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A few facts about myself…
Background in computer/systems science Researcher at SICS since 1997 Part time at DSV/KTH 2004-2006 Research interests
Humanistic IT People have spare time, emotions, religion, social
needs,…
Entertainment applications Games and interactive drama
Swedish Institute of Computer Science - SICS
Independent non-profit research organisation Employs ~ 90 researchers in 7 labs
Computer and Network Architectures Distributed Systems Industrial Applications and Methods Intelligent Systems Interactive Collaborative Environments Interaction Laboratory UserWare Lab
Recently nominated one of the top 15 IT-research institutions in the world
Outline
Introduction Overview of Interactive Drama Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game
Socio-Emotional gaming Expressive cinematography Plot control mechanisms
Interactive Drama/Games Research
Why? Explore the medium New domains bring new solutions to (old)
problems Is it important?
We have lives outside the workplace… People have always played and told stories Games and storytelling can be used for other
purposes than entertainment too…
Gaming defined
Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill and often money. (Caillois, 1958)
Play is essentially: Free – you choose to play Separate – limited in space and time from other activities Uncertain – you don’t know what will happen beforehand Unproductive – does not create goods or wealth Governed by rules – game rules Make-believe – as opposed to real life
• Agôn – competion
• Alea – chance
• Mimicry – simulation/role play
• Ilinx – vertigo (e.g. roller coasters)
• Agôn – competion
• Alea – chance
• Mimicry – simulation/role play
• Ilinx – vertigo (e.g. roller coasters)
What do players want?
Challenge Compete Social Emotional experience Fantasy/Story
(Rouse, 2001)
Computer Game Genres
Action games Racing games Sports games Strategy games Simulation games
Platform games Role-playing/
Adventure games Puzzle/Board
games ”Edutainment”
Source - Teldok 133
Affective Games?
Quake Baldurs Gate Warcraft3 …
goal
subgoal subgoal …
subsubgoal subsubgoal
Problem solving Simple emotions!
More Affective Games
Sims Planetfall
From within the lab you hear ferocious growlings, the sounds of a skirmish, and then a high-pitched metallic scream!> WAITTime passes...
You hear, slightly muffled by the door, three fast knocks, followed by the distinctive sound of tearing metal.> OPEN THE DOORFloyd stumbles out of the Bio Lab, clutching the mini-booth card. The mutations rush toward the open doorway!> CLOSE THE DOORAnd not a moment too soon! You hear a pounding from the door as the monsters within vent their frustration at losing their prey.
Floyd staggers to the ground, dropping the mini card. He is badly torn apart, with loose wires and broken circuits everywhere. Oil flows from his lubrication system. He obviously has only moments to live.
You drop to your knees and cradle Floyd's head in your lap. Floyd looks up at his friend with half-open eyes. "Floyd did it ... got card. Floyd a good friend, huh? Quietly, you sing Floyd's favorite song, the Ballad of the Starcrossed Miner: ....
As you finish the last verse, Floyd smiles with contentment, and then his eyes close as his head rolls to one side. You sit in silence for a moment, in memory of a brave friend who gave his life so that you might live."
Relations Deeper emotions! Much work is
needed!
Our research
Explore ”games” that are Emotional Social Narrative
Interactive drama It has less focus on action Attempts to merge interactivity with a narrative
experience Emotion is a vital ingredient
Outline
Introduction Overview of Interactive Drama Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game
Socio-Emotional gaming Expressive cinematography Plot control mechanisms
What is a narrative?
A narrative is an account of events that has happened to someone.
Narratives order events temporally… A happened first, then B
and C. …and causally
C happened because of A.
Focus on characters. Narratives are about
important events. Plot refers to how events
are retold (e.g. in reverse)
A CBthen then
because of
Dramatic Narrative
ValuesLove/hate, life/death, rich/poor, …
EventsActsSequencesScenesBeats
CharactersMcKee, 1997
Dramatic arc
12
3
4
5
6
7
1. Exposition2. Inciting incident3. Rising action4. Crisis5. Climax6. Falling action7. Denouement
Time
Com
plic
atio
n
Stories and Games
What are the differences? Games focus on interactivity, stories on
control Games involve solving puzzles, scoring
points and winning What is the role of story in games?
Games often involve stories (in some way) don’t they?
Traditional stories vs. Interactive stories
The author controls What happens when in
the story world What the reader finds
out about it, and when
The reader controls Whether to read on or
stop (or skip)
Author shares control Players actively
participate in the creation of their own experience
Conflicting demands Players want freedom
to do and see whatever they find interesting (?)
Authors want to tell their (a) story
Making it interactive
Aren’t all stories interactive? Constructivism Explicit vs implicit
interactivity
Interactive Plot Make the links between
events virtual Creating new plots
Interactive Story Make the events
themselves virtual Creating new story events
A CBthen then
because of
A CBthen then
because of
Structure of Interactive Narrative
“The narrative potential of the interactive text is a function of its system of links” (Ryan, 2001)
Does this also apply to other media?
