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Show HN: Talk to Me Human – my game about social persuasion (talktomehuman.com)

138 points by mbforbes ↗ HN
Hey all,

I recently graduated from a good PhD program studying NLP. Unlike any sane person who would go become a professor or make a gazillion dollars in industry, I decided to try bootstrapping my own software business. This is my first product.

The inspiration was from my research on computers understanding social norms. When ChatGPT came out, I was amazed how well it could understand social etiquette. I thought it'd be fun to make a game where you have to talk your way out of sticky situations - like you miss your friend's birthday party, or your boss catches you trying to leave work at 2pm.

I made a prototype in a couple days, and it was super fun to play with. I thought I'd spend a "couple months" making a game for others to play online. Now, only 10 months and 923.3 hours of work later, it's playable in early access.

In the game, you talk out loud (ASR), and the NPCs (LLM + TTS) talk back at you. It is fun to play with a friend! And because it's just talking, non-gamers do great, often better than gamers.

I really want to have a free demo, but no time yet to implement. For now, it's purchase only ($4.99). If anyone decides to try it, I'd really love to get more feedback. It was an enormous learning experience, especially targeting the web - so many partially supported web APIs and browser inconsistencies! Still feels like 2008 in some ways.

Also happy to answer questions of course. Thanks, and enjoy the weekend!

54 comments

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gregsadetsky
I early tested this and it’s quite original and great! The technical aspects (how smooth the experience is) are fantastic, but it’s really the bit bonkers interactions and funny ways of “winning” that stand out.

Recommended for the novelty and very well produced content

mbforbes
Thank you Greg, your feedback has been immensely helpful!
duck
Looks interesting, but I would say a limited free demo is going to be key for any chance of adoption here.
mysteria
Or at the very least release a short gameplay video so people know what they're getting into before paying.
mbforbes
Thank you, great feedback. I need to do this soon!
omoikane
> talk your way out of sticky situations

This reminds me of "Death by AI"[1], although that one uses text-based input instead of speech.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38318889

mbforbes
I love that this and AI Dungeon (perhaps the OG) exist. I think my key insight in the formula for this game is that the gameplay really sings when you introduce more constraints - it feels more challenging and less cheeseable, which makes it more rewarding.
ryebread777
This is brilliant! I think a game with LLM NPCs would be crazy cool. Agree with the other commenter I would probably need a playable demo to pull the trigger though.

Also, I didn’t realize from the website that it actually uses voice? That should probably be highlighted, unless I just missed it.

One other thought, your title says it’s a game about social persuasion. In the examples on the site it seemed like many of the challenges just involved coming up with lies. If there are no consequences to just making up lies it seems to kind of flatten the strategy. Though I’m just speculating. Thanks for sharing!

mbforbes
Super great observation about the objectives! It started out with lies (er, let’s say “excuses”) but it’s broadened into more conversational goals. I need to highlight this more.

Specifically, re: flattening the strategy, spot on and I’m excited to introduce more long term repercussions for lying. There are some long-range dialog repercussions now, but not many. Having to craft a consistent narrative across the whole game (“Overboard” comes to mind if you’ve played that) would be wildly interesting.

Loud and clear re: demo and highlighting voice!

all2
This would be a fascinating evolution of the old point and click detective games. A mystery solving game driven by dialogue? And maybe a narrator (a different voice)? And you might be able to play it with friends? a playable Scooby-Doo episode?!
ryebread777
My wife and I tried the game out over the weekend. Overall the game does a lot really well. I'd say it's a well-done game, in the same vein as one of those games where you select dialogue choice options. My wife quite enjoyed it (gave it 8/10) but I expected something a bit different (5/10). In particular, I was hoping there would be a lot more freedom to guide the game, or at least guide conversations, through language. In reality, most of the dialogue was about accomplishing a pretty specific and simple objective. Ie. compliment this person, agree with their viewpoint, etc. The game was just about figuring out the objective of each challenge and then completing it. There was no balance (ie compliment him but also seem genuine. Don't offend him, but also don't be a pushover) or opportunity for creativity (ie. you can lie your way out, or appeal to their pity, or distract them, any of these could work). If someone likes games where you select dialogue choices this might be a good game for them. But I was hoping for something that felt more natural and self-driven. At the very least, I think making the conversations longer and more open ended would be nice, even if the outcome doesn't affect the story. One of my favorite challenges was booking the dinner reservation, just because I ended up having a short conversation with the man about the pasta bolognese that didn't feel like it was part of any script.

Everything else (graphics, voices, dialogue, interface, story, transcription) worked great and I don't think need to be improved. But the main mechanics of the game feels like a thin layer of LLM on top of a rigid skeleton of scripted scenarios with fixed outcomes. I'd love to see the language model on a longer leash.

Thanks for sharing and huge kudos for creating a playable game that was legitimately enjoyable! I look forward to the next parts of the story.

nanidin
It's fun but I don't feel like I'm in a real situation. I would love to see something like this in VR aimed at gamifying social skills.
robocat
@mbforbes: perhaps be more careful with your acronyms. NLP to me could be Non-Linear-Programming (operations research) or Neuro-linguistic Programming (psychology) instead of Natural Language Processing (from later context).

