A story feels more personal when the machinery behind it does not constantly pull you out of the experience. That is one reason First Person Viewpoint starts from a local-first architecture.
The goal is not simply "AI without the cloud." The more important idea is ownership: your world state, your characters, your saves, and the shape of a story should feel like files and systems you control.
Local is the default mental model
When FPV runs with a local model, the core loop can happen on your computer:
- you act, speak, or describe what changes;
- the narrator interprets that action;
- persistent world state is updated;
- the next scene is generated from that state.
That makes the project easier to reason about. There is no hidden account timeline that has to be reconstructed before the story can continue.
Local-first does not mean local-only
The architecture can still leave room for external providers. Some users may want a larger hosted model for a specific world or experiment. The important part is that connecting an external provider should be an explicit choice rather than a requirement built into the product.
Why this matters for interactive fiction
Persistent fiction creates a lot of small, meaningful state: who trusts you, what you carry, which door is open, what happened three sessions ago, and which opportunities disappeared because of a decision you made.
That information is not just chat history. It is part of the world.
FPV is being built around that distinction.
