AI Dungeon alternatives depend on which part of it you used. If you played it as a game, the closest thing is a text adventure you run on your own computer. If you used it to write, a story tool such as NovelAI fits better. If what you wanted was a character to talk to, that is a character site. And a plain chat app, ours included, will play a scene you describe in your own words.
We make Hemmingway and Hemmingway Unlocked, its adults-only side. We have not tested AI Dungeon or the other products on this page, so we do not rank them. What we say about each comes from its own site.
What AI Dungeon is
AI Dungeon, from Latitude, calls itself an AI text adventure game. Its guidebook describes how it plays.
- You take turns. Each turn is a Do, a Say or a Story action, and the AI answers with what happens next. A fourth action, See, makes a picture.
- You start from a scenario. A quick start with a setting and a character, one of the scenarios other players have published, or one you build.
- You stay in charge. Undo, retry and edit let you change anything, including what the AI wrote.
- It has tools for long stories. Story Cards hold notes about characters and places, and a Memory System summarises what has happened so the AI can recall it.
- You can play with friends. A host starts a multiplayer game and shares a code.
- You pick how dark it goes. Three safety settings, Safe, Moderate and Mature. Mature asks you to confirm you are 18 or over. One filter, for sexual content involving minors, stays on at every setting.
Its help pages also say that private, single-player stories are never moderated and that stories are encrypted, while anything you publish falls under its community guidelines. It runs in the browser and as phone apps, and says it is free to play, with paid memberships for more.
Why people look elsewhere
- You want a finished piece. A game gives you a story a turn at a time. A writer wants pages.
- You want one character. AI Dungeon is a narrator and a world. Some people want a single person to talk to.
- You want it on your own machine. No account, and nothing sent anywhere.
- You want plain chat. No action buttons or cards. You say what you want in a paragraph and steer in your own words.
The options side by side
| Tool | What it is | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| NovelAI | A story generator with an image generator beside it | Writing prose with the AI alongside you | It is a writing space, not a game with turns |
| Running an open model yourself | KoboldCpp or a similar program on your computer | Text adventures that never leave your machine | Strong hardware. Small models write weaker stories |
| SillyTavern | A front end you install, with character cards and lore | Long campaigns with your own notes and rules | It has no model of its own |
| Character sites | Janitor AI, SpicyChat and similar | One character at a time, ready-made | Built around characters, not worlds |
| Hemmingway Unlocked | Our adults-only chat and writing app | Dark or adult adventures in plain chat | No scenarios, cards or multiplayer. Text only |
NovelAI
NovelAI's site offers a story generator and an anime-style image generator. It says the story generator is built to write with you, not for you, and that privacy is fundamental to it. If you used AI Dungeon's Story action more than Do and Say, this is the nearer fit. NovelAI alternatives covers that family of tools.
Running an open model yourself
KoboldCpp's own page describes a single program that runs open models on Windows, Mac or Linux. Its built-in interface has an adventure mode and a story-writing mode next to ordinary chat. That makes it the nearest thing to AI Dungeon that runs entirely on your own computer.
The catch is hardware. Models that tell a good story need a strong graphics card. Open-source models for roleplay explains what is involved.
SillyTavern
SillyTavern's docs describe a locally installed interface for text models. It brings character cards, World Info for lore and group chats, and it needs a model from somewhere else: a program on your computer or a cloud API. World Info does the job Story Cards do in AI Dungeon. It suits people who like building the world as much as playing in it.
Character sites
Janitor AI's help pages and SpicyChat's docs both describe sites for chatting with characters made by other users, for adults only. Pick one if you want to choose a character and start talking. Janitor AI alternatives compares that kind.
Where Hemmingway Unlocked fits
Hemmingway Unlocked is the adults-only side of Hemmingway, the same app with an uncensored model. It asks first whether you are 18 or over, then shows its rules. It writes dark, violent stories and sex between adults, explicit and in full, and it does not stop a scene to lecture you. It is not without rules: it never writes anything sexual involving anyone under 18, a real person, animals, family or anyone who does not consent, and it never helps with hurting a real person, weapons, making drugs or self-harm. The list is in our terms.
Your chats are kept in the browser, on your device. They are never saved to your account or our servers, and never trained on. Each message passes through our servers to be answered and is not kept. Clearing the browser's data deletes them. It is free to try, with no card, and a monthly membership after the trial.
Open Hemmingway UnlockedTry Hemmingway
It is a chat app, not a game. You can still play an adventure in it by asking for a narrator in your first message, or by having the AI roleplay generator write the opening:
"You are the narrator of a grim fantasy adventure. I play Ilse, 29, a smuggler who has just been stopped at the city gate. Tell it in the second person, under 120 words a turn, and end each turn on a choice or a danger. Never decide what Ilse does. Keep a list of what she is carrying and tell me when it changes."
Where it does not fit:
- No scenario library, Story Cards or Memory System. In a long adventure you keep the facts straight yourself, by pasting a short recap every so often.
- No multiplayer.
- No pictures. It writes text only.
- It is not a model you can run yourself. Its weights are not out yet. We plan to open-source it soon.
How to choose
- You want a game with turns, on your own computer. KoboldCpp in adventure mode.
- You want to write prose with an AI beside you. NovelAI.
- You want to build a world with lore and rules. SillyTavern, with a model behind it.
- You want one ready-made character. A character site.
- You want one finished short story. Regular Hemmingway's story generator writes one from an idea.
- You want a dark or adult adventure in plain chat, kept on your device. Hemmingway Unlocked.
Common questions
What is the best alternative to AI Dungeon?
It depends on how you played. For a text adventure on your own computer, KoboldCpp. For writing stories, NovelAI. For building worlds, SillyTavern. For an adventure in plain chat, a chat app with a narrator prompt.
Is there an AI Dungeon alternative that runs offline?
Yes. KoboldCpp runs an open model on your own computer, and its interface has an adventure mode. Once the model is downloaded, nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Is there an AI Dungeon alternative without a content filter?
AI Dungeon's own Mature setting already allows mature and violent content for adults, by its help pages. Every hosted service keeps some rules, ours too: Hemmingway Unlocked is uncensored for adult fiction and still has a short list of things it never writes. Only a model on your own computer has nobody else's rules.
Can ChatGPT run a text adventure?
Yes, if you ask it to be the narrator and say how long each turn should be. It suits clean adventures. For adult scenes it refuses: on 27 September 2026, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini each turned down the same adult roleplay request in our test. Why ChatGPT refuses roleplay has the replies.