The Grove

a sandbox game designed for you, with you
use social media data and predictive AI models to generate personalized virtual worlds
examples of how predictive AI models can tailor a virtual neighborhood toward player preference
multiplayer sandbox aspect, where you can invite AI NPCs neighbors or your friends
target market data and usage cases for mental health to create safe spaces or memorabilia to decorate your virtual home
next step features

The Grove is a sandbox game designed for you, by you. This is a game pitch idea, made for the AI Games Hackathon.

It's a 2D multiplayer sandbox game that's the cross of the hit games "The Sims" X "Stardew Valley". It's for people who want to remember how home feels. When people login to the game for the first time, they can login with their social media (eg: login with Google or Facebook). With permission to use people's digital footprint, we can use predictive AI models to create personalized virtual worlds that bring people comfort-- the music that'd move an Alzheimer patient; the memorabilia that decorates a dorm room to remind someone far away of the things that bring them warmth and joy; the colors, architecture, and aesthetic that makes someone happy.

Cover

In this way, predictive AI models and world generation tools can help create places that remind people of what it's like to be surrounded by love. After their first room is made for them by AI, the player then can customize their room (throw out bad memories from your emo phase!) and build out their home and neighborhood. Eventually, they can invite others into their "safe space" to share what's important to them or to just have dialogue in an environment that brings them calm.

Just like the popular games Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, intelligent NPCs with personality, history, and backstory can be generated so that a player can build out relationships with NPCs and build out a neighborhood.

Market

This type of sandbox game where one builds out their dream home is exceptionally popular-- in a variety of UGC platforms like Minecraft and The Sims, people spend hundreds to thousands of hours building virtual homes and neighborhoods. Because the first room is generated by AI based off of user data (given by permission), this lends itself to a beautiful new user experience where one is immediately shown things of value to them in aesthetic and memory.

As a proof of tech feasibility, I used the "Apply Magic Sauce" API from University of Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre to analyze my own digital footprint (eg: Facebook likes, Twitter engagement). Then, I used the traits that this predictive model tagged me to generate a skybox with the Blockade Labs API to create a skybox personalized to my own preferences.

First Step Second Step Final Step

GitHub Link: Code Used to Prove Tech Feasibility: In this Python script, I used the Apply Magic Sauce and Blockade Labs API together to generate a proof of concept of how one's digital footprint can be used to create personalized virtual worlds of comfort. Please note that you must use your own API keys for this to work on your own computer, but you otherwise see the screenshots above to see how the tech feasibility was proven.