Ken Hartsook, Alexander Zook, Sauvik Das, and Mark O. Riedl

IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games

September 2011

Computer role playing games engage players through interleaved story and open-ended game play. We present an approach to procedurally generating, rendering, and making playable novel games based on a priori unknown story structures. These stories may be authored by humans or by computational story generation systems. Our approach couples player, designer, and algorithm to generate a novel game using preferences for game play style, general design aesthetics, and a novel story structure. Our approach is implemented in GAME FORGE, a system that uses search-based optimization to find and render a novel game world configuration that supports a sequence of plot points plus play style preferences. Additionally, GAME FORGE supports execution of the game through reactive control of game world logic and non-player character behavior.

games, genetic algorithms, interactive games, machine learning, personalization