I built a text RPG where an AI is the Game Master: here's what I learned

We recently released Dora Dungeons, an iOS text-and-audio RPG where an AI acts as the Game Master. You tell it what you want to do, and the AI decides what happens next: the enemies, the loot, the consequences.

We'd like to share the idea, the problems that came up, and get your feedback.

The idea

Most text adventures are branching trees. Someone writes every path in advance, and anything outside them gets "I don't understand that command."

We wanted the opposite: no hardcoded paths. You can explore a corridor, barter in the shop or attack a shadow knight with a fire axe, and the game responds to what you actually said. Every run is different, with procedurally generated environments and enemies, all leading to a final fight against Zarvok, the Soul Devourer.

The narration is read aloud with text-to-speech, so it feels closer to a tabletop session than a wall of text.

The hard parts

Building with an AI as the game engine raised questions we hadn't expected:

• Keeping the AI consistent with game state. If you have 12 gold, the AI shouldn't let you buy something that costs 50. Rules like gold, gear and level need to stay in the game's control, with the AI handling the story.
• Difficulty and pacing. Left alone, an AI tends to be too generous or too random. Enemies and loot need to scale with player level.
• Latency. Real-time generation means waiting for a response, so the game has to feel good during that wait.
• Voice narration. Text written to be read is different from text written to be heard, so pacing and sentence length matter.
• Updates that touch the game loop. Letting players equip a weapon mid-game meant the inventory and the AI's story had to agree on what the player is holding. Cloud save raised the question of what to persist: the hard game state, and enough of the story for the AI to pick up where you left off.

How it works

• AI Game Master: every adventure is generated live, so an internet connection is required.
• Game systems: gold, shops, gear upgrades and unlockable abilities sit alongside the AI-generated story.
• Narration: the prologue, exploration and combat are all voiced with text-to-speech.
• Persistence: cloud save was added in version 1.0.2.
• Platform: iPhone and iPad, requiring iOS 18 or later.

Things to know

• It's free to start, with optional subscriptions and a one-time lifetime purchase.
• It needs an internet connection, since adventures are generated live.
• iOS only and Andriod.

If you'd like to try it: Dora Dungeons on the App Store

We'd like your input

1. If you've built something with an LLM in the loop, how do you stop it contradicting game or app state?
2. Would you prefer more structure (fixed quests) or more freedom in an AI-run RPG?
3. What would make you trust an AI-driven game enough to pay for it?

Thanks for reading. Honest feedback is very welcome.