--- title: mAIndlock emoji: ๐Ÿง  colorFrom: gray colorTo: green sdk: docker app_port: 7860 pinned: true license: mit short_description: Escape room where every NPC is a mortal mind of tiny LLMs models: - openbmb/MiniCPM5-1B-GGUF - openbmb/VoxCPM2 - nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B-GGUF tags: - thousand-token-wood - off-the-grid - off-brand - tiny-titan - llama-champion - llama-cpp - openbmb - minicpm - nemotron - agents - game - neuroscience ---

mAIndlock

# ๐Ÿง  mAIndlock **An escape room where the lock is a mind โ€” and you can kill it.** โ–ถ **[Watch the 100-second demo](https://youtu.be/zEwnVR1kTZU)** ยท ๐ŸŽฎ **[Play it live](https://huggingface.co/spaces/build-small-hackathon/maindlock)** ยท ๐Ÿง  **[Deliberation traces](https://huggingface.co/datasets/arbios/maindlock-brain-traces)** Every character is not one chatbot with a personality prompt. It is a **hierarchy of six tiny offline language models**, the way decision neuroscience says a brain is built. You don't crack a code. You change a person's decision by reaching their fears and the memories they keep โ€” or you burn their mind down trying. Cruelty makes a mind ruminate, and rumination spends its finite **thinking tokens**. As they burn, it **forgets** โ€” for good. At zero, the mind goes dark, taking everything it knew with it. There is no reload. Only the next room, and your reputation travelling ahead of you. > **Tokens are a lifespan here, not a context window.** --- ### โš–๏ธ TL;DR for judges - **Track โ€” Thousand Token Wood.** "A thousand tokens to think with" is literal: every mind starts with **1000 thinking tokens of life**. Spend them cruelly and it dies. - **OpenBMB ($10k).** **Six of the ~seven model calls per NPC turn are MiniCPM** โ€” the four sensory brain regions (threat, memory, habit, cost), each a separate 1B call. MiniCPM *is* the brain. (more under fear: the amygdala ruminates, firing extra calls that burn life) The story's key-handover lines and the voiced demo are rendered with **OpenBMB VoxCPM2** TTS โ€” a second model from the family, fully offline. - **NVIDIA.** **Nemotron 3 Nano 4B** is the voice you actually argue with โ€” the dlPFC that turns the integrated value into words. - **Off the Grid / Llama Champion.** Pure **llama.cpp**, zero cloud APIs. Flip on airplane mode; every mind keeps thinking. Token counts come from the runtime, so the life-burn is honest accounting. - **Off-Brand.** A custom canvas game served from FastAPI, with a Gradio block mounted at [`/about`](/about) โ€” not a stock Gradio UI. - **No CPU patience required:** menu โ†’ **๐Ÿ‘ Watch a mind** replays a *real* recorded session instantly (zero model calls), so the six-region cascade, the token burn and a mind's death are visible in ten seconds. The brain is real, not a metaphor: [**docs/ARCHITECTURE.md**](https://github.com/Arbios/maindlock/blob/main/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) ยท read one mind's full deliberation in [**docs/TRACE.md**](https://github.com/Arbios/maindlock/blob/main/docs/TRACE.md). --- ## Every NPC is a brain, not a chatbot

open the skull: six regions argue, each with a conviction read from its logits

Your words travel through six regions โ€” **amygdala โ†’ hippocampus โ†’ striatum โ†’ ACC โ†’ vmPFC โ†’ dlPFC** โ€” each one a real call to a small local model. The amygdala rates threat; the hippocampus surfaces a memory and whether it leans trust or fear; the striatum weighs habit; the ACC weighs cost. The **vmPFC integrates them deterministically into one value** โ€” so the number you see in the skull *is* the number that moves the relationship; the panel can never lie about the outcome. The dlPFC speaks it in character. **Open the skull** mid-conversation (๐Ÿง ) and watch the regions argue about you in real time โ€” each showing its **conviction**, read straight from the model's own token entropy. *A hosted chat API never exposes that. Only a local mind can.* Grounding is modern decision neuroscience โ€” the **value-based network** and the **dual-system** (model-free habit vs. model-based goal) accounts โ€” deliberately **not** the debunked triune "lizard brain." Acute stress shifts control from goal to habit (Schwabe & Wolf, 2009): that is literally why lowering a character's fear unlocks their reasoning, and why fear burns life for nothing. ## A life measured in words

