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A New Kind of VR Storytelling
While most games rely on scripted dialogue and pre-written branching paths, AstroBeam is taking a bold leap with its debut title, Stellar Cafe. Spearheaded by former Owlchemy Labs co-founder and CEO Devin Reimer, the game is built entirely around real-time AI-powered conversations, allowing for unscripted, dynamic interactions.
Using large language models, Stellar Cafe processes a player’s voice input and generates character responses instantly. The result is an unpredictable and highly personal VR experience — one where every conversation can go in unexpected directions.
Life Inside the Stellar Cafe
In Stellar Cafe, players step into the role of a customer at a bustling, interstellar coffee shop populated by eccentric robot patrons. Each character has a unique personality, problems to solve, and stories to tell.
These aren’t standard NPCs repeating canned lines. What you say shapes their understanding of the world, the way they respond, and the relationships you form. Over multiple conversations, the AI-driven personalities evolve based on your interactions.
“Stellar Cafe is our first step towards big possibilities for how we tell stories and interact in VR using voice input,” said Reimer, CEO and founder of AstroBeam. “By combining handcrafted characters with real-time AI conversation, we’re creating interactions that feel natural and real. We’re not using AI to replace creativity, but we’re using it to enable a new form of interactivity through voice.”
Stellar Cafe Features
As a game, this is what you can expect out of this quirky new title:
- Quirky Characters with Unique Needs: Help a robot quit its job, become the first human guest on a podcast, or assist with other oddball tasks.
- Controller-Free Gameplay: Explore the café using voice commands and Owlchemy Labs’ hand-tracking technology — no menus or controllers required.
- Cosmic Custom Drinks: Chat with the AI barista and order galactic beverages like a Meteor Mocha, Astro Algae Smoothie, or invent your own.
Stellar Cafe is set to launch later this year for Meta Quest. Whether it becomes a quirky novelty or a groundbreaking step in VR storytelling will depend on how players embrace its open-ended, conversational design.
