Prom Week
Josh McCoy and Mike Treanor
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
3-6-2012
GDC 2012 – AI Summit
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Explicitly Defined Interaction Points
Journey Under the Sea
http://flowingdata.com/2009/08/11/choose-your-own-adventure-most-likely-youll-die
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Rich Realization & Deep Social Interaction
Mass Effect 3
The Sims
Dynamic Social Interaction
Mass Effect 3
The Sims
Character Realization
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
“Social Physics”
Angry Birds
http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
First-Class Interaction Patterns
Façade
http://www.interactivestory.net/
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Demo
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Social Exchange
Ask on a Date
Show Off
Idolize
Share Interest
Conversational Flirt
Open Up
Text Message Break Up
Make Plans
Insult Friend Of
Bully
and more…
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Prom Week’s Process Flow
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
The Social World
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Relationships, Statuses, Character Desc.
Character Description
•Traits (compassionate, arrogant)
•Character-specific locutions (“noob”, “word”)
Relationships
• Friends
• Dating
• Enemies
expressiveintelligencestudio
Temporary Statuses
• Heartbroken
• Cheerful
• Popular
• …
UC Santa Cruz
Subjective Opinions
10
80
50
50
expressiveintelligencestudio
95
90
Buddy
Romance
Cool
UC Santa Cruz
Social History
Romantic
Mean
Cool
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Cultural Knowledge
expressiveintelligencestudio
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa
Santa Cruz
Cruz
UC
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Social Considerations
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Example Social Considerations
Rule
Weight
Intent
friends(x, y)
+4
nice(x, y)
friends(x, y) and lowRomance(x,y)
and
romantic(y, x, recently)
friends(x, y) and hasCrushOn(x, z)
and romantic(y, z, recently)
-2
friendly(x, y)
+2
mean(x, y)
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Example Influence Rules
Rule
Weight
Intent
friends(x, y)
+4
nice(x, y)
friends(x, y) and lowRomance(x,y)
and
romantic(y, x, recently)
friends(x, y) and hasCrushOn(x, z)
and romantic(y, z, recently)
-2
friendly(x, y)
+2
mean(x, y)
And 5,000 more!
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Social Considerations
• Social considerations are rules that influence behavior
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Choosing a Social Exchange
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Responding to a Social Exchange
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Responding to a Social Exchange
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
How and Why Characters Respond
• Accept or Reject based
determined by considerations
Reminisce
• Most salient response chosen
Accept •
initiator has done something to embarrass •
other recently
responder is enemies with other •
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Natural Language Generation
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Instantiation
Responder: Hey %x%. Man, I can't stand %z%...
Initiator: Tell me about it. Hey, remember that time when
%SFDB_(embarrassed,x,z)%?
Responder: Oh god, I totally do! Man, that was so embarrassing.
%pronoun(z ,he/she)% is such a %pejorative%!
Initiator: I know! You should totally join me next time. I feel another practical
joke coming on!
Responder: Totally! Text me!
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Evolving the Social World
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Indirect Effects
 Cascading consequences of social exchanges
 Captures state changes across social exchanges
 E.g.
 Cheating(x,y):
 Dating(x,y) then Dating(x,z)
 AnnoyedWith(x,y):
 Dating(x,y) and Flirt(y,z)
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Takeaway: “Social Physics” through Retargeting Social Interactions
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Thanks!
University of California at Santa Cruz
http://promweekgame.com
Josh McCoy
mccoyjo@soe.ucsc.edu
Mike Treanor
mtreanor@soe.ucsc.edu
(and Ben Samuel, Aaron Reed, Ryan Andonian, Kathleen Kralowec, Corey
DiMiceli, Zane Mariano, Jacob Pernell, Christian Ress, Duncan Bowsman,
Travis Brown, Melissa Bernetsky, Devon Wyland, Ellen Otsuka, Garin Kessler,
Alexander Baker, Daniel Cetina, Alexander Schneider, Lauren Scott, Evan
Mertz, Brandon Tearse, Alexei Othenin-Girard)
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Prom Week’s Architecture
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Challenges
• Technical authoring
• NLG + rules
• unexpected consequences: “you’ll never get my
flower!”
• What to show to the player
• Performance vs spreadsheet
• Social space tuning
• Consistent story quality
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz
Rich Realization & Deep Social Interaction
SW:TOR
Prom Week
The Sims 3
expressiveintelligencestudio
UC Santa Cruz