Quest Patterns for Story-Based Video Games

• Author / Creator

  Trenton, Marcus

• As video game designers focus on immersive interactive stories, the number of game object interactions grows exponentially. Most games use manually-programmed scripts to control object interactions, although automated techniques for generating scripts from high-level specifications are being introduced. For example, ScriptEase provides designers with generative patterns that inject commonly-occurring interactions into games. ScriptEase patterns generate scripts for the game Neverwinter Nights. A kind of generative pattern, the quest pattern, generates scripting code controlling the plot in story-based games. I present my additions to the quest pattern architecture (meta quest points and abandonable subquests), a catalogue of quest patterns, and the results of two studies measuring their effectiveness. These studies show that quest patterns are easy-to-use, substantially reduce plot scripting errors, and their catalogue is highly-reusable between games. These studies demonstrate ScriptEase generative quest patterns are a desirable alternative to manual plot scripting in commercial, story-based games.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Generative design pattern
  • Code generation
  • Pattern catalog
  • Pattern language
  • Video games
  • Scripting language

• Graduation date

  Fall 2009

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3ZD12

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.