Writing speech recognition instead of ASR would be clearer to anyone without a similar background.

Your audience is HN so my guess is that you assume we all know the industry/academic terms here. I’m unsure how correct that assumption is - I’m just suggesting take care when using your acronyms in other places.

mbforbes
Hey I appreciate you pointing this out, thanks for taking the time and writing this feedback!
renewiltord
This is a cool idea. I'll buy it and play it this weekend if I remember.
ianbicking
I thought I'd give it a try, but it's already on waitlist!
mbforbes
I'm sorry about that. I was probably overly cautious about my API quotas and server melting. Expect an invite by tomorrow!
ianbicking
Now I'm trying to check out with Paypal, but while the form opens up the Paypal button is grayed out and doesn't work, with no clear error or feedback.
jncfhnb
You think a sane person tries to become a professor???
mbforbes
This is an extremely fair point.
romesc
I had a lot of fun playing this! It's definitely the quirkiness that sets it apart from the typical "GenAI" content. Highly recommend other hackernews readers check it out.
mbforbes
So lovely to hear, thank you for the kind words!
DilettanteQuant
Related, but slightly off topic. Does anyone know any good books on persuasion and charm? Maybe something with some empirical verification.
abnercoimbre
Influence Is Your Superpower by Zoe Chance. She's an award-winning Yale professor and the chapters are pleasant to read and insightful (and may be read fairly independently from one another.)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
blowski
Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury.
brandall10
How to Win Friends and Influence People remains popular nearly a century after original publication for a reason.
SJC_Hacker
Its nearly a century old at this point. If you generally try to follow the recommendations in the book, people are going to sense you are insincere.
gobias1234
I would pay for something with proven results that is geared towards making me better at work at building soft power / managing stakeholders, etc. I’m a PM that’s great with written word but not great with words talking and it’s the number one skill I need to improve
nabusman
Came here to say this. I could see people with mild social anxiety (mild enough that it doesn't require professional help) using this to improve themselves.
mbforbes
Replying to you and parent - thanks both for these comments, and it's a really great idea. I could see a product today (maybe even this) being helpful for practice. But I think to make genuine claims about assessment and improvement, off-the-shelf AI isn't there yet, because there's such an incredible amount of information in the way something is said. Basically the entire study of prosody. Then, there's all the body language---which, if you believe anecdotes, conveys a high % of the received information. Long term, it's a great goal.
gobias1234
Eye tracking? :) Honestly even if it isn’t proven, there isn’t anything out there that can compete with this level of simulating interaction
retrochameleon
This unironically seems like great practice for my autistic ass. The fact that you have a background in NLP makes me especially interested.
mbforbes
From watching playtests, I think it can induce some real social stress. But I think the controlled environment and ability to take breaks helps mitigate it. It may actually be decent practice. Please let me know how it goes if you try it!

My NLP background left me on a hilariously level playing field with everyone else to basically become a prompt engineer for a while ;)

nanidin
I would love to see a VR "game" where it's possible to level up social skills via LLM backend. There are some prompt engineers on reddit that have come up with great prompts, but there is definitely a niche for making a seamless product for people to practice being in uncomfortable situations.

If anyone is interested in working together, reply. I started working with TTS, ASR, and LLM API's because this piqued my curiosity after attending a few meetups and going in "cold" without much social interaction before the meeting. I imagine a proper app could give people superpowers.

mvkel
Don't worry about a playable demo. Just make a 45 second sizzle reel. That's enough to convert anyone who -would- pay into paying.

A playable demo will max engagement but you won't see more paying conversions from it. Maybe less.

stavros
I run a few small SaaSes, and, back when I was receiving emails on every purchase, I found this to be true, though the context was a bit different.

I don't think I remember a single person, out of hundreds, who didn't subscribe within an hour of trying the software out. I don't think anyone waited for the end of their 30-day trial. I did have a trial, though, not just a video.

Dayshine
> Maybe less

But how does it impact your average user rating?

mbforbes
Super helpful input, thank you for writing. I think you're absolutely right that I should work on a video first, at the very least.
astroalex
This was very enjoyable. A glimpse of the future of gaming IMO, and just plain fun! Some of the situations had me cracking up hard. Well done.
mbforbes
Thank you for the kind words, Alex! Stories like these make me wish I could watch more people playing it
boo-ga-ga
Love the idea, had somewhat similar one and even have a demo, hope I will find time to complete it:). Please share some video demonstration of how it works, it will help to fully grasp the idea.
mbforbes
Thank you! I hope you find time to work on it as well. I'd love to try out your demo and happy to give feedback if you'd like - contact into on my website linked in bio. I also think you're totally right on the video demo needed. On it soon!
evan_joker
It's an interesting idea, a great exercise for people like me who's not good at social networking.
mbforbes
I think you're right, there's actually a genuinely useful angle here (at least for the situations that aren't too absurd). I was surprised how much actual social stress talking to a voiced NPC can induce!
KomoD
Looks pretty cool, how many more levels are there going to be in act iii and iv?
999900000999
Very fun quirky game. I'd love something a bit more mature though. Maybe something where your a divorce lawyer
blini2077
Very interesting idea, good luck!