Narrative Generation Methods for Games

Quests are a fundamental storytelling mechanism used by computer role-playing games (RPGs) to engage and involve players in the game's narrative. Although RPGs have evolved in many ways in the last years, their basic narrative structure is still based on static plots manually created by game designers. This project explores the generation of dynamic and interactive quests for games using hierarchical task decomposition, planning under nondeterminism, player modeling, and genetic algorithms.

Status:

Contributions:
  • Proposed the combination of planning, execution and monitoring to efficiently handle nondeterministic events and support quests with multiple endings that affect the game's narrative.
  • Presented a novel approach to interactive storytelling in games, in which the quests and the ongoing story are determined in view of individual personality traits and behavioral attitudes.
  • Proposed a new quest generation method based on genetic algorithms and automated planning that can generate coherent quests based on a specific narrative structure.
  • Proposed a new approach to generate and manage the plot structure of character-based interactive narratives in games, which combines multi-agent planning with a drama management strategy based on narrative structures.
Publications:

  • Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Managing the Plot Structure of Character-based Interactive Narratives in Games. Entertainment Computing, Volume 47, August 2023, 100590, 2023. [DOI]

  • Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Procedural Generation of Branching Quests for Games. Entertainment Computing, Volume 43, August 2022, 100491, 2022. [DOI]

  • Best Paper Award Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. A Character-based Model for Interactive Storytelling in Games. Proceedings of the XXI Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames 2022), Natal, Brazil, pp. 1-6, 2022. [Best Paper Award] [PDF] [DOI]

  • Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Adaptive Branching Quests Based on Automated Planning and Story Arcs. Proceedings of the XX Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames 2021), Gramado, Brazil, 2021. [PDF] [DOI]

  • Best Paper Award Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Procedural Generation of Quests for Games Using Genetic Algorithms and Automated Planning. Proceedings of the XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames 2019), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, p. 495-504, 2019. [Best Paper Award] [PDF] [DOI]

  • Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Player Behavior and Personality Modeling for Interactive Storytelling in Games. Entertainment Computing, Volume 28, December 2018, p. 32-48, 2018. [DOI]

  • Best Paper Award Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Player Behavior Modeling for Interactive Storytelling in Games. Proceedings of the XV Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames 2016), São Paulo, Brazil, p. 1-10, September 2016. ISSN: 2179-2259. [Best Paper Award] [PDF]

  • Edirlei Soares de Lima; Bruno Feijó; Antonio L. Furtado. Hierarchical Generation of Dynamic and Nondeterministic Quests in Games. Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2014), Funchal, Portugal, November 2014. [DOI] [PDF]

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