Abstract
Computer games are an important application area for interactive storytelling. In a large subset of games, quests — tasks that the player is assigned to complete — are the primary driving forces of the storyline. The main storyline is usually accompanied by a number of optional side-quests. We present a system for generating side-quests based on chaining simple building blocks, akin to the branching narrative approach to interactive storytelling. Our primary interest was how far can we get with such a simple approach. The simplicity of our system also lets game designers retain more control over the space of possible side-quests, making the system more suitable for mainstream computer games. We implemented the system in an experimental game and compared the quests generated by the system with hand-picked and random sequences of building blocks. We performed two rounds of player evaluation (\(N_{1} = 21\), \(N_{2} = 12\)), which has shown promising results.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
A playable version of the system can be downloaded at http://gyfis.itch.io/side-quest-generating-system.
- 3.
References
Arinbjarnar, M.: Dynamic plot generation engine. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Integrating Technologies for Interactive Stories, pp. 1–5. ICST, Brussels (2008)
Ashmore, C., Nitsche, M.: The quest in a generated world. In: Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association Conference, pp. 503–509 (2007)
Cerny, M., Plch, T., Marko, M., Ondracek, P., Brom, C.: Smart areas: A modular approach to simulation of daily life in an open world video game. In: Proceedings of ICAART 2014, pp. 703–708. SCITEPRESS, Portugal (2014)
Dart, I., Nelson, M.J.: Smart terrain causality chains for adventure-game puzzle generation. In: Computational Intelligence and Games, pp. 328–334. IEEE Press (2012)
Doran, J., Parberry, I.: A prototype quest generator based on a structural analysis of quests from four MMORPGs. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Procedural Content Generation in Games, pp. 1–8. ACM (2011)
Doran, J., Parberry, I.: A server-side framework for the execution of procedurally generated quests in an MMORPG. Technical report, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, USA (2015). http://larc.unt.edu/techreports/LARC-2015-01.pdf. (Accessed 08 September 2015)
Hromada, T.: Generating side quests for RPG games from hand-crafted building blocks. BSc. Thesis, Charles University in Prague (2015)
Iassenev, D., Champandard, A.: A-Life, emergent AI and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. AIGameDev.com (2008). http://aigamedev.com/open/interviews/stalker-alife/. (Accessed 02 June 2015)
Kallmann, M., Thalmann, D.: Modeling behaviors of interactive objects for real-time virtual environments. J. Vis. Lang. Comput. 13(2), 177–195 (2002)
Lee, Y.S., Cho, S.B.: Dynamic quest plot generation using Petri net planning. In: Proceedings of the Workshop at SIGGRAPH Asia, pp. 47–52. ACM (2012)
Soares de Lima, E., Feijó, B., Furtado, A.L.: Hierarchical generation of dynamic and nondeterministic quests in games. In: Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, pp. 24–33. ACM (2014)
Magerko, B., Laird, J., Assanie, M., Kerfoot, A., Stokes, D.: AI characters and directors for interactive computer games. In: Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Innovative Applications of Artifical Intelligence, pp. 877–883. AAAI Press (2004)
Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Towards integrating plot and character for interactive drama. In: Dautenhahn, K., Bond, A., Cañamero, L., Edmonds, B. (eds.) Socially Intelligent Agents, pp. 221–228. Springer, Heidelberg (2002). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47373-9_27
Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Structuring content in the façade interactive drama architecture. In: Proceedings of the First Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, pp. 93–98. AAAI Press (2005)
Riedl, M.O., Young, R.M.: Narrative planning: Balancing plot and character. J. Artif. Intel. Res. 39(1), 217–268 (2010)
Sullivan, A., Mateas, M., Wardrip-Fruin, N.: Rules of engagement: moving beyond combat-based quests. In: Proceedings of the Intelligent Narrative Technologies III Workshop, pp. 11:1–11:8. ACM (2010)
Acknowledgments
This research is partially supported by the student grant GA UK No. 559813/2013/A-INF/MFF and by SVV project number 260 224.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hromada, T., Černý, M., Bída, M., Brom, C. (2015). Generating Side Quests from Building Blocks. In: Schoenau-Fog, H., Bruni, L., Louchart, S., Baceviciute, S. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9445. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27036-4_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27036-4_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27035-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27036-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)