#narrative #engine #IDtension #NothingforDinner #narrativelaws
IDtension. Simulating the narrative laws.
IDtension is research based narrative engine, combining several theories of narratives.
Structuralist theory (C. Bremond, T. Todorov, A. Greimas, etc.), was applied in building a narrative logic, able to produce a set of possible actions at a given time. The narrative logic manipulates the following elements in the world of the story:
Goals: some states in the world of the story that characters want to reach. The concept of this element is coming from classical screenwriting. Goals can be carried out by several characters.
Tasks: concrete activities that enable to reach a goal and the end of the narrative. This element also is able to present and oppose the values of the story.
Obstacles: concrete events in the world of the story which make some tasks impossible. This element also triggers sub-goals, opening another branch of the story.
Actions: are made of tasks. This element basically is what characters do, including information transmission, influences, delegations, task performance, sanctions and etc.
Characters: entities which have goals and perform actions attached to the values, Characters can be provided by the objects used as a part of the narrative.
Values: an axis which represents each task moral evaluation. Character’s actions will be indirectly affected by the values. This element brings into the story a higher level of awareness by allowing some judgment.
The architecture on a dynamic audience model (or user model) was built from pragmatics based theories (J.-M. Adams, U. Eco). The successive dramatic actions are organized by the narrative sequencer according to a simulated model of the user. For example, this model is responsible for expressing the need for surprise or conflict, which then triggers a corresponding action, if available. Current needs are:
Ethical consistency
Motivational consistency
Relevance
Complexity
Characterization
Conflict
The underlying approach of the project based rather on the narrative futures than on consistency of story events and actions. The participant is able to choose whether calculating his actions leading the successful result or focusing on the improvisation and unpredictability of it’s own actions (which will bring more real-like intensive experience) The story appears as a set of interconnected objects each of those is narrative component.
One of the project creators states, that simulation of narrative rules is required for an accomplishment of described approach:
We know how to simulate the laws of physics in order to create a movement or a deformation; we know how to simulate the laws of optic in order to create the lighting of a 3D virtual scene (ray tracing, radiosity, etc.). Similarly, in the long term, we have to be able to simulate the narrative laws in order to create good interactive narratives. This claim must not be misunderstood: it does not mean that we simulate the artistic creation. Simulating laws of physics does not mean designing a car; similarly, simulating the laws of narrative does not mean designing a story
The general architecture can be divided into five modules:
The world of the story: it contains basic entities in the story (characters, goals, tasks, sub-tasks or segments, obstacles), the states of the characters (defined with predicates) and facts concerning the material situation of the world of the story (the fact that a door is closed for example).
The narrative logic: it calculates from the data stored in the world of the story the set of all the possible actions of the characters.
The narrative sequencer: it filters the actions calculated by the narrative logic in order to rank them from the most valuable to the least valuable. For this purpose, the sequencer tries to provide some narrative effects (or fulfill some needs).
The user model: it contains the state of the user at a given moment in the narrative. It provides to the narrative sequencer an estimation of the impact of each possible user’s action.
Nothing for Dinner
Nothing for Dinner is a social game project aimed at helping teenagers living with parents who became a victim of cerebral accident. This game was built as a family daily life simulation, where the player's challenge is establishing communication with all family members.
Based on IDtension narrative engine, Nothing for Dinner has dynamic system offering different events for each playthrough. As an interactive drama NFD takes in account all the choices already made by the player which will affect events and choices which system will propose. Choices are also given to non-player characters. Purely interactive experience of Nothing for Dinner stands out by capability of narrative engine with it’s variety of dynamically generated actions proposing different daily scenarios.
#socialphysics #EnsembleEngine #CommeilFaut #socialAIsystem #PromWeek #socialrelationship #simulation
Ensemble Engine. Social physics.
Ensemble Engine, like its predecessor Commeil Faut (CiF), is a social AI system. It allows users to specify rules and actions that govern social behavior in the story-worlds. Also like CiF, it has support for "social physics," enabling actions of characters to indirectly give rise to the new social state. The design of Ensemble Engine was directly inspired by CiF, and the lessons learned while creating that first system. As such, the Ensemble Engine enables the authoring of more fine-tuned rules and character actions and is completely domain agnostic. Moreover, the Ensemble Engine comes bundled with an authoring tool to enable players to author the social rules that make up the world. I was on the Ensemble Engine team from the beginning, using my expert knowledge of CiF–gained from both developing it and using it–to help drive the design of this next generation of social AI.
This section will cover several of the features that give the Ensemble Engine its ability to represent complex social worlds
The Ensemble Engine allows users to easily specify the categories of social state in the world via a schema. Once these categories are defined, users can reference them in social rules to govern the considerations of the entities that populate their playable experience.
Moreover, the rules of the Ensemble Engine are capable of describing and referencing complicated social situations involving any number of characters.
The Ensemble Engine also introduces a new structure for character actions. These actions take advantage of EE’s enhanced rule structure and a character-to-role binding process for increased authoring flexibility.
Prom Week
Prom Week is a simulation game created at University of California in Santa Cruz. In this game user is becoming a creator of social relationship inside the group of high school students, who are living the most intensive full of events week - one week before the prom. The game based on social AI system called Comme il Faut (CiF) (which was subsequently modified in renewed version Ensemble Engine) created as a social research. Created as a simulation of social relationships, Prom Week differs from its congener The Sims in greater realism of the storytelling.
Except for the dynamical system of social relations simulation, Prom Week includes detailed characters and their dialogues driving the story. Consequently social AI system used in the game Prom Week has better sensibility to the main laws of social engineering. During the game, the player solves various task related with social relationship inside the collective. The player is free to decide whether he will build his tactics towards achievement of specific objectives or try to create new story events by experimenting with different approaches of social attitude.
In addition, system saves all the information about previous interactions and creates consequences of those. The player has to take full responsibility for his own actions which might become obstacles while archiving the goal. There is an example of social strategy while looking for a partner for Prom:
The character A might go to prom with character B, if she will break up with her boyfriend character C. What character A needs to do is to ask character D (who feels strong sympathy for him) to interact with character C (what will cause jealousy of character B) and provoke their breakup with character C. That event will increase chances of character A.
One of the most important aspects of the game is an intention formation of the player. After playing several games, the player is able to form certain relation to the main characters and obtain a plan of what he wants to do within the game narratives.