Generating Ambient Behaviours in Computer Role-Playing Games

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Cutumisu, Maria
  • Szafron, Duane
  • Roy, Thomas
  • Carbonaro, Mike
  • McNaughton, Matthew
  • Schaeffer, Jonathan
  • Onuczko, Curtis

• Many computer games use custom scripts to control the ambient behaviors of non-player characters (NPCs). Therefore, a story writer must write fragments of computer code for the hundreds or thousands of NPCs in the game world. The challenge is to create entertaining and non-repetitive behaviors for the NPCs without investing substantial programming effort to write custom non-trivial scripts for each NPC. Current computer games have simplistic ambient behaviors for NPCs; it is rare for NPCs to interact with each other. In this paper, we describe how generative behavior patterns can be used to quickly and reliably generate ambient behavior scripts that are believable, entertaining and non-repetitive, even for the more difficult case of interacting NPCs. We demonstrate this approach using BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights game.

• Date created

  2006

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Intelligent agents
  • Collaborative behavior
  • Scripting language
  • Non-player character
  • Generative pattern
  • Ambient behavior
  • Computer games

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R37659V5B

• License

  © 2006 Cutumisu, Maria, Szafron, Duane, Schaeffer, Jonathan, McNaughton, Matthew, Roy, Thomas, Onuczko, Curtis, & Carbonaro, Mike. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.