Dramatic Gaming

1. Dramatic Gaming Jarmo Laaksolahti jarmo@sics.se

2. A few facts about myself… • Background in computer/systems science • Researcher at SICS since 1997 • Part time at DSV/KTH 2004-2006 • Research interests • Humanistic IT • People have spare time, emotions, religion, social needs,… • Entertainment applications • Games and interactive drama

3. Swedish Institute of Computer Science - SICS • Independent non-profit research organisation • Employs ~ 90 researchers in 7 labs • Computer and Network Architectures • Distributed Systems • Industrial Applications and Methods • Intelligent Systems • Interactive Collaborative Environments • Interaction Laboratory • UserWare Lab • Recently nominated one of the top 15 IT-research institutions in the world

4. Outline • Introduction • Overview of Interactive Drama • Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game • Socio-Emotional gaming • Expressive cinematography • Plot control mechanisms

5. Interactive Drama/Games Research • Why? • Explore the medium • New domains bring new solutions to (old) problems • Is it important? • We have lives outside the workplace… • People have always played and told stories • Games and storytelling can be used for other purposes than entertainment too…

6. Gaming defined • Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill and often money. (Caillois, 1958) • Play is essentially: • Free – you choose to play • Separate – limited in space and time from other activities • Uncertain – you don’t know what will happen beforehand • Unproductive – does not create goods or wealth • Governed by rules – game rules • Make-believe – as opposed to real life • Agôn – competion • Alea – chance • Mimicry – simulation/role play • Ilinx – vertigo (e.g. roller coasters)

7. What do players want? • Challenge • Compete • Social • Emotional experience • Fantasy/Story (Rouse, 2001)

8. Action games Racing games Sports games Strategy games Simulation games Platform games Role-playing/Adventure games Puzzle/Board games ”Edutainment” Computer Game Genres Source - Teldok 133

9. Affective Games? • Quake • Baldurs Gate • Warcraft3 • … • Problem solving • Simple emotions!

10. More Affective Games From within the lab you hear ferocious growlings, the sounds of a skirmish, and then a high-pitched metallic scream!> WAITTime passes...You hear, slightly muffled by the door, three fast knocks, followed by the distinctive sound of tearing metal.> OPEN THE DOORFloyd stumbles out of the Bio Lab, clutching the mini-booth card. The mutations rush toward the open doorway!> CLOSE THE DOORAnd not a moment too soon! You hear a pounding from the door as the monsters within vent their frustration at losing their prey.Floyd staggers to the ground, dropping the mini card. He is badly torn apart, with loose wires and broken circuits everywhere. Oil flows from his lubrication system. He obviously has only moments to live. You drop to your knees and cradle Floyd's head in your lap. Floyd looks up at his friend with half-open eyes. "Floyd did it ... got card. Floyd a good friend, huh? Quietly, you sing Floyd's favorite song, the Ballad of the Starcrossed Miner: ....As you finish the last verse, Floyd smiles with contentment, and then his eyes close as his head rolls to one side. You sit in silence for a moment, in memory of a brave friend who gave his life so that you might live." • Sims • Planetfall • Relations • Deeper emotions! • Much work is needed!

11. Our research • Explore ”games” that are • Emotional • Social • Narrative • Interactive drama • It has less focus on action • Attempts to merge interactivity with a narrative experience • Emotion is a vital ingredient

12. Outline • Introduction • Overview of Interactive Drama • Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game • Socio-Emotional gaming • Expressive cinematography • Plot control mechanisms

13. What is a narrative? • A narrative is an account of events that has happened to someone. • Narratives order events temporally… • A happened first, then B and C. • …and causally • C happened because of A. • Focus on characters. • Narratives are about important events. • Plot refers to how events are retold (e.g. in reverse) because of A B C then then

14. Dramatic Narrative • Values • Love/hate, life/death, rich/poor, … • Events • Acts • Sequences • Scenes • Beats • Characters McKee, 1997

15. Dramatic arc • Exposition • Inciting incident • Rising action • Crisis • Climax • Falling action • Denouement 5 4 6 Complication 3 2 7 1 Time

16. Stories and Games • What are the differences? • Games focus on interactivity, stories on control • Games involve solving puzzles, scoring points and winning • What is the role of story in games? • Games often involve stories (in some way) don’t they?

17. The author controls What happens when in the story world What the reader finds out about it, and when The reader controls Whether to read on or stop (or skip) Author shares control Players actively participate in the creation of their own experience Conflicting demands Players want freedom to do and see whatever they find interesting (?) Authors want to tell their (a) story Traditional stories vs. Interactive stories

18. because of because of A A B B C C then then then then Making it interactive • Aren’t all stories interactive? • Constructivism • Explicit vs implicit interactivity • Interactive Plot • Make the links between events virtual • Creating new plots • Interactive Story • Make the events themselves virtual • Creating new story events

19. Structure of Interactive Narrative • “The narrative potential of the interactive text is a function of its system of links” (Ryan, 2001) • Does this also apply to other media?