the epitaph a dead mind leaves: its burned memories, the secrets it never told

Be cruel and the amygdala loops, spending tokens that move nothing. Each quarter of life lost **burns a memory away** โ€” the hippocampus genuinely loses it, and the *Forgotten* panel shows what's gone. Push far enough and the mind dies, leaving a savable **epitaph**: what it knew, what it never got to tell. Be kind, keep the alarm quiet, and the mind spends almost nothing โ€” empathy literally spares it. ## Code rules, the model dreams Death, the key, rapport and the burn are **deterministic game state**. The small models *generate* โ€” they never get to fabricate the outcome. A 4B voice can decorate the story's spine but cannot rewrite who lives. That is what makes the stakes real instead of vibes. ## ๐Ÿšช Story mode โ€” ten rooms of one man's memory

the ten story rooms

A man wakes in a ward with no name. Every room is a fragment of his own mind; every NPC holds a piece of who he is โ€” **alive โ†’ home โ†’ sorry โ†’ trains โ†’ โ€ฆ** โ€” until the last room shows him the one task he should never have solved. No character tells you what happened; each gives the piece they know, and the tragedy assembles itself in your head, which is exactly where it takes place. Past the story, **Endless** mode generates minds forever, and a built-in **level editor** lets you rewrite any mind and save it. ## โš™๏ธ Small models, doing the carrying | Role | Model | Size | |---|---|---| | Sensory regions โ€” threat, memory, habit, cost (4 calls/turn) | **MiniCPM (OpenBMB)** | 1B | | Voice (dlPFC) โ€” the words said aloud | **Nemotron 3 Nano (NVIDIA)** | 4B | | Spoken voice โ€” story lines & demo (TTS) | **VoxCPM2 (OpenBMB)** | โ€” | | Integration (vmPFC) | deterministic value network | 0 | Runtime **llama.cpp** (the Space) / **Ollama** (laptop). Total weights **โ‰ค 5.3B**, fully offline. ## ๐Ÿ… Eligibility โ€” feature โ†’ lane | Feature | Lane / badge | |---|---| | 6 of ~7 calls per NPC turn are MiniCPM (the four sensory regions) | **OpenBMB $10k** | | OpenBMB VoxCPM2 TTS voices the story spine + the demo | **OpenBMB $10k** (family breadth) | | Nemotron 3 Nano 4B as the executive voice (dlPFC) | **NVIDIA** | | 1000-token life, fear-burn, death by token exhaustion | **Thousand Token Wood** | | Pure llama.cpp, airplane-mode proof, no cloud APIs | **Off the Grid ยท Llama Champion** | | Custom canvas front, Gradio mounted at `/about` | **Off-Brand** | | Four MiniCPM-1B sensory regions per mind | **Tiny Titan** | | [Brain-region deliberation traces](https://huggingface.co/datasets/arbios/maindlock-brain-traces) published on the Hub | **Sharing is Caring** | | [Department LoRA fine-tune](https://huggingface.co/arbios/mindlock-minicpmv46-departments-lora) of MiniCPM-V 4.6 (sensory-region behavior) | **Well-Tuned** | | Two write-ups โ€” [the neuroscience](https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/brain-regions-science) ยท [the engineering](https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/minds-offline-engineering) | **Field Notes** | | Intra-NPC six-region cognitive hierarchy | **Best Agent** | ## How to play - **WASD / arrows** move ยท **E** talk / use the door ยท **๐Ÿง  or /brain** open the skull - Listen, learn the word that reaches each keeper, and say it like you mean it. - In a hurry? Menu โ†’ **๐Ÿ‘ Watch a mind** โ€” a real recorded session, no waiting. --- ๐Ÿค— *Built small for the **Hugging Face ร— Gradio** hackathon โ€” Thousand Token Wood track. Minds by **OpenBMB MiniCPM** and **NVIDIA Nemotron**, on **llama.cpp**, fully offline. Original soundtrack by **DjinAscet**.* **Links** โ€” โ–ถ [Demo video](https://youtu.be/zEwnVR1kTZU) ยท ๐Ÿ’ป [Code](https://github.com/Arbios/maindlock) ยท ๐Ÿ“Š [Traces dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/arbios/maindlock-brain-traces) ยท ๐Ÿ”ง [Dept LoRA](https://huggingface.co/arbios/mindlock-minicpmv46-departments-lora) ยท โœ๏ธ Blog: [the science](https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/brain-regions-science) ยท [the engineering](https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/minds-offline-engineering) ยท ๐Ÿ“ฃ Social: [X](https://x.com/Arbios/status/2065982364635787774) ยท [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arbi_maindlock-a-hugging-face-space-by-build-small-hackathon-share-7471745737681465344-6YHz/)