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AI Dungeon maker Latitude unveils Voyage, a platform for creating AI-powered RPGs

AI Dungeon maker Latitude unveils Voyage, a platform for creating AI-powered RPGs

If you’ve ever played a role-playing game (RPG), you know how fun it is to create your character in any way you choose and embark on epic adventures. Now, picture an AI-powered, text-based RPG where every interaction with a non-player character (NPC) is completely unscripted. Latitude, the startup known for its open-ended text adventure games featuring “infinite storylines” generated by AI, recently unveiled its new platform that allows users to step into the role of game designers. This AI-driven RPG platform, calledVoyage, enables players to design their own gaming worlds with the help of AI. Players can describe their settings, including details such as regions, cities, landmarks, main quests, and villains. They can also establish game mechanics like abilities, leveling systems, and combat challenges. For example, if you want to create a fishing village haunted by a sea monster, the AI will generate the necessary code to bring that idea to life. You can customize your world further before sharing it with others to play. For players, Voyage’s platform offers a range of experiences across different genres, from cozy adventures to more hardcore quests. Since it’s text-based, players read along with the story (with audio narration available) and type how they want their character to act. Unlike traditional RPGs, if a character is facing a goblin attack, instead of the typical options to run, fight, or hide, players can choose unique scenarios like becoming a goblin therapist, helping the creatures with their issues instead of resorting to violence. When players enter their desired actions, the AI narrates the outcome, including how the NPCs respond. Because there’s no fixed script, interactions can veer in unexpected directions, often leading to surprising and sometimes weird conversations. For instance, during our testing, a troll who had tied up our character started to unload about his marriage troubles. Character progression, meanwhile, depends on the character’s skills and a little luck, much like rolling dice in tabletop games. Each character can also unlock special abilities as they defeat bosses or finish quests, such as using “Counterspell” to stop an enemy from using magic. (Several abilities in Voyage draw inspiration from classic Dungeons & Dragons spells, which is fun!) And, if players ever find themselves stuck, there’s a chatbot available to suggest actions or even skip to different parts of the story. At the core of Voyage is Latitude’s World Engine, a system that took the company five years to develop. This engine leverages multiple AI systems that can narrate actions, manage gameplay, track characters and objects, and remember backstories and relationships, ensuring continuity throughout the game. So, instead of generic NPCs with repetitive lines, players encounter characters who remember previous interactions. For instance, if you betray a character’s trust, they may choose to avoid you or become a rival in future encounters. “Characters aren’t just reactions to you, but have their own personality backstory, that react to you in ways that feel like real, and that’s really part of the magic of the engine,” Latitude CEO and co-founder Nick Walton told TechCrunch. Latitude first made waves in AI-native gaming with the launch ofAI Dungeonin 2019, which attracted millions of players. “It exploded on the internet as one of the first times people interacted with generative AI,” Walton said. “It sort of established that initial promise of what would happen if we could have games and worlds that aren’t all predefined in advance, that aren’t all scripted… Voyage takes that core concept and blows it up 10x farther from a single AI model to a full-blown world that you have deterministic systems, challenges, progression, and persistence, and solves all the problems that I think AI Dungeon alone couldn’t fully get to.” Voyage is currently in expanded beta testing, with an open beta scheduled for later this year. The platform has seen early testers interact with over 160,000 unique AI-generated characters, each with distinct personalities. The average player has made nearly 3,000 gameplay choices. Alongside the launch announcement, Latitude announced a partnership with Google’s AI Futures Fund. The platform combines its proprietary models with third-party models like Google’s Gemini Flash for image generation and Gemma for text, audio, and video. Additionally, former Roblox Chief Business Officer Craig Donato has joined as an investor and board member. Other notable investors include Album VC, Griffin Gaming Partners, Midjourney, and NFX. Voyage is free to play but will soon offer subscription plans priced at $15, $30, and $50. These plans will provide advanced AI features and remove limitations on the number of actions players can take. It’s also important to note that, while the platform is suitable for all ages, some experiences include mature content, which Walton says is similar to what you might find on Steam. He adds that Voyage implements safety measures and parental controls to help users filter out inappropriate material.

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Snowflake Expands AI Tools to Drive Enterprise Automation

Snowflake Expands AI Tools to Drive Enterprise Automation

The company added new capabilities to Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code to help businesses deploy AI agents at scale.

17 days ago

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Can Carbon Nanotubes Be Manufactured in India? A Bengaluru Startup Thinks So

Can Carbon Nanotubes Be Manufactured in India? A Bengaluru Startup Thinks So

NoPo Nanotechnologies is betting on carbon nanotubes, but commercial scale and demand remain a work in progress.

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AI Remains Key to HCLTech in FY26, But Weak Software Services Drags Profit

AI Remains Key to HCLTech in FY26, But Weak Software Services Drags Profit

HCLTech boasted AI integration and a $9.3 billion deal pipeline, but weak discretionary spend and delays drag near-term growth outlook.

17 days ago

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Deezer Claims 75,000 AI-Generated Songs Are Being Uploaded to the Platform Daily

Deezer Claims 75,000 AI-Generated Songs Are Being Uploaded to the Platform Daily

Deezer, a Paris-based music streaming platform, has claimed that 44 percent of the daily uploaded tracks are generated using artificial intelligence (AI). The French independent streaming company has also found that the number of AI-generated songs uploaded to the platform per day have increased from 10,000 to 75,000 in just a little over a year. Deezer has also found a sharp increase in fraudulent streams of these fully AI-created tracks, likely done to drive illegitimate monetisation on these songs.

18 days ago

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AWS, SHI India Partner to Boost AI Infrastructure Under IndiaAI Mission

AWS, SHI India Partner to Boost AI Infrastructure Under IndiaAI Mission

The partnership will make AWS’s AI and cloud infrastructure services available to government departments, startups, enterprises, academic institutions, and research organisations.

18 days ago

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Alkami Turns to Delhi-NCR for AI-Led Banking Reinvention

Alkami Turns to Delhi-NCR for AI-Led Banking Reinvention

The region is now home to nearly 280 GCCs.

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Blackstone-Backed AirTrunk Enters India with Lumina CloudInfra Acquisition

Blackstone-Backed AirTrunk Enters India with Lumina CloudInfra Acquisition

The hyperscale data centre giant makes its long-awaited move into one of the world’s fastest-growing digital markets

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Xebia Partners with NVIDIA, Anthropic to Scale Enterprise AI

Xebia Partners with NVIDIA, Anthropic to Scale Enterprise AI

Xebia has launched an enterprise GenAI ecosystem and infrastructure stack to move firms from pilots to production AI systems.

18 days ago

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1,000 Dialects, One Stack: Inside the Multimodal Race for Indic Voice AI

1,000 Dialects, One Stack: Inside the Multimodal Race for Indic Voice AI

With thousands of dialects and pervasive code-switching, building voice agents that truly understand how Indians speak remains the sector's hardest unsolved problem.

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Persistent Extends Growth Streak to 24 Quarters, FY26 Revenue at $1.6 Billion

Persistent Extends Growth Streak to 24 Quarters, FY26 Revenue at $1.6 Billion

The company posted $436 million in Q4 revenue, rising 3.2% sequentially and 16.2% year-on-year.

18 days ago

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IndieSemiC, Nordic Partner to Launch Wireless Chip Modules Globally

IndieSemiC, Nordic Partner to Launch Wireless Chip Modules Globally

The collaboration focuses on IoT and connected devices, with certified modules built using Nordic’s low-power chip technology.

18 days ago

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