Stay Thy Blade is an experimental interactive experience featuring William Shakespeare's Macbeth as a psychologically nuanced AI character. It explores how modern AI techniques, including Large Language Models (LLMs) and a custom-designed character AI architecture, can be used to create dynamic and responsive interactions within a dramatic context.

The primary aim is to allow a user (or "player") to engage in a dialogue with Macbeth and attempt to influence his internal state, specifically to guide him away from further acts of violence and de-escalate his agitation. This serves as a testbed for creating believable characters whose actions stem from a coherent internal world.

While the ultimate goal is a more complete VR experience with NPC voices and responses to the player's body language and verbal characteristics, this submission demonstrates the current focus on the core AI logic and a 3D demonstration environment.

Gameplay instructions

The Goal: Your objective is to speak with Macbeth and soothe the scorpions in his mind. An on-screen meter will show his current disposition, from Calm to Agitated. The experience concludes when he reaches either extreme.

Interaction: Use your microphone to speak to Macbeth naturally, by pressing the primary face button on either hand's VR controller when ready to record your voice, and press it again to stop recording. The system will then analyze not just your words, but your intent— whether you are being logical, appealing to his honor, or trying to understand his needs.

Observe: Pay close attention to Macbeth's reactions and what he says in response, as it may provide insight into how he is feeling. Use what you observe in your next interaction with him.

Links

Demo video:

Download the PCVR demo of Stay Thy Blade

This build uses OpenXR and has been tested with the Valve Index and Meta Quest 2/3/3S. The interaction profiles for other devices have been added but not all of them have been tested. If you are having trouble running the game, you are welcome to contact the maintainer: ntoothman@csub.edu

Note: this game requires an active internet connection. The game makes web requests to our server (mexanimator.net) to handle speech transcriptions and sentence analysis.

Team

• Kyle Mitchell, gameplay and emotion developer (Unity)
  • kdmitch@ucdavis.edu
  • https://github.com/kdavidmitchell
• Nicholas Treynor, MCP developer (Python)
  • ntreynor@ucdavis.edu
• Halil Ozgur Demir
  • hdemir@ucdavis.edu
  • https://github.com/hozgurde
• Dr. Nick Toothman, server configuration (Flask + nginx) and VR adaptor (Unity + OpenXR)
  • ntoothman@csub.edu
  • https://cs.csub.edu/~nick/
• Project managers and faculty advisors (all UC Davis, go aggies)
  • Dr. Gina Bloom
  • Dr. Joshua McCoy
  • Dr. Michael Neff
  • Dr. Colin Milburn

Survey

If you've had a chance to try out Stay Thy Blade and would like to leave us some feedback, please use the link below!

Stay Thy Blade Meaningful XR 2026 demo feedback

Thanks so much for trying out our demo! If you have any feedback you’d like to leave, please use the form below. Please feel free to include your email in your response. You can also enter “no@thanks.com” if you prefer.

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