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[Muz]

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v94YcXZInw0



How it started

So there was this AI competition worth a few hundred thousand dollars. We saw a story on TikTok about how someone's boyfriend was turning chores into quests to motivate her. So we figured, hey, this is something AI can do easily. We needed a theme. DF had a pretty neutral one that fit chores and such. And so Task Dwarf was forged.

https://ai.google.dev/competition/projects/task-dwarf

But I really liked making this. I love the productivity, pomodoro, checklist stuff. And I like being able to make RPGs and narrating quests that don't feel like you're wasting time. So I'm thinking of working on this full time.

But where's the download?

It's hidden because I'm paying for the AI from my pocket. It costs a few cents, but I don't want it to go viral yet, because those few cents will easily become a few thousand dollars with scale. So drop me a DM. Or find the link. Also being fully reliant on AI meant that it got repetitive after a few weeks.

Which brings me to the next point...

Task Dwarf 2: Offline mode

I'd like this to be sustainable. Meaning I do want it to be free, but I can't subsidize the AI costs, and whatever people pay for should actually be non-core gameplay. So I'm thinking of having a completely free offline mode. This won't 'turn your chores into quests' customization, but you get the basics of "tick box, get 1 iron". Some ideas for this:

Monster slaying.

You fight monsters. The harder the monster, the bigger the treasure. Monsters are gauged by how many hours the tasks take.

A block of work that takes 6 hours is probably pretty damn tough and may be the monster fight. But there might be other prep quests (get the mirror, get blessed etc) that take a half hour or so. And since there's a mentor mode powered by AI, it also helps to break down difficult tasks into smaller ones.

Since it's an app, it can also track time, so we see how long you spend on a task vs how long it should take. So you'd be fighting your own RL battles. And since it's an app, it can actually give you motivational speech by NPCs when you haven't made progress. Or give "failure messages" (oh no, children were eaten because you did not do your taxes). In colorful push notification format.

Base Building: My daughter loves this idea so I might do this first. Do quests. Get resources. Build a barracks, crafting room, temple, farm, bedroom, dining room, etc, etc. Some rooms unlock more quests, more stuff, more resources. Get more population, unlock more things. It might link cooking to farming, cleaning to gathering water, etc even offline. I'd also like this to be more visible, sort of like Fallout Shelter where you can place & upgrade underground buildings and such. And personally, I'd like a kind of DF lite game.

Grind mode: Some people just want a habit app. So this keeps it simple. Brush your teeth = gather 1 water. Go for a run = 1 iron.

Let me know what you actually would like to see.