"La Lettre" is a video game in which you live a story: one night in 1919 in a small restaurant in Montmartre, three characters, and ten moments that cannot be avoided, which change them for good. It is also the first proof of an idea: an artificial intelligence can choose the path of the story, but never where it has to arrive.
One night in 1919 at Rosalie's. At each moment, the player is free to do as they like, but always ends up reaching a tipping point. Once that point is passed, something has really changed between the characters, and there is no going back. Why a game? Because, as the paediatrician Donald Winnicott showed, it is by playing that we dare to try, and become creative. Find out more.
Our engine lets the artificial intelligence invent the details, the words, the paths. But the closer you get to the heart of the story, the less freedom it has. The beginning, the tipping point and the last line are written by humans, and the AI does not touch them.
To make the game, we work with studios and laboratories in Helsinki, Finland, which know how to build games with AI tools, from the first playable version to the full game. And we bring them a way of working that comes from the theatre.
The game itself: a precise story, flesh-and-blood characters, a beginning and an end. It is what gives the technology a meaning, and proves that it works. It is the demonstration, the shop window.
The machine that brings the story to life while keeping the AI on a leash. It will be able to serve other games and other stories. "La Lettre" is the first to use it, not necessarily the last.