Exploring the scalability of character-based storytelling

Interactive Storytelling is establishing itself as a major application of virtual embodied characters. To achieve further progress in the field, some authors have suggested that it was necessary to break the 10minute barrier for story duration, while preserving story pace. In this context, understanding scalability issues is an essential aspect of the development of future Interactive Storytelling technologies. Scalability can be defined as the production of a richer narrative which follows the scaling-up of the Artificial Intelligence representations for plot structure or characters ’ roles. We have formalised narrative events in terms of “film idioms ” which are dynamically recognised as the story is generated. This enabled us to stage a number of experiments in which we modified several determinants of scalability, such as the number of feature characters or the complexity of their roles and recorded subsequent narrative extension, through the number of film idioms generated. 1

STORYTELLING APPLICATION BASED ON INTERACTIVE STORY GRAPH STRUCTURE (ISGS)

Storytelling is a process of conveying series of events and information in words, images, and sound. Conventionally, storytelling developers/writers will apply the linear narrative structure approach to deliver the stories. However, that approach has some limitations; users cannot determine the path to end the story. They have no option to choose how to end the story based on their way of storytelling. Therefore, this study is about applying an Interactive Story Graph Structure (ISGS) approach to storytelling. ISGS approach is a structure used in storytelling in which users can revert their decision when going through the storytelling application implemented during the development. After completing the storytelling prototype development, a survey was conducted to test users’ enjoyment level when using the prototype. The survey was divided into four constructs: expectation, ease of navigation, understanding, and satisfaction. There were 36 respondents, and the data were collected on a random basis. Based on the survey’s result, most users (90.28%) enjoyed the storytelling application. The storytelling prototype was developed using Adobe Animate Creative Cloud and has been distributed among the respondents randomly. The analysis was conducted to determine the findings, limitations, and recommendations for future project improvement based on the results obtained. This study’s outcome is the complete production of storytelling application, which is creative and interactive with ISGS

Conceptualizing Narratives in Gamified Information Systems

Converging hedonic and utilitarian elements under the label of gamification has become an important phenomenon in information systems over the last decade. Yet, academic discourse on narratives in gamified IS remains scarce. To advance scholarly engagement, this study recontextualizes the concept of narratives for gamified IS. Based on the theoretical lens of hedonic and utilitarian consumption, we conducted a hermeneutic literature review in which we engaged with existing conceptualizations of narratives in a total of 84 studies across various disciplines. Results include a basic conceptualization of narratives complemented by six claims that may shape our way of thinking about narratives in gamified IS. Our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of narratives in gamified IS that goes beyond that of traditional game elements. It may serve as a cornerstone for further discourse on narratives and how to meaningfully design them in gamified IS

Director Agent Intervention Strategies for Interactive Narrative Environments

Abstract. Interactive narrative environments offer significant potential for creating engaging narrative experiences. Increasingly, applications in education, training, and entertainment are leveraging narrative to create rich interactive experiences in virtual storyworlds. A key challenge posed by these environments is building an effective model of the intervention strategies of director agents that craft customized story experiences for users. Identifying factors that contribute to determining when the next director agent decision should occur is critically important in optimizing narrative experiences. In this work, a dynamic Bayesian network framework was designed to model director agent intervention strategies. To create empirically informed models of director agent intervention decisions, we conducted a Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) data collection with an interactive narrative-centered learning environment. Using the collected data, dynamic Bayesian network and naïve Bayes models were learned and compared. The performance of the resulting models was evaluated with respect to classification accuracy and produced promising results

Reciprocally-rotating Velocity Obstacles

Modern multi-agent systems frequently use high-level planners to extract basic paths for agents, and then rely on local collision avoidance to ensure that the agents reach their destinations without colliding with one another or dynamic obstacles. One state-of-the-art local collision avoidance technique is Optimal Reciprocal Colli- sion Avoidance (ORCA). Despite being fast and efficient for circular-shaped agents, ORCA may deadlock when polygonal shapes are used. To address this shortcom- ing, we introduce Reciprocally-Rotating Velocity Obstacles (RRVO). RRVO extends ORCA by introducing a notion of rotation. This extension permits more realistic motion than ORCA for polygonally-shaped agents and does not suffer from as much deadlock. In this thesis, we present the theory of RRVO and show empirically that it does not suffer from the deadlock issue ORCA has, that it permits agents to reach goals faster, and that it has a comparable collision rate at the cost of some performance overhead

Towards data-driven drama management : issues in data collection and annotation

One of the key questions in the design and development of interactive drama is structuring an experience for participants such that an engaging, coherent narrative is presented while enabling a high degree of perceived meaningful interactivity. This paper proposes a new approach to the design of intelligent drama managers (DMs) where DM strategies are learned from a corpus of data collected from pen-and-paper RPG game sessions with expert human game masters. In particular, this paper focuses on the issues relating to the collection and annotation of relevant data from recorded gameplay sessions.peer-reviewe

Una aproximación a la narrativa embebida dinámica e intuitividad en tutoriales de videojuegos del género metroidvania 2d para la optimización de la experiencia del usuario (UX).

