Generating Ambient Behaviors in Computer Role-Playing Games

To compete in today's market, companies that develop computer role-playing games (CRPGs) must quickly and reliably create realistic, engaging game stories. Indeed, intricate storylines and realism that goes beyond graphics have become major product differentiators. To establish both, it's...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE intelligent systems Vol. 21; no. 5; pp. 19 - 27
Main Authors Cutumisu, M., Szafron, D., Schaeffer, J., McNaughton, M., Roy, T., Onuczko, C., Carbonaro, M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Alamitos IEEE 01.09.2006
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
ambient behavior
Artificial intelligence
collaborative behavior
Collaborative work
Computer & video games
computer games
Computer graphics
Computer programming
Computer simulation
Construction equipment
Engines
Games
generative pattern
intelligent agents
Intelligent systems
Mathematical models
nonplayer character
Pattern recognition systems
Power generation
Programming
Programming profession
Robustness
Role playing
scripting language
Scripts
World Wide Web
Writing
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Summary:To compete in today's market, companies that develop computer role-playing games (CRPGs) must quickly and reliably create realistic, engaging game stories. Indeed, intricate storylines and realism that goes beyond graphics have become major product differentiators. To establish both, it's essential that companies use AI to create nonplayer characters (NPCs) that exhibit near-realistic ambient behaviors. Doing so offers players a rich background tapestry that makes the game more entertaining. Because storylines must come first, however, NPCs that aren't critical to the plot are often added at the end of the game development cycle - if resources are available. To control NPCs' ambient behaviors, many computer games use custom scripts. Story authors must therefore write computer code fragments for the game world's hundreds or thousands of NPCs. Our approach lets game authors use generative behavior patterns to create scripts of complex NPC behaviors and interactions. To build these patterns; they use our publicly available ScriptEase tool, which lets them create game stories using a high-level, menu-driven programming model
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ISSN:1541-1672
1941-1294
DOI:10.1109/MIS.2006.92