Rumourtown
How Rumourtown works
Rumourtown is an agentic browser game. Thirty-six villagers think for themselves; you are the stranger who came down from the sky and whispers a rumor. The village does the rest. It is free, needs no account, and works on phones. Each villager has its own goals, routine, memory, beliefs and decisions; nothing they do is scripted. AI agents can play it too.
Play RumourtownWhat you do
Tap the ground to walk. Tap a villager to open their paper tag. Walk up to someone and whisper a rumor: a ready-made one, or type your own. Then follow the red thread, which shows who told whom in order, and read the story as sentences. Each evening you get the day's ending: reconciled, exposed, the village split, a grudge, or the rumor died. After three days a short debrief shows what you exploited and what it cost you.
How villagers think
Every villager is an autonomous agent with a routine, needs, moods with causes, friends and rivals, and a secret errand someone might witness. Beliefs keep a memory of who told them. Hearing something from a trusted friend moves belief about a third of the way; hearing it again makes it feel truer; three tellers who all got it from you only count as three if nobody remembers that it came from you. Seeing beats hearing. A correction lowers belief but never erases it, so a false accusation leaves hurt even after an apology. Villagers gossip to close friends about people they are less close to, take sides when someone is accused in public, and back an accusation only when they are fairly sure and have two sources. If a lie that traces back to you is exposed, the village trusts you less, for good.
Every rule comes from published behavioural research. The README lists each rule with its source and says which numbers are measured and which are tuned.
What the thread shows
The red thread is the path a rumor took: who told whom, in order. The story sheet tells the same path as sentences, and tapping a sentence takes you to the people involved.
Sharing
A link carries the seed and your whispers, so a friend replays the exact same three days on any device. Your typed words never travel; only the rumor the village understood does.
Your typed whisper and the budget
Talk or act uses a small AI call to improvise a reply using the nearby villager’s voice, mood and your recent conversation. It may suggest walking, visiting someone, pausing or looking around; you choose whether to act. Spread a rumor interprets a claim separately. Both share the same capped budget. Background gossip and beliefs run locally, and ordinary play continues when the AI allowance rests. Conversations are not saved in links or research exports.
Agents can play too
The published agent/environment.ts protocol lets an AI agent observe, walk and whisper. Run npm run agent:demo from a checkout to try it. More’s developer guide explains how to connect an agent.
Why it exists
Rumourtown was made by Madhav, who likes to hear gossip, and wanted to see whether villagers built from real research would behave like people when a rumor runs through them.
Questions
Is it free?
Yes. It runs in your browser with no account and no payment. Typed whispers use a small AI service behind a fixed budget; when that budget is spent, ready-made rumors keep working.
Does it need an account?
No. A share link carries everything needed to replay your three days exactly.
What makes it an agentic game?
Every villager is an autonomous agent with its own goals, routine, memory, beliefs, relationships and moods. Nothing is scripted, and AI agents can play through the published agent protocol.
Does the AI write what villagers say?
No. The AI only reads your whisper. The villagers' lines are authored, and the simulation decides what they believe and do.
Where do the rules come from?
From published behavioural research, listed rule by rule in the README with sources.
Can an AI agent play it?
Yes. The repository publishes an agent environment with observe, move, approach, wait and whisper tools, a JSON-lines bridge and exact replay.
Does it work on phones?
Yes. Tap to walk, a large Talk or act button, and a story sheet you can pull up.
Can I use the library?
Yes. The rumormind package gives any JavaScript game beliefs with provenance, trust, gossip decisions, side-taking and repair, with zero dependencies.