Jeroen Linssen | PhD studentHuman Media Interaction

University of Twente

Interactive Storiesand Serious Games

for Social Interaction

Outline

Part 1: The VST

• The Virtual Storyteller:• Story generation• Interactive stories

• In-character and out-of-character

Part 2: Serious games

• Training through gaming

• Socially intelligent agents

• Meta-techniques

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PART 1The Virtual Storyteller

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The Virtual Storyteller

• Story generation through simulation [http://vimeo.com/11836534]

• Emergent narrative in a multi-agent system

• From simulation for story generation to interactive stories

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Emergent narrative

• Story emerges from characters’ actions

• Inspiration: improvisational theatre

• Offers & accepts

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VST’s agents

• Plot Agent: assigns roles

• World Agent: objective world knowledge

• Character Agents• Virtual characters• Plan towards their own goals

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Fabula7/30

In-character &out-of-character

• Actor vs. character distinction• Out-of-character techniques

Character

Actor

I am a typical teenager

Whatever, just leave me alone!

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Generated stories

Pirate domainScurvy wants to get the piece of cheese.

Scurvy assumes the cheese is in the galley.

Scurvy walks to the cargo hold via the door.

Scurvy walks to the gun deck via the ladder.

Scurvy opens the door to the galley.

Scurvy can see the cheese is not in the galley.

O’Malley sees Scurvy.

O’Malley wants to catch Scurvy.

O’Malley walks to the gun deck via the door.

Princess domainOnce upon a time, there was a beautiful princess called Amalia. A knight from a far way country was in love with her and she was in love with a young prince. The knight was jealous, so he wished to kidnap her. Because the princess lived in a large castle, he went to the castle. He tried to open the heavy gate. The knight climbed into a high tree. [..]

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Authoring for emergence

• Authoring is an iterative process

• Examples of ‘mis-generated’ stories:• A pirate wants to go to an island...• A pirate wants to send someone to hell...

• Authoring: specifying the story world

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The Interactive Storyteller

• Little Red Riding Hood [http://vimeo.com/68865491]

• Co-creation• Discovering the story world

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PART 2Serious games

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Serious stories?

• Stories with morals: they tell something• Obey the gods, or woe will befall you• Respect your elders

• Think about them, reflect on the events

• “Narrative is read approximately twice as fast as informational text but remembered twice as well.” (Graesser et al., 2002)

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Games and learning

• “All games revolve around learning.” (Erik van der Spek)

• Super Mario Bros. World 1-1

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Serious games forsocial awareness

• Domain: law enforcement (interviews, street intervention)

• Police officers need to resolve conflicts peacefully• Improve social awareness

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Training through gaming

• Interaction with virtual characters

• Accessible

• Focus not on performing,but experiencing

• Clear goals, clear feedback

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Serious game design

• Focus on learning goals• Insight in procedure• Improving awareness• Interaction in a system

• Don’t simulate, exaggerate• Playful interaction• Abstract from real world• Convey knowledge using metaphors

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Example: ‘Samen Hangend’ (Sequacious)

• Board gameby T-Xchange

• Police vs.juveniles

• Police traineesact as juveniles

• Evokesdiscussion

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LOITER: Interaction with virtual characters

• Interaction with virtual agents• Let agents use theories on social interaction• Again, an emergent narrative

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Interfaces

Accessible, 2DImmersive, multi-

modal

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Modelling social interaction

• Analysed behaviour (corpus)

• Semantic frame

• Which factors play an importantrole?

• From practice to theory

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Social interaction

• Stance: the interpersonal circumplex(Leary, 1957)

• Face (Goffman, 1955)

• Need for autonomy• Need for approval

• Rapport: feeling ‘in sync’ with someone (Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1992)

• From theory to practice

 

DominanceAffection

LeadingAggressive

FollowingIntroverted

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Learning goals and feedback

• Learning goals based on theories from social psychology• Examples: recognise stance and adopt a stance

• Feedback• Explainable AI• Supports the learning goals

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Lemniscate model

• Play cycle, learning cycle (Koops & Hoevenaar, 2012)

• Experiencing, then reflecting

• At which moments?

