I'm not sure how to review this game. Part of me wants to review it based on its peak, where it truly was anything goes, but the other part of me wants to review it now, with the numerous controversies that it's fallen into. So I'll just do both.
Peak AI Dungeon was something else. From my knowledge it was the first game of its kind, and boy was it a first impression to the potential of this genre. It felt like you could truly do anything, which opened the door to lots of creative ways to advance whatever "plot" you were going through. Or you could just not do the plot and steer the AI in a completely different direction. You didn't even have to go on a grand adventure - I liked using it to generate fun fake Smash Bros. movesets, for example. Additionally, AI Dungeon was probably one of my favorite games to just watch other people play. It birthed such classics as Champ the slimegirl and Playstation 2: The Board Game, and those streams are still some of my favorites to go back to. Of course, it wasn't perfect (as to be expected of an AI of its time). There were times where the game would force you into sticking to one scenario when you wanted to go off the beaten path and vice versa, and sometimes the AI would spontaneously go into NSFW territory, although the eventual content filter did patch that up. Overall though, it was a genuinely fun time just doing whatever and seeing where the AI took you. It truly felt infinite.
Unfortunately, time has a tendency to pass, and its passage did not do good things to this game. Firstly, the controversies. Checking people's private stories is an obvious invasion of privacy, and while the reasoning was understandable, the execution really was not. Besides the filter not working properly (which is a surprise since it's for an AI-generated game, I'd expect them to have a decent AI for this stuff at least), doing this out of the blue and with stories that weren't problematic was an issue, and I hope they learned their lesson from that. Secondly, the AI just feels worse than it's peak. Unless I'm mistaken, I think they lost the rights to the good AI that they used and, rather than buying them back, replaced them with inferior AIs using the same name which, once again, is a big no-no. Lastly, there's the ads. This part I'm not as familiar with since I stopped playing altogether before the ads dropped. From what I've heard though, they were also implemented poorly, and while it makes sense for a free game to run ads for financial support, they're a new addition and pretty much nothing was added to warrant the addition of them.
But what I think is the most damning thing about AI Dungeon, peak or not, is that it now has proper competition. I've used NovelAI for about a month now, and while it is a subscription service, it matches AI Dungeon's peak easily, has more customizability options and the goofy little extra that is Euterpe, and is far less prone to falling off in the future just because it's more premium. There's also openAI's playground, which is also free (albeit for a limited amount of generations), and while it's far more suited to shorter stories and just messing around, the AI is scarily good at what it does. The fact that I fear that one day human writers will eventually be replaced by GPT is a good thing in this case.
In conclusion, games are supposed to be fun, and this rating reflects the amount of fun I had overall. Before it all went downhill, AI Dungeon was just a wonderful time. I spent way more hours than I'd like to admit just seeing where the AI would take me, and it truly was an experience like no other with a few hiccups here and there. That being said, modern AI Dungeon gets one star for all of the issues mentioned above and being inferior to its counterparts in almost every regard. If you want a peak AI Dungeon experience, try out NovelAI. It's worth the subscription price for a truly good product.
Peak AI Dungeon was something else. From my knowledge it was the first game of its kind, and boy was it a first impression to the potential of this genre. It felt like you could truly do anything, which opened the door to lots of creative ways to advance whatever "plot" you were going through. Or you could just not do the plot and steer the AI in a completely different direction. You didn't even have to go on a grand adventure - I liked using it to generate fun fake Smash Bros. movesets, for example. Additionally, AI Dungeon was probably one of my favorite games to just watch other people play. It birthed such classics as Champ the slimegirl and Playstation 2: The Board Game, and those streams are still some of my favorites to go back to. Of course, it wasn't perfect (as to be expected of an AI of its time). There were times where the game would force you into sticking to one scenario when you wanted to go off the beaten path and vice versa, and sometimes the AI would spontaneously go into NSFW territory, although the eventual content filter did patch that up. Overall though, it was a genuinely fun time just doing whatever and seeing where the AI took you. It truly felt infinite.
Unfortunately, time has a tendency to pass, and its passage did not do good things to this game. Firstly, the controversies. Checking people's private stories is an obvious invasion of privacy, and while the reasoning was understandable, the execution really was not. Besides the filter not working properly (which is a surprise since it's for an AI-generated game, I'd expect them to have a decent AI for this stuff at least), doing this out of the blue and with stories that weren't problematic was an issue, and I hope they learned their lesson from that. Secondly, the AI just feels worse than it's peak. Unless I'm mistaken, I think they lost the rights to the good AI that they used and, rather than buying them back, replaced them with inferior AIs using the same name which, once again, is a big no-no. Lastly, there's the ads. This part I'm not as familiar with since I stopped playing altogether before the ads dropped. From what I've heard though, they were also implemented poorly, and while it makes sense for a free game to run ads for financial support, they're a new addition and pretty much nothing was added to warrant the addition of them.
But what I think is the most damning thing about AI Dungeon, peak or not, is that it now has proper competition. I've used NovelAI for about a month now, and while it is a subscription service, it matches AI Dungeon's peak easily, has more customizability options and the goofy little extra that is Euterpe, and is far less prone to falling off in the future just because it's more premium. There's also openAI's playground, which is also free (albeit for a limited amount of generations), and while it's far more suited to shorter stories and just messing around, the AI is scarily good at what it does. The fact that I fear that one day human writers will eventually be replaced by GPT is a good thing in this case.
In conclusion, games are supposed to be fun, and this rating reflects the amount of fun I had overall. Before it all went downhill, AI Dungeon was just a wonderful time. I spent way more hours than I'd like to admit just seeing where the AI would take me, and it truly was an experience like no other with a few hiccups here and there. That being said, modern AI Dungeon gets one star for all of the issues mentioned above and being inferior to its counterparts in almost every regard. If you want a peak AI Dungeon experience, try out NovelAI. It's worth the subscription price for a truly good product.