Towards Emergent Gameplay: A Framework for Realistic Psychosocial Behaviour in NPCs

Thesis by Christine Bailey

Outline

Motivation Previous research Problem statement Solution Contributions Future work

Motivation

Video games a challenging area of AI Characters becoming more important in games Bully & Assassins Creed

Previous Research

Psychology

Cognition, Emotion, Personality

Social behaviour Current NPC architectures Emergent Gameplay

Emergence

A.K.A. Emergent Gameplay Stimulus-Response in components (no system-level algorithms) Typically used in simple behaviours

Emergent Gameplay

Simple component-level behaviours (Mechanics)

+ Interaction between those behaviours (Dynamics) => Complex system-level behaviour (Aesthetics)

Emergent Gameplay in Thief

Simple concrete components

Torch + Water => Torch extinguished Candle + Oil => Fire Fire + Barrel => Ashes

Emergent Gameplay

But, what does all this emergence stuff have to do with psychology or sociology?

Emergent Psychosocial Behaviour

Emergent Gameplay concepts can be used to create more believable characters Using non-concrete components:

Instead of candles, oil, and guards as components, we use psychosocial objects and concepts

Problem Statement

A framework for emergent psychosocial behaviour in NPCs Flexible Real-time interactive performance Handles undefined circumstances Supports designer

High-level Design

Elements of a social psychology Mechanics of an emergent psychosocial system Defining NPC responses

Elements of a Social Psychology

Situation Internal state Social information

Situation

Environmental situation affects how people act Examples:

Coffee vs. Earthquake Presentation stress

Internal State

Trait hierarchy Examples:

Personality

Personality Traits
Emotions

Emotional Range

Values, worldview

Anything the designer wants

Social Information

Who is around? What is my social standing in relation to them?

Queen of England Drinking buddies

Are they friends? Enemies? Strangers? What can we model?

Peer pressure, conformity, groupthink? Mobbing/Panic? Social loafing?

Elements of Social Psychology

Summary

Situation Internal state Social information Mechanics Defining NPC responses

Next:

Mechanics of an Emergent Psychosocial System

Recall, Emergent Gameplay:

Simple component-level behaviours

+ Interaction between those behaviours => Complex system-level behaviour

Mechanics Emergent Gameplay

So how is this done?

Stimulus-Responses

We must define how each object reacts to GENERAL stimuli in the environment

Mechanics Emergent Gameplay

Example from Ion Storms Stimulus System

Mechanics Emergent Gameplay

But

These are concrete objects Arrows, candles, gas barrels,

This has nothing to do with psychology, sociology,

Mechanics Emergent Gameplay

An abstraction:

Mechanics of an Emergent Social Psychology

Mechanics of an Emergent Social Psychology

Psychosocial actors:

Anything that creates a psychological or social stimulus i.e. people, emotional events, possessions Emotional stimuli, social stimuli i.e. joy, fear, hostile environment, panic Anything that can react Namely NPCs

Psychosocial stimuli:

Psychosocial reactors:

Mechanics Emergent Gameplay

Stimulus messages carry information about the stimulus:

Stimulus type (i.e. joy, panic) Magnitude Propagation method (by contact, by range,)

Fall off (can model social phenomena?)

Social relevance who is affected?

Defining NPC Responses

Data-driven Mapping stimuli to actions Designer defines data to map:

Psychosocial stimulus to appropriate reactions Reactions to associated internal traits

High-level Design

Summary

Elements of a social psychology Mechanics of an emergent social psychology Defining NPC Responses Software design

Next:

Software Design

Use an event listener and message passing to broadcast stimulus messages

Psychosocial actors broadcast Psychosocial reactors listen

NPC Architecture

NPC Architecture

Prototype

A simple proof-of-concept prototype was implemented Hard-coded, not data-driven Dynamic emotional range:

joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust agreeableness/dominance

Static personality:

Static symmetric social ties Behaviours: Hug, Greet, Snub, Attack

Prototype

Evaluations were done:

Efficiency and resource usage

No significant increase in resource usage up to 10 NPCs

Scenarios to examine realistic psychosocial behaviour

Scenarios

One hostile, everyone else happy One happy, everyone else unhappy Antagonistic groups

One hostile, everyone else happy

One angry/hostile individual (Brona) who hates everyone else Everyone else happy
Those with dominance matching Bronas responded with anger Those with dominance lower than Bronas responded with fear/sadness

One happy, everyone else unhappy

One happy person who liked everyone, everyone else unhappy (angry, sad, disgusted, fearful) The happy persons joy spread through everyone eventually resulting in a steadystate utopia

One happy,

Note: no negative feedback

Joy was set up to spread Nobody strongly disliked anybody else, so a steady-state utopia was reached

The one negative social tie present is too weak to cause a behavioural effect

Antagonistic groups

Two distinct groups who dislike each other

Antagonistic groups

Something Interesting:

Responses depended on current moods/sequence of interactions

i.e. Hermione felt disgust in response to Goyle sending snub Goyle would send snub only when not angry Goyle would send attack if angry Hermione felt anger in response to attack

No steady state was reached: because of antagonism present

Scenarios - Conclusion

Overall realistic and emergent behaviour Some tweaking may be required to get desirable responses Should be careful of steady-states:

Be careful of positive feedback (i.e. joy in response to joy) Put in a mixture of people who like and dislike each other

Contributions

Emergent psychosocial behaviour/interactions A variety of social concepts are supported by the framework Resource usage results encouraging Handles undefined circumstances without designer intervention Supports designer-defined traits Supports player-authored experience

Future Work

Implement more traits & social concepts

Social roles, group memberships, social influences, peer pressure, values, individual worldviews

Dynamic social ties Implement data-driven traits Integration with fully-functional game

User studies (realistic, gameplay experience?)

Splintering of social groups

Any questions?