interactive-story/planning/reports/CANDIDATE-INVENTORY.md

Candidate Inventory and Triage

Phase: 0A — Static research
Date: 2026-09-01

Executive result

Three projects should advance to local validation:

1. AI-DnD — strongest implementation of the hardest required backend capabilities.
2. Open Dungeon — strongest direct product/UX fit and strongest near-term media path.
3. CaoRuiming/ai-adventure (Local Adventure Engine) — strongest authoritative-state, replay, checkpoint, and privacy architecture.

Everything else should remain available as a design/source reference but should not consume local build-validation effort unless one of the three finalists fails.

Triage table

Project	Browser-first	Ollama	Durable branch/rollback	Long memory	Local knowledge	Future media	Static disposition
AI-DnD	Yes	Yes	Strong	Strong	Story cards + memory	Not core	Finalist #1
Open Dungeon	Yes	Yes	Weak / destructive linear tail today	Summary-based	Limited	Strong; local image generation already present	Finalist #2
ai-adventure	No; CLI	LM Studio today	Strong	Summary + lore FTS	Strong deterministic local lore	No	Finalist #3
Chronicler	Yes	Yes	Not the focus	Excellent memory model	Memory-centric	No	Reference
Gamentic	Yes	llama.cpp/OpenAI-compatible	Game-state oriented	Strong	World bible	Excellent image/voice provider design	Reference
Interactive Fiction Framework	Yes	Yes	Not established as required story-tree model	Canon/scene/character memory	Story Bible	Not core	Reference
Sonder Engine	Yes	Yes	Persistent variants/checkpoints, but much more agentic	Very sophisticated	Character-scoped retrieval	Not primary	Reference
Corvus Story Core	Yes	OpenAI-compatible	No equivalent branch tree established	Summaries + state	World/state	ComfyUI + TTS	Reference
aiMultiFool	No; terminal	Yes	Rewind, not target architecture	Vector chat	RAG-oriented	No	Reference only
SillyTavern	Yes	Local backends	Chat-oriented	Extensions/lorebooks	Excellent lorebook UX	Broad extensions	Reference only
RisuAI	Yes	Local/remote ecosystem	Chat-oriented	Hypa/SupaMemory	Lorebooks	Broad media	Reference only
KoboldAI	Yes	Local ecosystem	Traditional save/load	Memory/World Info	World Info	Limited	Reference only

Why the shortlist is only three

AI-DnD advances because

It already implements the expensive correctness work: a parent/lineage story tree, alternate takes, non-destructive retry, state snapshots and rollback, branch-aware context, summaries, embedding retrieval, story cards, exact prompt inspection, export/import of the complete tree, and a substantial automated test suite.

Open Dungeon advances because

It is almost exactly the desired product shape: browser-first, simple interactive fiction, Ollama, local SQLite, streaming narration, visual character continuity, and local image-generation hooks. Its key weakness is architectural rather than cosmetic: its current message schema is linear and its retry/erase operation deletes the selected message and the rest of the tail.

ai-adventure advances because

Its core philosophy most closely matches the required trust model. SQLite and typed events are authoritative; the model proposes changes; validation occurs before atomic commit; undo/checkpoint/restore/branch work by replaying parent-linked history; lore is local; and the privacy documentation explicitly minimizes network and executable-extension surfaces.

Projects eliminated from fork contention

Chronicler

Excellent source for memory semantics, but the application is centered on long-running roleplay and YantrikDB cognitive memory rather than the simpler interactive-story product. Its memory-tier design should be borrowed conceptually.

Gamentic

Technically impressive and very useful for future media design, but it is intentionally a multi-agent RPG with image and voice infrastructure, tuned around a heavier local stack. Forking it would mean removing more game/agent behavior than necessary.

Interactive Fiction Framework

Its Story Bible, validation, and application-owned-state design are highly relevant. However, it is oriented toward contributor-authored, schema-driven stories and planner-approved choices rather than the unrestricted natural-language story continuation and branch history required here.

Sonder Engine

Strong engineering, but its core differentiator is separate fictional minds with strict perception/knowledge boundaries and a multi-stage agent pipeline. That is substantially more complexity than v1 requires.

Corvus Story Core

Useful image/TTS and state-extraction reference, but its persistence is JSON/JSONL-oriented and the static review did not establish the required non-destructive branch/checkpoint model.

aiMultiFool

Useful local vector-memory ideas, but it is a terminal character-roleplay application, its context-pruning approach is not the desired immutable-history architecture, and GPL-3.0 complicates direct code reuse into a permissively licensed fork.

Sources

See SOURCE-INDEX.md for repository/source links.