PageView'); window.facebookPixelsDone = true;
window.dispatchEvent(new Event('BrockmanFacebookPixelsEnabled')); }
window.addEventListener('BrockmanTargetingCookiesAllowed', appendFacebookPixels);