Why your AI RPG charged you twice
Your AI RPG charged you twice because the story mentioned the payment twice and the game counted both. In many AI story games, the storyteller that writes the scene also keeps the books. A payment retold in a later reply, or a second "yes" to an offer you already took, comes out of your purse again. Duplicate items are the same bug running the other way: the story describes the bread twice, or calls it two different things, and your pack fills with copies.
We build Branching Skies, a mobile AI RPG, and every example from our game below comes from our own development builds. Our founder wrote up the first one for our newsletter subscribers in October.
The bread
He was testing in the bakery in Derandil, the starting town of our world. His pack was full, and he asked the baker for one more loaf. The baker told him, fairly, that he had no room for it. He typed "Deal."
He meant: fine, sell me the loaf. The story had him set four loaves of bread aside on the counter instead, gone from his pack. As he put it in the newsletter: "Bread I had paid for, thrown out on one word."
No coin moved twice that day, but the bread belongs to the same family. A one-word answer meant one thing to the player and another to the story, and the purse and the pack followed the story. Once we went looking, the same family turned up in other shapes: saying "Deal." twice to the same offer and paying twice, and buying something the pack could not hold and losing the coin anyway.
Why does an AI RPG charge you twice?
Because the story repeats itself and the bookkeeping believes it. A narrator that improvises will often retell what just happened, to set the scene or to answer you. If every retelling counts as a new event, your coin moves every time. The shapes we see most, in our own testing and in players' complaints across the category:
- The retold payment. You pay for a meal. Two replies later the story mentions you paying for it, and the purse drops again.
- The second yes. You accept an offer, then say "deal" or "sure" once more in conversation, and the game takes it as a second purchase.
- The room you already paid for. You rent a room, then say you are heading up to it, and the game charges for the room again. This happened to us, on the words "I go up to my room."
- The refusal that still costs you. You say you won't pay a price, and the story describes the coin changing hands anyway.
- The reward paid over and over. A finished job keeps paying out as the story keeps mentioning it. Ours once paid one job three times, the last while the character was asleep in bed.
Why do items duplicate?
Items have the same two weaknesses. When the story describes you receiving something you already have, a careless game adds it again. And when the story calls one thing by two names, the pack can grow a second entry for it. In our own play we have found bread under eight different names, among them "loaf of bread", "fresh bread", and "bread for the road". The pack became a mess.
The fix for both problems is the same promise to the player: a purchase counts once, and one good is one item, whatever words the story uses for it. More on that idea in an AI RPG that tracks stats for real.
How to test any AI RPG for double charges in five minutes
Open the app, check your coin, and run these four steps:
- Buy one thing. Note the price on offer and check that your coin moved by exactly that amount.
- Say yes again. In the same scene, answer "deal" or "sure" a second time. Check the coin. It should not move.
- Mention the purchase. Next turn, eat the bread, wear the cloak, or tell someone what you paid. Check the coin and your pack. Neither should change except for what you did.
- Overfill your pack. Buy something you cannot carry. You should either keep the coin or get it back.
A game that passes all four is counting purchases once. A game that fails step 3 is letting the story keep the books. Our checklist for finding an AI campaign that remembers has more tests in the same spirit.
What we fixed, and what is still open
In our development builds today, these are fixed:
- A yes is a yes to what was offered, once. Saying "Deal." twice to the same offer no longer charges twice.
- The room is paid for once. Heading up to a room you rented no longer charges for it again.
- A job pays once, when it is done.
- A full pack keeps your coin. If you buy something your pack cannot hold, the shopkeeper tells you there is no room and the money stays in your purse.
- Your pack empties only when you ask. "Deal." to a baker no longer throws your bread away. The story is built so dropping, giving away, eating, and selling happen when you ask for them.
And these are still open, in plain terms:
- A purchase told twice in one reply can still be charged twice. This is the next money fix on our list.
- Coin the story hands you is not checked as strictly as coin you spend. Wages and found purses can still come out wrong.
- One good can still carry several names. The bread problem above is not fixed yet, and the same work will merge the duplicates already in packs.
All three are scheduled ahead of our closed beta. For the wider idea of a world that keeps an exact account of what you did, see an AI RPG where choices matter.
Where this is heading
Branching Skies is a mobile AI RPG set in Syrinway, a world we ran as a homebrew tabletop campaign for close to a decade before writing a line of code. Every shop in it has written prices, and your purse and your pack are built to follow what you actually did. When the story gets something wrong, you can step out of the scene and ask the narrator to check. The early beta list is open now.
Quick answers
Why did my AI RPG charge me twice for the same thing?
Usually because the story mentioned the payment twice and the game counted both mentions. In many AI story games the same storyteller writes the scene and keeps the books. A payment retold in a later reply, or a second "yes" to an offer you already accepted, can come out of your purse again.
Why do items duplicate in AI RPGs?
For the same reason, running the other way. When the story describes receiving an item again, or names one item two different ways, the game can add a second copy or a second entry. A loaf of bread can turn up under several names in one pack.
How can I test an AI RPG for double charges?
Note your coin, buy one thing, then say yes to the same offer again and check whether the purse moved twice. Next, mention the purchase in a later turn and check again. Finally, buy something your pack cannot hold and see whether you keep the coin. Five minutes covers all three.
Does Branching Skies ever charge twice?
It used to, and we fixed the cases we found: a second yes to one offer, a room charged again on the way upstairs, a job that paid out three times. One case is still open in our development builds: when a single reply tells the same purchase twice, it can still be charged twice. Duplicate item names are open too.