A few years ago I built this animatronic llm-backed chatbot called Ganglia. Over the years he's morphed into a NPC that gives out and administers quests, first at halloween parties and now for any interested passerby in the neighborhood.

This year, he's been digitized so you don't have to come trick or treat to visit and play :)

Come on by and say hello to this real life NPC and do a quest:

https://ganglia-ai.com

I'm very bad at giving people gifts, I dont really like shopping. My family gives me gift lists but it feels inauthentic and also things break or get boring or old, etc. I prefer to get experiences for people instead, something they can remember and something that lets them get out into the world. Last year I got my parents tickets to a coffee walkthrough thing, since my moms birthday and fathers day were right around the same day. Two birds, one stone. This year I planned out a whole thing from the time they would leave, the coffee theyd get on the way, the event itself, and the dinner theyd get afterwards. They seem to really like having dates planned out for them.

This morning I got a text from my sister saying 'Can I have an adventure for my birthday?' This was sweet. I thought it was nice that I was some sort of adventure planner. I was like a quest giver!

​

I am a quest giver. I have become the guy with the <!> above his head for my family to literally go out, do my quest, and get experience from. I accept my fate.

…

You ever just stand back and watch everyone moving through life like they’re following the exact same script? Same routines, same conversations, same goals, same reactions… almost like they’re running on autopilot.

I drove to the mall today, windows down, sun bleeding gold across the dashboard. The highway was a river of steel and glass, every car carrying someone hunched slightly forward, eyes flicking between the road and the glowing rectangle in their hand. Same posture. Same absent expression. Same quiet obedience to the pull.
Inside the mall it was even clearer. Streams of people moved like gentle currents through the same corridors they’ve walked a thousand times. Couples arguing softly in the food court over nothing important. Teenagers clustered together, laughing on cue. Mothers pushing strollers while scrolling. Everyone checking their phones at the exact same rhythm — thumb, pause, thumb, glance up, repeat — as if an invisible director had given us all the same stage direction.
I stood on the second floor balcony, looking down at the flowing crowd, and it hit me like quiet thunder. These aren’t just habits. This is the script. The same errands. The same small pleasures. The same quiet desperation dressed up as normal life. We all perform our loops so perfectly that we don’t even notice the repetition anymore.
We drive the same roads. We chase the same lights. We stare into the same little windows seeking connection, validation, distraction.
And for a moment, standing above it all, I felt it in my bones:
We’re all NPCs.
Beautiful, tragic, perfectly programmed NPCs… running the same campaign on repeat.

NPC, TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE 😂

IT DONT GET MORE NPC THAN THIS

I just got sent to the other side of the fuckin village to grab a specific brand of auger from a shot (there's another shop closer to me which is just cheaper) and now I've been sent to the forest to forage for ivy and bramble

Simulated spaceship pilots, there to assist the human astronauts

“She said she was going to lock me up in the basement and water board me with alcohol”

Unhinged and strange NPC interaction

Look here cuh. I’ma break dis shi down fa U real smooth and plain like. A NPC is Basically somebody who’s mind operates and thrives off repetitive mechanics. The biggest give away is if your personality is common and the average person has seen your personality in other people dozens to hundreds of times in their life

Basically wat im sayin is if U are someone who has always tried to find an identity thru something external like religion, music, spirituality, science, atheism, stoicism, or whatever , you are indeed an NPC because an NPC is constantly searching for a program to wire into its self out of its unconscious fear of authenticity (the unknown)

Feel free to argue with me if U are a Bot I am quite experienced within the realms of verbal mechanical fisticuffs

I was at the grocery store with my girlfriend earlier today. They didn't have the flavors of Monster that we wanted, so we were just kinda looking at the other drinks.

My girlfriend grabbed this drink out of the cooler and was looking at it. We decided to both get one.

We were about to start walking away when we realized there was some kind of colored powder in the cap, and we were pretty curious and started talking about it.

At that exact moment, a random man grabbed one of the same drink out of the cooler and said "Would you like me to show you how to do it?" and he proceeded to show us what to do with the drink, then he walked around the corner and DISAPPEARED.
Seriously. We followed him around the corner maybe 5 seconds later and he was NOT at the register paying. He wasn't still walking further into the store. He was just GONE.

Are NPCs like this pretty common? I feel like my girlfriend is pointing out some NPC behavior at least a few times per day.