Bulidbox has unveiled its new tool, StoryGames.AI, which uses generative AI to help amateurs create visual novel-style games.

Buildbox already allows people to create their own games, and StoryGames.AI enhances what amateur developers can do when creating narrative, choice driven games. In an interview with Gamesbeat, Buildbox CEO Jonathan Zweig discussed the technology in length.

“The community has been asking to create these kinds of visual novel games, kind of like Episode and Choices,” said Zweig. “Buildbox has kind of been known for making hypercasual games for a long time. So it was definitely a new kind of undertaking. Then with all the AI stuff happening, it just made sense to put all those technologies together. So you can now just type any storyline that you want and it will create the first 10 chapters for you.”

With StoryGames.AI, Buildbox aims to lower the entry barriers for game developers, allowing even newcomers to the industry to create games within a matter of minutes.

A novel approach

The technology asks a series of questions about the main character and the game’s general narrative and from this creates an illustrated visual novel with interactive choices. Users can create their games on Buildbox’s various platforms - Buildbox Classic, Buildbox World, or directly on the web with Buildbox.ai, - and publish on a variety of storefronts including Google Play, Steam, and the App Store.

Development cost is estimated as being around $0.25 per game using the software, and players can make two free games before they need to get a paid subscription to the service.

“Just like the App Store has to play a role as a gatekeeper, we at Buildbox have to approve all content. We have to be careful,” said Zweig, thus the system is moderated, with certain topics off-limits, to prevent the creation of undesirable games, while each game is played and approved by staff prior to publication.

Earlier this week, Room 8 Group announced a new partnership with Zibra AI.