El aumento del número de jugadores de videojuegos conlleva la existencia de una diversidad de perfiles que deben ser tenidos en cuenta a la hora de desarrollar estas obras. La metodología de desarrollo tradicional no tiene estipulada el análisis y adaptación de la narrativa del videojuego a las acciones del jugador. El diseño dinámico permite que el videojuego se adapte a los intereses y afinidades del videojugador en función de cómo actúe este. Siendo conscientes de la gran importancia que tienen los primeros minutos de juego para determinar si un videojugador abandonará el videojuego o no, en un género con tanto recorrido y que tiene el backtracking como valor diferencial, como es el Metroidvania 2D, esta cuestión se vuelve fundamental. Así, esta investigación se centra en entender cuáles son los elementos a los que los videojugadores dan mayor importancia en los tutoriales y diseñar en consecuencia para una mejora de la experiencia de usuario.pre-print2660 K

Modular Audio Platform for Youth Engagement in a Museum Context

The purpose of this thesis is to support museums and other cultural institutes in their mission to attract young visitors by offering engaging experiences. The main goals of the the-sis were to develop a modular and easy-to-use audio story-sharing and audio-augmented reality platform, and evaluate the usefulness of the platform by measuring the level of engagement of participating youth in a workshop context. Design-science research methodology was used for audio platform component development, and mixed-methods were used to study the utility of platform components as case studies. At a more detailed level this means that the expandable and modular platform was developed incrementally one component at a time. When developing Audio Digital Asset Management, action research was used. For the Soundscape Mixer development, combined action research was used until the software was in the α phase after which a separate evaluation method was used in the β phase. For the Audiostory Sharing development de-sign-science research with separate building and evaluation methods was used. After implementation and testing the audio platform also from the usability angle, we moved on to engagement research. Workshops were organized in order to demonstrate the usage of the audio platform. During the workshops engagement was researched using mixed method, namely quantitative self-report questionnaires and qualitative methods in the form of observations. We have succeeded in developing a modular and versatile audio platform. All of the hardware is commonly used including Android phones. Software-wise the backend system is based on open source components. As the backend system provides relevant APIs, new mobile applications can be developed by third parties. In parallel, a concept was also developed, which helps to reach the young target audience and helps to measure the level of engagement. For this purpose, the student engagement structure has been applied in order to find out the level of engagement in workshops where the audio platform is a vital part. As a final summary, the results are promising. There is a general-purpose audio platform, which is modular, expandable and affordable for cultural institutions, and there is a concept to reach young people and a measurement instrument to measure the level of engagement in an audio-related workshop context.Väitöskirjan tavoitteena oli kehittää modulaarinen ja helppo käyttöinen tietojärjestelmä, mikä tukee äänitarinoiden jakamista sekä äänimaisemien rakentelua ja kokemista. Toisena tavoitteena oli arvioida, miten koukuttavia kokemuksia nuorille syntyy työpajoissa, missä tätä tietojärjestelmää hyödynnettiin. Väitöskirjan tarkoitus on tukea museoita ja muita kulttuurilaitoksia houkuttelemaan nuoria kävijöitä tarjoamalla nuorille mahdollisuus kokea kulttuurilaitoksen tarjonta osallistavalla tavalla. Olemme onnistuneet kehittämään modulaarisen ja laajennettavan ääniin keskittyvän tietojärjestelmän. Palvelinohjelmisto perustuu avoimeen lähdekoodiin ja nuorille käyttäjille tarkoitetut mobiilisovellukset on kehitetty Android puhelimille. Järjestelmä tarjoaa avoimet rajapinnat, mikä mahdollistaa myös kolmansien osapuolien uusien mobiilisovellusten kehittämisen kulttuurilaitosten tarpeisiin. Tietojärjestelmän rinnalla kehitimme työpajakonseptit. Työpajoilla on pedagogiset tavoitteet, mikä mahdollistaa yhteistoiminnan koulujen kanssa. Työpajojen arviointiin sovelsimme kasvatustieteiden puolelta ”student engagement” tutkimusta, jolloin kykenemme arvioimaan ja mittaamaan osanottajien kokemuksia perustuen heidän käyttäytymiseen, tunnetiloihin sekä kognitiiviseen oppimiseen. Järjestimme kuusi työpajaa, missä tietojärjestelmä oli keskeisessä roolissa. Neljä työpajaa järjestettiin Suomessa eri-ikäisille ja eri kansallisuuksista tuleville osanottajille. Kaksi työpajaa järjestettiin Puolassa. Perustuen näistä työpajoista kerättyihin kokemuksiin voimme sanoa, että tulokset olivat lupaavia iästä ja kansallisuudesta riippumatta. Saimme sovellukset toimimaan sujuvasti ja nuoret innostumaan sovellusten avulla. Innostuksen määrän saimme selville kehitetyllä mittausmenetelmällä. Suurin osa työstä on tehty osana Luova Eurooppa rahoitteista People’s Smart Sculpture hanketta. Hankkeen saksalaiset partnerit hyödynsivät äänimaisemasovellusta osana kaupunkisuunnittelua, mikä voisi olla yksi jatkotutkimuksen aihe