Living by Team Rocket
Living

Living lets you talk to the characters in any game, and they remember you.

Living is a plugin layer for games. It gives their characters memory and a voice, and it runs on your own PC. We built the first one for Grand Theft Auto V.

  • Brian ZhouHarvard
  • William GaoHarvard
  • Shaurya JelokaHarvard
  • David CaoHarvard

Team Rocket
CamelHack 2026

Living finds every game you own and what it could become.

It reads your Steam, Epic and Xbox libraries and lists the mods each game can run. Concept of the app.

Living
All14Single-player10Online4
Found 14 games in Steam, Epic Games and Xbox
Search games

    To test it, we started with one of the biggest games ever made.

    If characters can remember you in a 13-year-old game with a thousand kinds of pedestrians, they can remember you almost anywhere.

    230Mcopies sold since 2013
    ~100 GBto install on PC
    ~1,000pedestrian and character models
    160,000lines of dialogue, all written in advance
    $265Mto make and market, a record in 2013
    0characters who remember you

    Sources: Take-Two Interactive (2026), Steam system requirements, gtahash.com ped list, TheGamer, The Scotsman (2013). Screenshot from Rockstar Games.

    Meet Malik. He runs a coffee cart, and he remembers you.

    Malik Reed is one of 12 characters we wrote for one block of Los Santos. Here is one conversation with him.

    1. 1You talk

      Hold N and speak. Your voice becomes text on your PC.

    2. 2He remembers

      We pull up what he knows about you and who is nearby.

    3. 3He answers

      His reply streams, so his voice starts right away.

    4. 4He acts

      Any action is checked against a short list of safe moves.

    5. 5It sticks

      The moment goes into his memory, tied to your save.

    Malik ReedLive in Los Santos
    HoldingN
    What Malik remembersrelevance
    You had a job interview coming up you told me, Mon
    You bought a coffee and were friendly I saw it, Mon
    Lena is fixing a bike nearby I see her, now
    MR
    Speaking with a local voice
    Actionfollow_player
    New memoryGot the job. We went to celebrate.you told me, Fri

    How Malik remembers, and how he forgets.

    Big moments stick.

    Each memory gets a weight from what happened, not what was said. Getting hurt counts for far more than a hello.

    Small talk fades.

    Old chit-chat folds into short summaries, so recall stays fast as the history grows.

    He knows how he knows.

    Every memory records whether he saw it, heard it from you or picked it up secondhand, so gossip never turns into fact.

    Your save is your story.

    Load an older save and the city goes back to how it felt about you then.

    Malik's memories of youweight
    MonTueWed saveThuFri
    MonYou bought a coffee and were friendlyI saw it
    MonWe talked about the weatheryou told me
    MonYou have a job interview soonyou told me
    TueWe talked about the weather againyou told me
    WedYou liked the new cupsyou told me
    Mon–WedWe made small talk a few timessummary
    ThuYou drove through my cartI saw it
    ThuYou robbed a store downtownJune told me
    You loaded Wednesday's save. Malik doesn't know about Thursday yet.

    Only a few hundred lines are specific to GTA.

    The game adapter is small. Everything that makes a character feel alive lives in the brain, and the brain moves from game to game.

    Game adapter, one per game
    Grand Theft Auto VC# script through ScriptHookVDotNet
    • Notices who's nearby
    • Records your voice
    • Plays speech and subtitles
    • Moves characters
    The Living brain, the same in every game

    Runs on your PC

    MemoryWeighted, sourced and tied to your save
    RelationshipsHow each character feels about you and each other
    CharactersPersonality, voice and goals
    NeighborhoodSchedules and gossip while you're away
    Safe actionsA short approved list per game
    Your controlsRead, edit or erase any memory
    Models, your choice
    • Speech to text
      whisper.cpp on your PC
    • Conversation
      Any chat model, local or cloud
    • Voices
      Piper on your PC

    The adapter is the only part we rewrite for each game, and a coding agent can write it from one prompt.

    Living

    Today, one neighborhood in Los Santos. Next, every game in your library.

    github.com/wgao9719/smartfellas-GTA

    Brian Zhou, William Gao, Shaurya Jeloka and David Cao. Team Rocket, CamelHack 2026.