Phonodeck · as of 26 October 2026

How the Phonodeck Works

From the set-up questions to the report card: how a world gets built, what happens between your words and the narrator's voice, and how the phonodeck remembers, even across stories with the same cast.

You A call to a Gemini model Saved memory Code in your browser

1The big picture

YOU You set it up how long, the feeling story or experience preset, questions or a photo GEMINI PRO Photo reader paints place, era, people GEMINI PRO The Architect builds the whole world streamed, so the build screen follows along SAVED IN YOUR BROWSER The world story bible · lore · cast secret roadmap GM secrets · map THE LOOP Play turn after turn, timed by the clock GEMINI PRO Report card two grades: the phonodeck and you YOU Same cast, new story sequel · years later · fresh start · prequel fills the answers answers world read memory time is up loved it? brings back the bible, lore, agendas and how it ended
The Architect turns your answers into a whole world in one streamed call. Play then reads that world on every turn and writes back to it after every turn. When the clock says no replies are left, the final scene lands and the report card is written. Same cast hands the finished world back to the Architect for a new story. Invited guests skip the About you step: their name and gender come from the invite, unless they have set their own in Personal details.

2One turn, from your voice to the narrator's

YOU You speak or type BROWSER Speech to text the browser listens "over to you" sends GEMINI FLASH Dictation cleanup fixes misheard names gives up after 5s IN THE APP Build the prompt two parts, below GEMINI PRO Game Master writes the reply streamed GEMINI VOICE Narrator reads it aloud, a sentence at a time the mic reopens when the narrator finishes SYSTEM MESSAGE Same every turn (cached) rules: age, cast, play mode the feeling to achieve story bible facts you edited by hand chapter summaries GM secrets, cast agendas BRIEFING This turn only mission map and time left relevant memories director: pacing, humour, mood strangers’ hidden names your recent edits then your words IN THE APP Recall lore, old turns, chapters and earlier stories (figure 3) plus the recent conversation memories GEMINI FLASH Housekeeping every 10 turns, in the background: rewrite the bible revise GM secrets summarise chapters SAVED IN YOUR BROWSER Memory lore entries (earlier versions kept) events · location · map of places story beats or goal progress mood: how well the feeling lands (0-10) GEMINI FLASH Memory pass runs while you listen: reads your words, the reply and the lore it mentions, and updates what changed after the reply updates lore map, mood, next turn refreshes
The prompt is split on purpose. Everything that rarely changes goes in the system message, so Google can bill it as cached input. Only the last message, the briefing plus your words, is new each turn, and it is never stored. The memory pass and housekeeping run in the background and never hold up the next reply; the next turn waits at most two seconds for the memory pass to finish. If you write your turn as story prose instead of a command (a passage about your character, often in the third person), the director drops its own plot moves and jokes, and the Game Master picks up where your passage ends, in your voice and point of view, without retelling it.

3Recall: finding the right memories

Lore entries always kept if your words name them Older turns outside the recent window Older chapter summaries not already in the prompt Earlier story (the sequel’s source) its chapters and turns The story before that followed all the way back Same cast chain: skipped for a fresh start or a prequel The question your words + the end of the last reply Keyword search top 12 by word match (BM25) Meaning search top 12 by embedding similarity skipped if slower than 1s Merge rank both lists together named lore goes first old turns cut to their best sentence or two Relevant memories about 2,600 characters, into the briefing
Two searches run side by side and their rankings are merged. Lore named in your words is always included first. With Same cast, each story remembers which one it continues, and recall follows that link all the way back, so asking about something from three stories ago can still find it. Earlier stories use the meaning vectors saved while they were played, so nothing new is paid for. Their lore needs no search, because it was copied into the new story when it was created.

4Lore that keeps living

5Which model does what

ModelUsed for
Gemini ProThe Game Master's replies, the Architect, the photo reader and the report card. Thinking effort is Low by default.
Gemini FlashThe memory pass, dictation cleanup, bible rewrites, GM secrets, chapter summaries and set-up suggestions. Falls back to Pro if Flash is out of quota.
Gemini embeddingMeaning search in recall. Vectors are made in the background and saved with the story.
Gemini voice (TTS)The narrator. The device's own voice takes over if Gemini's voice is unavailable or out of quota.

Everything runs in the browser with your own key. The only server is the optional invite proxy, which forwards a guest's calls with the host's key and counts what each costs.