Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Villanelle: An Authoring Tool for Autonomous Characters in Interactive Fiction

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Interactive Storytelling (ICIDS 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11869))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Our goal is to discover tool and language design principles that enable powerful, usable autonomous character authorship for diverse audiences of storytellers. This paper describes the Villanelle project, an approach to interactive narrative authoring that supports seamless integration of autonomous characters into choice-based storytelling. We present our computational model based on behavior trees uniformly for scripting agent interaction, user interaction, and narrative events; our stand-alone authoring tool, which provides an integrated development and testing environment for authoring with this model; and our JavaScript API for web-based development, demonstrating the expressiveness and simplicity of our approach through two case studies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/villanelle/.

References

  1. Aylett, R.: Narrative in virtual environments - towards emergent narrative. In: Working Notes of the Narrative Intelligence Symposium (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bryson, J.J., Stein, L.A.: Modularity and design in reactive intelligence. In: International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. vol. 17, pp. 1115–1120. LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES LTD. (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Dias, J., Mascarenhas, S., Paiva, A.: FAtiMA modular: towards an agent architecture with a generic appraisal framework. In: Bosse, T., Broekens, J., Dias, J., van der Zwaan, J. (eds.) Emotion Modeling. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 8750, pp. 44–56. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12973-0_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Evans, R., Short, E.: Versu: a simulationist storytelling system. IEEE Trans. Comput. Intell. AI Games 6(2), 113–130 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Friedhoff, J.: Untangling twine: a platform study. In: DiGRA conference (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Green, D., Hargood, C., Charles, F.: Contemporary Issues in Interactive Storytelling Authoring Systems. In: Rouse, R., Koenitz, H., Haahr, M. (eds.) ICIDS 2018. LNCS, vol. 11318, pp. 501–513. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_59

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Grow, A., Gaudl, S.E., Gomes, P., Mateas, M., Wardrip-Fruin, N.: A methodology for requirements analysis of AI architecture authoring tools. In: Foundations of Digital Games (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Heckel, F.W.P., Youngblood, G.M., Hale, D.H.: Behaviorshop: an intuitive interface for interactive character design. In: AIIDE (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Isla, D.: Handling complexity in halo 2 ai (2005). http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130663/gdc_2005_proceeding_handling_.php

  10. Kapadia, M., Zünd, F., Falk, J., Marti, M., Sumner, R.W., Gross, M.: Evaluating the authoring complexity of interactive narratives with interactive behaviour trees. Foundations of Digital Games (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Klimas, C.: Twine (2009). http://www.twinery.org

  12. Liu, R., Christopher, C., Martens, C.: Rime royale: a guildmaster simulator. In: Fifteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (Playable Experiences) (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Martens, C., et al.: Villanelle: towards authorable autonomous characters in interactive narrative. In: Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies and Workshop on Intelligent Cinematography and Editing (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Mateas, M., Stern, A.: A behavior language for story-based believable agents. IEEE Intell. Syst. 17(4), 39–47 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Façade: An experiment in building a fully-realized interactive drama. In: Game Developers Conference, vol. 2, pp. 4–8 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  16. McCoy, J., Treanor, M., Samuel, B., Reed, A.A., Wardrip-Fruin, N., Mateas, M.: Prom week. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, pp. 235–237. ACM (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  17. McCoy, J., Treanor, M., Samuel, B., Tearse, B., Mateas, M., Wardrip-Fruin, N.: Authoring game-based interactive narrative using social games and comme il faut. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference & Festival of the Electronic Literature Organization: Archive & Innovate, pp. 1–8. Citeseer (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Medler, B., Magerko, B.: Scribe: a tool for authoring event driven interactive drama. In: Göbel, S., Malkewitz, R., Iurgel, I. (eds.) TIDSE 2006. LNCS, vol. 4326, pp. 139–150. Springer, Heidelberg (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/11944577_14

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Millington, I., Funge, J.: Artificial Intelligence for Games. CRC Press, Boco Raton (2009)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  20. Neufeld, X., Mostaghim, S., Brand, S.: A hybrid approach to planning and execution in dynamic environments through hierarchical task networks and behavior trees. In: Fourteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Pacian, C.: Weird city interloper. The Interactive Fiction Database (2014). (https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=wrt29d4nlm71udll)

  22. Porteous, J., Cavazza, M., Charles, F.: Applying planning to interactive storytelling: narrative control using state constraints. ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol. (TIST) 1(2), 10 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Riedl, M.O., Young, R.M.: Narrative planning: balancing plot and character. J. Artif. Intell. Res. 39, 217–268 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Samuel, B., et al.: Playable experiences at AIIDE 2018. In: Fourteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Samuel, B., Reed, A.A., Maddaloni, P., Mateas, M., Wardrip-Fruin, N.: The ensemble engine: next-generation social physics. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2015), pp. 22–25 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Shoulson, A., Garcia, F.M., Jones, M., Mead, R., Badler, N.I.: Parameterizing behavior trees. In: Allbeck, J.M., Faloutsos, P. (eds.) MIG 2011. LNCS, vol. 7060, pp. 144–155. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25090-3_13

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Smith, A.: Living worlds: the joy of NPC schedules. Rock Paper Shotgun (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Stefnisson, I.S., Thue, D.: Mimisbrunnur: ai-assisted authoring for interactive storytelling. In: Fourteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Szilas, N., Marty, O., Réty, J.-H.: Authoring highly generative interactive drama. In: Balet, O., Subsol, G., Torguet, P. (eds.) ICVS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2897, pp. 37–46. Springer, Heidelberg (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40014-1_5

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. Van Velsen, M.: Narratoria, an authoring suite for digital interactive narrative. In: FLAIRS Conference, pp. 394–395 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Chris Martens & Owais Iqbal

Authors
  1. Chris Martens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Owais Iqbal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris Martens .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Rogelio E. Cardona-Rivera

  2. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Anne Sullivan

  3. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    R. Michael Young

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Martens, C., Iqbal, O. (2019). Villanelle: An Authoring Tool for Autonomous Characters in Interactive Fiction. In: Cardona-Rivera, R., Sullivan, A., Young, R. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11869. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33894-7_29

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33894-7_29

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33893-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33894-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation