Fetch and Flow Lore Studio Devlog

Hey there folks, Zac here!

Bit of an update from my end in terms of my personal life and the current development of Lore Studio. I have finished the latest update, which is 1.0.5.

Thought I would give the whole blogging process a go as a way to get some thoughts down!

Firstly, an introduction to myself for those new to my website. I am the creator of Lore Studio; you probably got that from the title!

Brief overview of my background: I studied some Computer Science courses during my time at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

But after a brief introduction to a Psychology class, I decided to switch majors and study Psychology. The reason for this change was my thought at the time: "All I do is spend time in a computer lab all day coding and don't really get any socializing done with others," which, looking back, was a pretty reactive decision at the time. However, Psychology was something I really enjoyed learning. Thinking back, I could have just done a double major, but oh well, the lessons of youth, I guess!

Throughout my life, I have always been a daydreamer. My mind is always stuck in the fantasy worlds I've wanted to create. Characters seem to live within my mind, some with backstories and related stories, some just creations of my own boredom. Creative writing was one of my favorite hobbies growing up while I wasn't invested in the creative worlds of some of the greatest minds like George Lucas or Tolkien. I loved the idea of planning out the backgrounds of these worlds, whether it be the different environments and the people (human or otherworldly creatures) that inhabited them.

I'm sure there is some abandoned notebook somewhere with those old ideas written down, haha.

Which, in a long-winded way, brings us to my application. Like many other creatives out there, the emergence of AI technology has been an uneasy time. On one hand, as a massive fan of the Marvel universe, especially Iron Man, the thought of AI excites me. Although I am very aware that many do not agree with the road that this is taking. In terms of replacing jobs in an already competitive job market, the idea of big tech companies replacing individuals with AI... Gaah...

Nonetheless, let's continue with why I created this application. My reason was pretty simple: brainstorming and structure. It was somewhere to brainstorm my ideas without losing track of them, which I have to admit AI can help with in my brainstorming process. More importantly, lore-aware brainstorming so that I'm not having to constantly remind ChatGPT of my ideas! This concept was then expanded into drafting scenes of stories with that lore-aware consistency to help plan how different scenarios may play out.

The AI support was then expanded to introduce the ability to choose from other AI providers such as Anthropic and Google. This was all done through API access to the providers. This then led to the next concept I wanted from the beginning: local AI, which in itself was a concept I struggled with understanding how to implement. So after many long sessions of understanding concepts (via ChatGPT and Codex), I was able to introduce it in the latest 1.0.5 update through Ollama.

The latest update is now live on 1.0.5 through the Microsoft Store! For current users, check it out and please provide any feedback! It's been a long, exhausting process to get to this stage, and I have enjoyed the process of creating something I find useful. As a side note, I have submitted Lore Studio to Steam to hopefully get published there as well!

All the best

Zac