The complete graph
Fully connected graph Player can navigate as
she likes Difficult to create
events that can be experienced in any order
Hard to guarantee narrative coherence
The vector with branches
Main story is non-interactive
The player can visit the side branches
Players can decide the level of detail
Popular in children's (educational) games
…and perhaps RPG’s?
Critical Voices
Ludology Narratives retell past events and thus
cannot be interactive (narration collapses)
Story and roles constrain interactivity Narratology
Interactivity only allows simple/uninteresting stories to be formed
Drama management
Policy for “story piece” selection “Null” policy = explicitly coded links
Story library
Selection policy
previous sequence
Null policy
Façade – Mateas & Stern
Story a la “Who’s afraid of Virginia wolf”
Interaction through natural language dialog within story context
The player plays a character in the story
First person view To be released (free)
2004?
IDTension
World of the story
User Model
User
Theatre
Narrative Logic
Virtual Narrator
User ModelWorld of the story
Discourse / Story / Perception
IDTension story Anna tells Joe he could try to buy Mr D., the witness Joe accepts Bill tells Joe to kill Mr D. Joe refuses to do that. Joe tells Anna he could kill Mr D. Anna encourages him to do so! Joe tells Anna he wants to buy Mr D. Anna encourages him to do so Bill incites Joe to kill Mr D. Joe meets Mr D. He proposes him some money for changing his testimony, but Mr D. wants
a lot of money, and Joe is not rich enough He then decides to get money He tells Anna about it Joe tells Sylvie he could kill Mr D. Sylvie dissuades him to do so!
Outline
Introduction Overview of Interactive Drama Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game
Socio-Emotional gaming Expressive cinematography Plot control mechanisms
Socio-Emotional Drama
The Kaktus scenario aims to: Provide an emotional experience. Provide a social experience. Provide a narrative experience. Support replayability – sucess criteria? Include proactive autonomous
characters.
Drama
Kaktus v0.1
You: Lovisa, a party is a great idea! Think of all the fun we will have!
Lovisa gives you a big smileLovisa gives you a big smile
Lovisa: But what about serving drinks?
Ebba, can’t your brother take care of that?
Ebba, do you want to borrow my new DKNY dress for the party?
Lovisa, maybe we can get some alcohol from your fathers medical practice?
Roseman’s model
User study
Aim: To test impact of emotion model 15 subjects (one using emotion model the other
random) ‘Random’ group found characters to be strange
‘…sometimes they changed completely, first they were about to cry, the next instant their eyes were twinkling.’
Some users believed they were doing something wrong! The group using the emotional model experienced
no strange behaviour Emotional expressions need structure and timing!
Kaktus v0.2 - Magicster
Kaktus v0.3 - Magicster
Outline
Introduction Overview of Interactive Drama Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game
Socio-Emotional gaming Expressive cinematography Plot control mechanisms
Film structure
Film – a sequence of scenes Scene – captures a specific situation Shot – interval during which the
camera is continuously rolling ~2-8 sec.
Scenes are made up of one or more shots
Cinematography
Cinematography refers to how something is filmed in contrast to what
Three main factors Photographic aspects -emulsion,
filters,etc Framing – what is included Duration – how long a shot is
Emotions through cinematography
By applying proper visual effects the emotional disposition of viewers can be changed Happy scene: bright lighting, bright colors Sad: dark, low-key colors Terror: quick zoom to a characters face Mental/Sick: fish-eye lens …
Partly learned behavior due to repeated exposure
Shot size
Extreme long-shot
Angle
Line of action
Crossing the line
Examples of shots
Borders
Colors affect how we perceive things
Culturally dependant
Red/yellow is generally more positive than blue/green
Rounded shapes are more positive than jagged
Idioms for sequencing shots
Working knowledge about how to sequence shots to capture situations
Idioms can be modeled as automatons Example: a conversation between two people
Start
Apex(A,B)
Close up(B)
Close up(A)
Over the shoulder(A,B)
Establishing shot to introduce the situation
Close-up or over the shoulder shots for showing the conversation
Cinematographer
Process of cinematographer
Event
SpeakerAddresseeRelations
Idioms
BuildSelect
Idiom
Scene,duration,shots
DirectScene,shots
Outline
Introduction Overview of Interactive Drama Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game
Socio-Emotional gaming Expressive cinematography Plot control mechanisms
Anticipatory systems
Contains a predictive model of itself and the environment
The behavior of the system depends on predictions about what will happen in addition to what already has
The system is executed faster than “real-time”
Anticipatory Drama
The game is turnbased Control variables
Friendship (= social relation) Elapsed time
The value of the control variables determine which agent gets the turn
What about when no good choices exist? Behaviors such as ”throw a temper tantrum” can
be used to pull players in the right direction
Social Configurations – Heider (1946)
P O
X
+
+ +
P O
X
+
+ -
P O
X
-
+ -
P O
X
+
- -
P O
X
+
+ +
X is not good
The anticipatory model
The anticipatory model can be described as a finite state automaton
Automatons that describe generic dramas are context free and hence reusable
S
q1
q2
q3
E
-1,20,2
-2,2+1,2
+1,1
0,2
And so the drama begins…
