Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

‘IMPLICIT CREATION’ – NON-PROGRAMMER CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR AUTHORING IN INTERACTIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work

Augmented Reality Mobile App for Children Learning on Colour

This document describes the process developing an Augmented Reality (AR) of mobile application on colour by using storybook. By using camera on the smartphone or tablet, the user or the child could view the superimposed virtual three dimensional (3D) objects and images in a fun and interactive manner using the marker-less physical colour book as the interaction tool. Learning colour since young age helps children to distinguish colours and they can choose their favourite colours. In addition, it helps them to express themselves, build the confident and more easy-going by choosing the desired colours. Otherwise, they will be tend to have difficulties in making choices in their future life. Many researchers and journalists have done their research on the topic and emphasized on the importance colour for children in the early age is beneficial for their successful in future

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

Narrative Storytelling In VR Through Gaming

Gaming has consistently been acknowledged as a storytelling medium for its signature ability to provide user interaction. As virtual reality becomes a more prominent gaming environment, it will be expected to carry on the tradition of storytelling. Currently, virtual reality is in a state of infancy, where products offer little sophistication and serve as amusements rather than storytellers. As this changeover takes effect, there are certain discrepancies which will hinder a transition from flat screen gaming to virtual reality gaming. In order to create a successful narrative driven virtual reality game, these discrepancies must be addressed in a meaningful way. This thesis will also experiment with the aforementioned differences by developing a virtual reality game in Unreal Engine 4

An architecture supporting the development of serious games for scenario-based training and its application to Advanced Life Support

The effectiveness of serious games for training has already been proved in several domains. A major obstacle to the mass adoption of serious games comes from the difficulties in their development, due to the lack of widely adopted architectures that could streamline their creation process. In this thesis we present an architecture supporting the development of serious games for scenario-based training, a serious games for medical training we developed exploiting the architecture and the results of a study about its effectivenes

Natural interaction in Virtual Environments for Cultural Heritage: Giotto in 3D and Etruscanning study cases

[EN] A basic limit of most of VR applications created by the scientific community and reproducing cultural sites or artefacts is that they do not fire up the attention of public, in comparison with the great potentialities of VR system for cultural transmission: they are often lacking in emotional storytelling and difficult to manage. An important factor is the need of more natural and simple interfaces, especially for applications hosted inside museums. Starting from our experience in this domain, we propose new metaphors of narration and paradigm of interaction based on natural interfaces (body movements), presenting three study cases: “The Rule confirmation: virtual experience among Giotto's characters”, “Etruscanning3D”, “Virtual Exploration of the ancient Pharmacy of S. Maria della Scaletta Hospital at Imola”.[ES] Un límite básico de la mayoría de las aplicaciones de realidad virtual creadas por la comunidad científica que reproducen sitios culturales o artefactos es que no logran activar la atención del público, en contraposición y contraste con las grandes potencialidades que ofrecen los sistemas de RV para la transmisión cultural. A menudo estas aplicaciones carecen de una narración emocional y son difíciles de manejar. Un factor importante a tener en cuenta es la necesidad de generar interfaces más naturales y sencillos, especialmente para las aplicaciones alojadas en el interior de los museos. A partir de nuestra experiencia en este campo, se proponen nuevas metáforas de narración y paradigmas de interacción basados en interfaces naturales (movimientos corporales). Para ello se presentan tres casos de estudio:“La confirmación de la regla: experiencia virtual entre los personajes de Giotto”, “Etruscanning3D”, y “Exploración Virtual de la antigua Farmacia del hospital de S. Maria della ScaletPietroni, E.; Rufa, C. (2012). Natural interaction in Virtual Environments for Cultural Heritage: Giotto in 3D and Etruscanning study cases. Virtual Archaeology Review. 3(7):86-91. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2012.4394OJS869137ALISI T., DEL BIMBO A., VALLI A. (2005): "Natural interfaces to enhance visitors' experiences", IEE Multimedia, vol. 12, nº 3.ANTINUCCI, F. (2004): Comunicare il museo, Laterza, Roma.ANNUNZIATO, M., BONINI, E., PIERUCCI, P., PIETRONI, E. (2008): "Cultural mirrors: an epistemological approach to artificial life for cultural heritage communication", in Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage, edited by Jamal Al-Qawasmi, Michele A. Chiuni, sabry El-Hakim, pp. 219- 135.BASILE, G. (Ed.) (2010): I colori di Giotto. 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