Note Village

approved

by Sébastien Dubois

A 2D pixel art village where your notes become villagers you can explore and chat with using AI - This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff.

2 stars273 downloadsUpdated 17d agoMIT

Note Village

A 2D pixel art village where your notes become villagers you can explore and chat with using AI.

Note Village transforms your Obsidian vault into an interactive JRPG-style world. Your notes become villagers that live in themed zones based on your tags, and you can have AI-powered conversations with them using Claude.

Features

  • Procedural village generation - Your vault's tags become zones, and notes become villagers placed in their respective zones
  • JRPG-style pixel art - Retro 16-bit style graphics with animated characters, buildings, and decorations
  • AI conversations - Chat with your notes using Claude (requires Anthropic API key)
  • Deterministic world - Same seed generates the same village layout every time
  • Customizable - Configure zones, villager limits, graphics quality, and more

How it works

  1. Tags become zones - The plugin analyzes your vault and uses your most frequent tags as themed zones in the village
  2. Notes become villagers - Notes tagged with those tags appear as villagers in their respective zones
  3. Explore your knowledge - Walk around the village with WASD/arrow keys or click to move
  4. Talk to your notes - Press C near a villager or right-click to start an AI conversation

Installation

Community plugins (recommended)

  1. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins.
  2. Disable Restricted mode if it's enabled.
  3. Select Browse, search for Note Village, install it, then enable it.

You can also browse the catalog on the Obsidian Community website.

Manual installation

If the plugin isn't listed in the community catalog yet (or you want a specific version):

  1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
  2. Copy them into <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/note-village/.
  3. Reload Obsidian and enable Note Village in Settings → Community plugins.

BRAT (bleeding edge)

BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tool) installs plugins straight from a GitHub repo and keeps them updated automatically. Use this if you want the latest commits — things might break.

  1. Install Obsidian42 - BRAT from Settings → Community plugins → Browse and enable it.
  2. Run BRAT: Add a beta plugin for testing from the command palette.
  3. Paste https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-note-village.
  4. Select the latest version and confirm.
  5. Enable Note Village in Settings → Community plugins.

Configuration

Open Settings > Note Village to configure:

SettingDescription
Village seedSeed for procedural generation (empty = vault name)
Top tag countNumber of tags to use as zones (3-20)
Max villagersMaximum number of villagers to display (10-500)
Excluded foldersFolders to exclude from analysis
Excluded tagsTags to exclude from zone generation
Render qualityGraphics quality (Low, Medium, High)
Anthropic API keyRequired for AI conversations
AI modelClaude model for conversations
Save conversationsSave chat history to vault
Conversation folderFolder for saved conversations
Debug modeLog verbose diagnostics to the console (off by default)

Usage

Opening the village

  • Click the village icon in the ribbon (left sidebar)
  • Or use the command palette: "Note Village: Open village"

Controls

ActionControl
MoveWASD or arrow keys
Move to locationLeft-click on ground
Start conversationPress C near villager, or right-click villager

AI conversations

To chat with your notes:

  1. Add your Anthropic API key in settings
  2. Approach a villager and press C (or right-click)
  3. The villager will respond based on the note's content

Conversations can be saved as markdown files in your vault.

Development

Prerequisites

Setup

git clone https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-note-village.git
cd obsidian-note-village
bun install

Commands

CommandDescription
bun run devDevelopment build with watch mode
bun run buildProduction build
bun run tsc:watchType check in watch mode
bun run lintRun ESLint
bun run formatFormat with Prettier
bun testRun tests

Tech stack

  • TypeScript with strict configuration
  • Excalibur.js for game engine
  • Anthropic SDK for AI conversations
  • Zod for runtime validation
  • Tailwind CSS v4 for styling
  • Bun for package management and bundling
  • What's new after updates. After a plugin update, a one-time dialog shows the release notes you just received (including skipped versions) with ways to support development. Never shown on fresh installs or regular restarts.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Author

Sebastien Dubois

My other Obsidian plugins

PluginWhat it does
Agentic Resource Discovery ServerLocal-first Agentic Resource Discovery publisher and registry that serves your AI skills and tools to agents over a local HTTP and MCP server
Book ExporterExport books (one manifest note + linked chapter notes) to EPUB and PDF via Pandoc
Bookshelf BaseDisplay your notes as a visual bookshelf via a custom Bases view
Dataview SerializerSerialize Dataview queries to Markdown, and keep the Markdown representation up to date
ExpanderReplace variables across your vault using HTML comment markers. Supports static values and dynamic functions
Ghost PublishPublish your vault notes to a Ghost blog with configurable presets for tags, newsletters, and frontmatter conventions
Graph Explorer Base ViewA custom Bases view that renders notes as an interactive force-directed graph with explored/unexplored tracking
Hidden Folders AccessIndex hidden root-level folders (e.g. .claude) so they appear in the file tree, metadata cache, and Bases
Journal BasesCustom Base views for journaling and periodic reviews
Kanban Action PlannerRender your notes as configurable Kanban boards and calendars inside Bases, with statuses, ordering, relationships, and scheduling
Life TrackerCapture and visualize the data that matters in your life
Obsidian Starter KitAdds strong typing support and powerful automation support for notes
Remarkable SynchronizerConnect to the reMarkable cloud, list, download, and sync notebook pages as images
ReplicateUse AI models with ease via the Replicate.com integration
REST and MCP serverExposes CLI commands as RESTful API endpoints and an MCP server for AI tool integration
Time MachineBrowse, compare, and restore previous versions of your notes using built-in file-recovery snapshots
TranscriberTranscribe images to markdown using Ollama vision models
TypefullyPublish social media posts with ease using the Typefully integration
Update TimeAutomatically update front matter to include creation and last update times

Everything I build is documented in my newsletter and on my YouTube channel.

News & support

To stay up to date about this plugin, Obsidian in general, Personal Knowledge Management and note-taking:

If this plugin is useful to you, here are the best ways to support my work ❤️:

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