Today has introduced Dreamia, an innovative AI-powered character engine that transforms storytelling in real-time.
Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Today is developing a next-generation cozy social simulation game where players cultivate vibrant island communities. Dreamia marks the company's largest product launch to date.
To realize its vision of a more dynamic, responsive, and creative social simulation game, Today secured $5 million in funding from Sfermion and Big Brain earlier this year. The team boasts extensive gaming expertise, featuring former leaders from Nintendo, SEGA, Epic Games, and Unity.
Dreamia serves as Today’s advanced character engine, employing AI to generate intelligent, interactive NPCs (non-player characters) that are both hyper-realistic and dynamically responsive. As players interact with these characters, their choices shape the narrative, ensuring that every player has a unique experience. This enhances the game’s authenticity, complexity, and overall engagement.
Despite the popularity of AI companions and chatbots, there hasn't been a dedicated engine that combines cinematic storytelling elements—like character arcs, narrative structure, and complex relationships—within a game, noted co-founder Michael O’Connor.
“We’ve developed Dreamia in-house,” O’Connor explained. “We’re literally crafting the next generation of gameplay. Our unique, story-first approach allows us to embed the nuances of real-life dynamics into NPCs, giving them emotional depth and contextual awareness.”
Dreamia not only enhances gameplay but also empowers players by enabling them to influence story outcomes actively. This interactive experience allows players to shape their narrative journey creatively.
Today’s distinguished team of PhD-level data scientists and AI engineers fine-tuned open-source language models (LLMs) to enhance Dreamia's capabilities. By employing a hybrid model that combines local and cloud-based LLMs, the team optimizes performance while reducing server costs and maintaining high-quality text and voice generation.
Core Features of Dreamia
Today has secured a $5 million seed round, and Dreamia’s NPCs feature:
- Deep Personalities: Dreamia powers NPCs with advanced AI to exhibit lifelike behaviors and interactions, enabling profound conversations and real-time adaptation to player actions for a more engaging gaming experience.
- Contextual Awareness: Unlike traditional NPCs, Dreamia NPCs can recognize environmental changes and react appropriately, enhancing realism and immersion in the game.
- Sustained Memory: Every player action contributes to a unique narrative map within Dreamia. NPCs remember past interactions and recent activities, ensuring that experiences feel meaningful and cumulative over time.
- Emotional Intelligence: Dreamia NPCs can detect and respond to players' emotional states, providing compassionate and contextually appropriate reactions.
- Procedural Animation: By using emotion data embedded in dialogues, Dreamia triggers real-time animations to create dynamic and natural interactions through expressive body language and facial expressions.
As the narrative backbone of Today, Dreamia infuses the virtual world with emotional resonance, allowing players to feel immersed in a richly interactive environment. Creative director Ben Cleary emphasizes the importance of storytelling.
“From my childhood designing games and narratives, I've always sought to create immersive worlds,” Cleary shared. “Storytelling transcends simply telling a tale; it’s about creating an emotional connection that resonates deeply and leaves a lasting impact. As games evolve to resemble movies, these narrative fundamentals become vital for achieving successful interactive storytelling.”
Later this year, players and developers will have the opportunity to use Dreamia to create their own characters through a visual interface accessible both in-game and online. This will complement Today’s procedural creation tool that dynamically generates buildings and interiors based on user inputs, with direct player control over adjustments.
Today is set to launch in alpha early next year, with the next major playtest scheduled for mid-summer. Having raised $5 million to date and currently employing 39 people, the team is focused on delivering a uniquely integrated NPC experience.
Dreamia was crafted out of necessity, as Today aimed to provide a nuanced gaming experience better than third-party solutions. O’Connor explained that the in-house development allows for streamlined updates and increased responsiveness, enhancing gameplay while improving player experience.
With Dreamia's contextual awareness, NPCs respond dynamically to player actions and environmental factors, making interactions more meaningful. This innovation leads to a stronger connection between players and NPC residents, setting Dreamia apart in the gaming landscape.
Dreamia powers the future of player-NPC relationships, promising immersive narrative experiences. Unlike existing solutions that can feel rigid and superficial, Dreamia equips NPCs with emotional reasoning, social responsiveness, long-term memory, and spatial awareness, dynamically adapting to the game landscape to ensure a vibrant and interactive world.
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