Averse Studio

Game characters you can talk to in your own words.

We build the system behind them. The game's story engine decides what each moment needs, a language model writes the line for what you just typed, and a cloned voice performs it. The story stays the one the designer wrote.

Read a session Working on a game? Talk to us

Trip greets the player at the door; the subtitle shows his line
Trip's greeting in a test session. The line was written and voiced on the spot, not recorded.

A session, as it happened

Two minutes from a test run of our build of Façade, the 2005 interactive drama about a marriage coming apart over one evening. The player's lines were typed by our test bot. Everything Trip and Grace say was written and voiced live in reply.

Bracketed words are the acting cues the writer gave the voice. The short "uh…" lines are the original actors' recordings, played instantly while the real answer is written.

  1. Playergrace, you seem upset
  2. GraceUhh…
  3. Trip[nervous] No, no, hey, our friend just got here! Let's just… let the machine pick that up, okay? [forced cheer] We're having a night!
  4. Grace[surprised] Oh, no, I'm fine, really— [clear throat] excuse me, I should get the phone.
  5. Trip[confident] Ah, yeah, it really is something, isn't it, Alex? Twenty-three floors up, man [chuckling] I swear I never get tired of looking out over the city.
  6. Grace[disdainful] [clear throat] Right, well… I really need to call maintenance to clean these filthy windows.
  7. Playertrip, why are you so nervous?
  8. Graceuh…
  9. Grace[sarcastic, chuckling] Oh, nervous? [break] Trip isn't nervous, Alex, he's just maintaining his signature high-strung host energy. Aren't you, sweetie?
  10. Playerare you two okay?
  11. Grace[anxious] What? No, of course we're fine, Alex, everything is [clear throat] completely fine. Why wouldn't we be?

What runs underneath

Story
The game's original drama manager and character behaviours choose each beat and what the next line has to do. We don't replace them.
Words
A language model writes the line from that purpose, the evening so far and what the player just typed, with an acting cue that matches the face the story engine gave the character.
Voice
Cloned voices of the original actors, streamed: a line starts playing about 0.75 seconds into voicing.
Timing
While one line plays, we read the story engine's own behaviour tree to see what each character is about to say, and write and voice it ahead.
Measured in a seven-minute test session, 7 October 2026
1.87 smedian from the story asking for a line to the line playing (3.9 s before this work)
41%of next lines named exactly by the behaviour-tree lookahead
0 of 51acting cues spoken aloud by mistake, checked with speech recognition
$0.0006writing cost per line

The same idea in a courtroom

You defend the accused by questioning witnesses in your own words. The crime, the exhibits and what each witness actually knows are fixed in code. What they say, what they admit, how the prosecution answers and the verdict are up to the model, and a second model checks every turn for continuity before it enters the record.

This is the end of a 113-turn test trial. The defense presses the judge to separate a missing alibi from actual proof, and the judge does.

A prototype built in an Ace Attorney-style fan engine. Speakers are shown by role and character names are replaced in brackets. An original case and cast are next.

  1. DefenseYour Honor, can we agree [the witness] cannot identify [my client]? What evidence actually places him there at 9:50? Please rule on the identification and distinguish missing alibi information from positive proof.
  2. JudgeThe court agrees with the defense. The record clearly establishes that [the witness] cannot visually identify the silhouette she saw as the defendant.
  3. JudgeA lack of an alibi does not substitute for affirmative proof. The prosecution's remaining link is the undated railing print alongside the 8:30 PM delivery.
  4. DefenseYields the floor.
  5. ProsecutorIf the defense refuses to speak, the State will summarize plainly: an undated print puts him at the scene, and he offers nothing but silence and excuses.
  6. JudgeThe State has failed to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and I hereby find the accused, [name], not guilty.
Turn numbers from the trial record. Written by Gemini 3.8 Flash; the defense lines were typed by the player.

For indie studios

If your game already has a story system, we can give its characters a live voice. Your beats, your facts and your rules stay in charge; the characters answer whatever the player types.

What we connect to

Your dialogue or quest logic, your characters' knowledge and your game state. We've done it with a 2005 Java behaviour engine, so most systems are fair game.

What you get

Lines written for each moment, voices that act, free-text input turned into your game's own intents, and a replay lab that re-runs recorded sessions so every change is measured on the same story.

Email us about your game

Lab

Other things we're building.

Games R&D

Original 16-bit sprites beside redrawn high-resolution versions

HD remaster from game memory

A modern renderer draws a 1988 brawler from the running game's own memory, with every sprite redrawn in high resolution. Left of each pair: the original.

In development

A grass texture before and after upscaling

Texture remastering

Rebuilds an old online world's textures at four times the resolution, switchable in game with one key.

Paused

Top-down map of surf ramps and zones

Surf

Source-engine surf movement and brush collision, rebuilt in Roblox.

In development

Web dev

Manga creator

AI-made comics with consistent characters.

Web app

AI video series creator

Episodic video with recurring characters.

Web app

Contact

Demos, collaborations, or a game that needs characters people can talk to.