Game Learning

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Meta-techniques

• (Nordic) live action role play

• Meta-technique: communicatingout-of-character information

• Examples: inner monologue,flashback/forwards

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Meta-technique:‘Act break’

• Complexity levels of interaction/learning goals• Between interactions, feedback through discussion

between character and player

• Lemniscate model: play and reflect• Use to automatically adapt next interaction

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Meta-technique:‘Inner monologue’

• Provide insight into characters’ minds

• Inspiration: thought bubblesfrom comics, games

• Less intrusive to story flow,still play/reflect cycle

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LOITER: Next steps

• How much do these meta-techniques contribute to learning?

• How do different interfaces influence learning?

• Story structure: toward emergent narrative

• OOC adaptation to player: adaptive difficulty

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Take Home Message

Be meta

Get inspired by other fields

Don’t take everything too seriously29/30

And they learned happily ever after...

mail j.m.linssen@utwente.nl

blog jmlin.eu/phd

Virtual Storyteller virtualstoryteller.info

commit-nl.nl

Thanks for listening!

Let’s discuss...

Thanks for listening!

Let’s discuss...

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Publications

• Theune, M., Linssen, J.M., & Alofs, T. (2013). Acting, Playing or Talking about the Story: Children’s Communication during Interactive Digital Storytelling. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling.

• Bruijnes, M., Linssen, J.M., op den Akker, H.J.A., Theune, M., Wapperom, S., Broekema, C., & Heylen, D.K.J. (2014). Social Behaviour in Police Interviews: Relating Data to Theories, in Poggi, I., Vincze, L., & Vinciarelli, A. (eds.) Conflict and Negotiation: Social Research and Machine Intelligence, Springer, Berlin.

• Linssen, J.M., Theune, M., & de Groot, T.F. (2013). What Is at Play? Meta-techniques in Serious Games and Their Effects on Social Believability and Learning. In Proceedings of the Social Believability in Games Workshop.

• Linssen, J.M., de Groot, T.F., & Theune, M. (In press). Beyond Simulations: Serious Games for Training Interpersonal Skills in Law Enforcement. In Proceedings of the International Conference of the European Social Simulation Association.

• van Oostendorp, H., van der Spek, E.D., & Linssen, J.M. (2014). Adapting the Complexity Level of a Serious Game to the Proficiency of Players. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Serious Games, 14(2).

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References

• Belarbi, S., Bergström, K., Ebbehøj, S. L., Hansen, E. E., Fatland, E., Giæver, O. P., … Westlund, A. (2010). Nordic larp. (J. Stenros & M. Montola, Eds.).

• Swartjes, I. M. T. (2010). Whose story is it anyway? How improv informs agency and authorship of emergent narrative. Centre for Telematics and Information Technology University of Twente.

• XKCD.com, comic 1089• Graesser, A.C., Olde, B., and Klettke, B. (2002). How does the mind construct

and represent stories? In M.C. Green, J.J. Strange & T.C. Brock (Eds.), Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations (231-263). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Koops, M., & Hoevenaar, M. (2012). Conceptual Change During a Serious Game: Using a Lemniscate Model to Compare Strategies in a Physics Game. Simulation & Gaming, 44(4), 544–561.

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Links

• Human Media Interaction: http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl• T-Xchange: http://www.txchange.nl• re-lion: http://www.re-lion.com

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Virtual Storyteller credits

• Mariët Theune, coordinator (2002 – now)• Hans ten Brinke, perceptions and assumptions (2014)• Thijs Alofs, Interactive Storyteller (2012)• Ivo Swartjes, lead designer (2006 – 2010)• Pjotter Tommassen, plot control (2009)• Nanda Slabbers, language generation (2006)

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