# Hysteria in Howlsbend is an Interactive Narrative Experience driven by conversational AI Characters. Our game is set in a colonial-era New England town driven to hysteria when a beloved member of the community is afflicted by a witch. You lead the witch hunt by having typed one-on-one conversations with a cast of characters powered by GPT-3. Can you uncover the mystery and help decide the town’s fate? # How is ChatGPT used in the game? GPT technology is used in the development of Hysteria in Howlsbend to power conversations between players and the cast of characters. The technology generates responses based on the input provided by the player, and a tailored AI context carefully crafted by the team. This enables the characters to generate natural dialogues, and evolve over the game experience by having emotional curves. # Why is OpenAI API Key Required to Play the Game? Hysteria in Howlsbend was created as a student research project at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, with the intention of experimenting with AI technologies in video games. The technology we are using to drive our conversational AI characters is developed by OpenAI and charges are applied based on usage. Since the game is **not created for profit**, and **does not contain any In App Purchases**, we simply cannot afford the charges given the unpredictable volume from the Epic Games Store. But we do want to share our work with a wider audience. Therefore, we decided to release the game for free and simply ask our players to use their own API Key for billing. **This game could not be played without a valid OpenAI API Key**. If you have further questions or concerns, please reach out to [our team](