Square Enix's free 'AI tech preview' has a Steam user rating of Very Negative and deserves it
Square Enix's AI Division released an updated version of adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case as «an educational demonstration of Natural Language Processing (NLP), an AI technology,» according to its announcement(opens in new tab). The original 1983 game was a significant influence on visual novels and graphical adventures in Japan, as well as inspiring a generation of game designers. The 2023 version, which is available for free on Steam(opens in new tab), doesn't seem likely to have the same effect. In fact, it currently has a user rating that's 92% negative.
The NEC PC-6001 version would respond to typed input in text adventure style, with the usual limitations. As Square Enix put it when announcing the release, those old parser input controls «did come with one common source of frustration: players knowing what action they wanted to perform but being unable to do so because they could not find the right wording. This problem was caused by the limitations of PC performance and NLP technology of the time.»
The AI tech preview version of Portopia promises to solve that with the latest in Natural Language Understanding (NLU), which turns whatever you type into commands for your assistant, Yasu, who is assigned to help you investigate the murder of Kozo Yamakawa. In practice, it doesn't work great. Get used to seeing Yasu reply «I'm not sure what to say about that», «Maybe we should focus on the task at hand?» and «Hmm…»
While trying to investigate a bar connected to Kozo's death, I got no response to «question bartender», «talk to bartender», «ask about murder», or «ask bartender about murder». It turned out I needed to type «ask about Kozo» to get a response, which sure felt like being unable to do something
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