INTERACTIVE STORY GENERATION FOR GAMES

			    IMGD MQP Topic
		       Academic Year 2008-2009
			     A-B-C Terms

Advisors:  Prof. Dean O'Donnell, HUA & IMGD (dodo@wpi.edu)
	   Prof. Charles Rich, CS & IMGD (rich@wpi.edu)		     

The objective of this project is to explore the potential for
improving the immersion and replayability of computer games by
introducing technology that dynamically creates and adjusts the game's
story structure in response to the behavior of the player(s).  This
line of investigation is inspired by the work of Chris Crawford,
Michael Mateas, Andrew Glassner and others, as well as by the model of
alternate reality games (ARGs).

The first phase of the project will be to investigate promising
techniques from artificial intelligence and elsewhere, such as
planning, emotion modeling and machine learning, and potentially
applicable existing software tools, such as WideRuled, SOAR and
Collagen.

Some of the issues to be considered include:

* the tension between author control of story versus openness
  
* using an assorted interactive media versus fully-rendered 3D worlds

* is multiplayer harder or easier than single player in this context?

* how to avoid solving the natural language understanding problem,
  while still giving the player as much freedom to express herself as
  possible

The final output of the project will be a playable game demonstrating
new technology for interactive story generation, as well as a detailed
critique of its successes and and failures, and recommendations for
further work.

The ideal student team will include significant software development
skills, artificial intelligence knowledge, and writing and artistic
abilities.