20. The complete graph • Fully connected graph • Player can navigate as she likes • Difficult to create events that can be experienced in any order • Hard to guarantee narrative coherence

21. The vector with branches • Main story is non-interactive • The player can visit the side branches • Players can decide the level of detail • Popular in children's (educational) games • …and perhaps RPG’s?

22. Critical Voices • Ludology • Narratives retell past events and thus cannot be interactive (narration collapses) • Story and roles constrain interactivity • Narratology • Interactivity only allows simple/uninteresting stories to be formed

23. Drama management • Policy for “story piece” selection • “Null” policy = explicitly coded links previous sequence Selection policy Story library Null policy

24. Façade – Mateas & Stern • Story a la “Who’s afraid of Virginia wolf” • Interaction through natural language dialog within story context • The player plays a character in the story • First person view • To be released (free) 2004?

25. World of the story IDTension Discourse / Story / Perception World of the story User Model User Model Narrative Logic Virtual Narrator Theatre User

26. Anna tells Joe he could try to buy Mr D., the witness Joe accepts Bill tells Joe to kill Mr D. Joe refuses to do that. Joe tells Anna he could kill Mr D. Anna encourages him to do so! Joe tells Anna he wants to buy Mr D. Anna encourages him to do so Bill incites Joe to kill Mr D. Joe meets Mr D. He proposes him some money for changing his testimony, but Mr D. wants a lot of money, and Joe is not rich enough He then decides to get money He tells Anna about it Joe tells Sylvie he could kill Mr D. Sylvie dissuades him to do so! IDTension story

27. Outline • Introduction • Overview of Interactive Drama • Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game • Socio-Emotional gaming • Expressive cinematography • Plot control mechanisms

28. Socio-Emotional Drama • The Kaktus scenario aims to: • Provide an emotional experience. • Provide a social experience. • Provide a narrative experience. • Support replayability – sucess criteria? • Include proactive autonomous characters. Drama

29. Kaktus v0.1 You: Lovisa, a party is a great idea! Think of all the fun we will have! Lovisa gives you a big smile Lovisa: But what about serving drinks? Ebba, can’t your brother take care of that? Ebba, do you want to borrow my new DKNY dress for the party? Lovisa, maybe we can get some alcohol from your fathers medical practice?

30. Roseman’s model

31. User study • Aim: To test impact of emotion model • 15 subjects (one using emotion model the other random) • ‘Random’ group found characters to be strange • ‘…sometimes they changed completely, first they were about to cry, the next instant their eyes were twinkling.’ • Some users believed they were doing something wrong! • The group using the emotional model experienced no strange behaviour • Emotional expressions need structure and timing!

32. Kaktus v0.2 - Magicster

33. Kaktus v0.3 - Magicster

34. Outline • Introduction • Overview of Interactive Drama • Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game • Socio-Emotional gaming • Expressive cinematography • Plot control mechanisms

35. Film structure • Film – a sequence of scenes • Scene – captures a specific situation • Shot – interval during which the camera is continuously rolling ~2-8 sec. • Scenes are made up of one or more shots

36. Cinematography • Cinematography refers to how something is filmed in contrast to what • Three main factors • Photographic aspects -emulsion, filters,etc • Framing – what is included • Duration – how long a shot is

37. Emotions through cinematography • By applying proper visual effects the emotional disposition of viewers can be changed • Happy scene: bright lighting, bright colors • Sad: dark, low-key colors • Terror: quick zoom to a characters face • Mental/Sick: fish-eye lens • … • Partly learned behavior due to repeated exposure

38. Shot size Extreme long-shot

39. Angle

40. Line of action

41. Crossing the line

42. Examples of shots

43. Colors affect how we perceive things • Culturally dependant • Red/yellow is generally more positive than blue/green • Rounded shapes are more positive than jagged Borders

44. Close up(A) Apex(A,B) Over the shoulder(A,B) Start Close up(B) Idioms for sequencing shots • Working knowledge about how to sequence shots to capture situations • Idioms can be modeled as automatons • Example: a conversation between two people • Establishing shot to introduce the situation • Close-up or over the shoulder shots for showing the conversation

45. Process of cinematographer Cinematographer EventSpeakerAddresseeRelations Idiom Build Direct Scene,shots Scene,duration,shots Select Idioms

46. Outline • Introduction • Overview of Interactive Drama • Kaktus - The story of a dramatic game • Socio-Emotional gaming • Expressive cinematography • Plot control mechanisms

47. Anticipatory systems • Contains a predictive model of itself and the environment • The behavior of the system depends on predictions about what will happen in addition to what already has • The system is executed faster than “real-time”

48. Anticipatory Drama • The game is turnbased • Control variables • Friendship (= social relation) • Elapsed time • The value of the control variables determine which agent gets the turn • What about when no good choices exist? • Behaviors such as ”throw a temper tantrum” can be used to pull players in the right direction

49. X X + - + + P P O O + + X X X - - + - + + P P P O O O + - + Social Configurations – Heider (1946) X is not good

50. q3 -2,2 +1,2 0,2 q1 q2 -1,2 0,2 S E +1,1 The anticipatory model • The anticipatory model can be described as a finite state automaton • Automatons that describe generic dramas are context free and hence reusable