| --- |
| title: Ars Fabula VN |
| emoji: 🌸 |
| colorFrom: pink |
| colorTo: indigo |
| sdk: gradio |
| sdk_version: 6.16.0 |
| app_file: app.py |
| pinned: false |
| license: apache-2.0 |
| short_description: An AI-driven visual novel — a small LLM writes every scene |
| models: |
| - google/gemma-4-12b-it |
| tags: |
| - build-small-hackathon |
| --- |
| |
| # 🌸 Ars Fabula VN |
|
|
| An AI-driven visual novel where every scene is written live by a **small |
| LLM**. The model narrates, voices a three-character cast, swaps |
| expressions and backgrounds, and offers branching choices — through a |
| plain-text tool-call protocol (`[TOOL: set_expression …]`) that any small |
| instruct model can speak. No fine-tune, no function-calling API. |
|
|
| **Track:** Thousand Token Wood · **Hackathon:** Build Small |
|
|
| ## How to play |
|
|
| 1. Press **Begin** on the title screen. |
| 2. Read at your own pace — click / Space / Enter advances each beat. |
| 3. Pick a choice button, or type any action you want in the free-text bar. |
| 4. Save/Load slots persist for your session. |
|
|
| ## What's running |
|
|
| | Piece | On this Space (ZeroGPU) | At home | |
| |---|---|---| |
| | Scene writer | `google/gemma-4-12b-it` (bf16) via transformers, `@spaces.GPU` | Gemma 4 26B-A4B MoE Q4_K_M GGUF on stock llama.cpp with MTP speculative decoding, on an 8 GB GPU | |
| | Character sprites | Curated set (pre-baked with the pipeline below) | Live ComfyUI pipeline: face-gated base gen → expression warping → background removal | |
| | Backgrounds | Preset library (same pipeline) | Preset + live txt2img for novel scene keys | |
|
|
| The engine is model-independent: the same code drives a mock model (for |
| tests), a llama.cpp server, or an in-process transformers model — picked |
| by `ARS_FABULA_BACKEND`. On an 8 GB card the LLM and the diffusion stack |
| can't co-reside, so the home setup stops/relaunches servers around image |
| bakes; on ZeroGPU none of that is needed — the GPU is granted per call. |
| There's also a Docker variant (see `Dockerfile` on the repo) that runs |
| the full 26B + live ComfyUI casting on a dedicated T4. |
|
|
| ## Run it locally |
|
|
| ```bash |
| pip install -r requirements.txt gradio==6.16.0 |
| bash tools/start_gemma_server_stock.sh & # stock llama.cpp + MTP |
| python app.py |
| ARS_FABULA_BACKEND=mock python app.py # no model needed |
| ``` |
|
|
