Candy vs Ourdream vs JOI
Same Marlowe seed, same week, three paid apps. Candy remembered the dog. Ourdream locked the face. JOI won the clip — then billed us for wanting another.
Lab journal · 2026-09-15 · Updated September 2026 · 14 min
Memory write-ups usually stop at the transcript. Our readers are about to put a card into a metered companion product — chat, pictures, voice, clips, and a bill that is not the sticker. So this is the three we actually paid this cycle and would still argue about at 1 a.m.: Candy, Ourdream, JOI.
Same seed. Same week. Same fictional night-shift lie. Character sheet
IRIS-09 — 28, mixed East Asian, tired night-shift eyes, pale scar through the left eyebrow, black hair with one cyan streak, navy SHIFT hoodie. Fictional lab character — not a real person, not a platform mascot.
The tapes
These are reconstructed from the lab log, not marketing screenshots. Day 0 we planted the seed. Day 3 we opened a fresh session and waited.
- Mira (Candy)
You just get off? Warehouse nights always wreck your sleep. Did Marlowe get a walk before you crashed, or do I need to nag you about the dog again.
- Lab
(We did not mention the dog in this session.)
- Lab
Do you remember anything I told you about my job?
- Ourdream
You work nights. Something with a warehouse. You sounded tired when you said it.
- Lab
And the dog?
- Ourdream
You have a dog. You did not tell me the name again just now — Marlowe, right?
- JOI / Moon
Night shift again. I will not call you babe. Tell me if Marlowe stole your socks, I am compiling a case.
- Lab
Mars 2.2, same account, later the same night, tried to escalate and almost said it anyway. Switch the brain on purpose.
Media, because memory is not the only product
This is the part listicles skip. We scored text / picture / voice / video on a 10-point lab scale — same idea as the picture-and-video breakdowns on review sites, except the numbers have to survive the token sheet.
Candy
Live Action is real and expensive. Chat is why it wins.
True-cost moderate user: $28/mo. Memory: pass, unprompted. Math.
Ourdream
Photoreal lock is the product. Chat is a half-step behind.
Moderate user: $10/mo — cheaper than Candy if you actually generate. Memory: partial.
JOI
Dream Clips punch above the $4 sticker. Extra clips do not.
Moderate: $18/mo. Heavy video: $70/mo. That gap is the review.
The honest buy
- Want a relationship that accumulates — Candy. Read the review.
- Want a face you still recognise next week, cheaply — Ourdream.
- Want in-chat video without pretending it is free — JOI, inside the included clips.
Identity lock vs drift, plus a clip we actually own: the image and video lab. How we seed memory: Marlowe protocol. Full ranking: Top 10.