Drama Princess specifications

Posted by Michael on June 8th, 2006, in Development

Before we start designing, here’s a bit of a summary of things that have come up in these pages.

Requirements

• give characters believable autonomy
• express different personalities
• simple design
• ease of authoring
• straightforward implimentation

Ideas

• motivate characters by rewarding them (that way only one desire needs to be satisfied)
• use graphic symbols to help express emotions
• make the character (at least the avatar) express sympathy for the player
• seperate animations from goals (so that goals can be attained in different ways and can be composed of several animations and interactions -as in 8’s “Action Language”)
• make the environment trigger the behaviour
• attach a list of possible interactions to each object and character
• categorize actions in groups, don’t allow the character to switch groups too often (use attention span)
• arrange all actions in categories with a preference value assigned by the author
• define all actions and their effects in the context of relationships (with characters, objects and environment)
• define a relationship as a single value, from good to bad, shared by both parties
• or define a relationship as a pair of values, one for each direction
• model social interactions as (dynamic) objects that exist outside of characters and that encapsulate them and tell them what to do
• or (in There-speak) create a seperate “conversation mode” where the conversation itself selects (part of) the animations rather than the individuals
• distinguish between autonomy when alone and autonomy when interacting with another character: the latter should be controlled from a higher level (less emergent, more meaningful); the distinction could perhaps be a gliding scale rather than binary

Hints

• improve the player’s willingness to suspend disbelief
  • make sure the player likes the character
    • give character an attractive appearance (shape, colour and motion)
    • make an avatar somebody the player wants to be
    • make the character express affection for the player
    • make the character change or grow as a result the player’s actions
  • make sure aesthetic style and behaviour are on the same level
    • simple behaviour should be matched with simple appearance
• the story happens between the ears of the player
  • leave gaps for the player to fill in with his or her imagination
  • model the symptoms, not the disease
• use Loyall’s requirements for believability in an artificial being as a checklist
  • personality
  • emotion
  • self-motivation
  • change
  • social relationships
  • illusion of life
• create drama that is larger than life, rather than an inferior copy of life
  • use stylisation: leave out uninteresting aspects and exaggerate the interesting ones
• use the flaws of your system to your advantage (choose the system’s limitations carefully)
  • they can help express personality
  • they can provoke a desire to help or to care in the user

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