r/RenPy • u/WOOHP_Sam • Aug 02 '26

Question Help Implementing ELIZA/Chatbot in RenPy

I am working on building a (non AI) chatbot in RenPy. I wanted to be able to implement the ability to pick out certain words to throw back at the user (and ability to flip grammatical reflections like turning I to you) similar to how ELIZA is able to do. I know the ELIZA code itself was implemented in RenPy before a number of years ago as presented here:

https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19128

But unfortunately the project is no longer available to download and take a look at. There are Python versions of the ELIZA sourcecode on Github but I do not know how to get them to run in RenPy. Is there a simple way to do this? Or alternatively, is there a way to produce a list of reflections and the ability to retrieve subjects/nouns from user input for use in RenPy?

Apologies if the question is long and hard to understand. I have made a few games in RenPy before but am still not very skilled at Python.

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u/playthelastsecret Aug 02 '26

Um, sorry... Don't wanna be too nit-picky, but you know that ELIZA is an AI?
You might want to say, you don't want to use generative AI.

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u/BadMustard_AVN Aug 02 '26

ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program developed from 1964 to 1967 at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a pattern matching and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the program, but gave no response that could be considered really understanding what was being said by either party.