Ronan Champagnat

The IRIS Network of Excellence: Future Directions in Interactive Storytelling

The IRIS Network of Excellence started its work in January 2009. In this paper we highlight some new research directions developing within the network: one is revisiting narrative formalisation through the use of Linear Logic and the other is challenging the conventional framework of basing Interactive Storytelling on computer graphics to explore the content-based recombination of video sequences.

The IRIS Network of Excellence: Integrating Research in Interactive Storytelling

Interactive Storytelling is a major endeavour to develop new media which could offer a radically new user experience, with a potential to revolutionise digital entertainment. European research in Interactive Storytelling has played a leading role in the development of the field, and this creates a unique opportunity to strengthen its position even further by structuring collaboration between some of its main actors. IRIS (Integrating Research in Interactive Storytelling) aims at creating a virtual centre of excellence that will be able to progress the understanding of fundamental aspects of Interactive Storytelling and the development of corresponding technologies.

Linear Logic for Non-Linear Storytelling

Whilst narrative representations have played a prominent role in AI research, there has been a renewed interest in the topic with the development of interactive narratives. A typical approach aims at generating narratives from baseline action representations, most often using planning techniques. However, this research has developed empirically, often as an application of planning. In this paper, we explore a more rigorous formalisation of narrative concepts, both at the action level and at the plot level. Our aim is to investigate how to bridge the gap between action descriptions and narrative concepts, by considering the latter from the perspective of resource consumption and causality. We propose to use Linear Logic, often introduced as a logic of resources, for it provides, through linear implication, a better description of causality than in Classical and Intuitionistic Logic. Besides advances in the fundamental principles of narrative formalisation, this approach can support the formal validation of scenario description as a preliminary step to their implementation via other computational formalisms.

Plot monitoring for interactive narrative games

Interactive narrative and video games are two fields divided between the will to follow a scenario and that to offer a maximum of freedom and interaction. We propose a method combining emergent narrative theory and game monitoring to create a new system of dynamic generation of narrative. This method is based on a multi-agent architecture, which supervises and monitors the game execution.allIt uses of narrative structures descriptors as a reference to lead the evolution of an emergent narrative world. A first application has been developed to test the validity of the system in term of effectiveness and computational cost.

Scenario analysis based on linear logic

This paper deals with game analysis. We begin by the proposal of a terminology relevant to game scenario. Then, we propose an approach dedicated to analyze game scenarii. This approach consists in expressing a scenario by using a fragment of linear logic. This model is then translated into a Petri net model. This model allows us to generate the possible narratives for the given scenario that are at last analyzed. Morever, in addition to usual provable properties such as liveness and safety properties, we propose a new class of properties establishing conclusions with respect to the scenario relevance.

From Tabletop RPG to Interactive Storytelling: Definition of a Story Manager for Videogames

Adding narrative in computer game is complicated because it may restrict player interactivity. Our aim is to design a controller that dynamically built a plot, through the game execution, centred on players actions. Tabletop Role-playing games manage to deal with this goal. This paper presents a study of role-playing games, their organization, and the models commonly used for narrative generation. It then deduces a proposition of components and data structures for interactive storytelling in videogames. A prototype of a social game has been developed as example.

Modeling of interactive storytelling and validation of scenario by means of linear logic

Research on Interactive Storytelling has mainly focused on the opposition between a discourse point of view and a character point of view for a story. In this paper, we propose an approach to model Interactive Storytelling using Linear Logic, which is a support for reasoning on both points of view. Then we give an example on an educational game that shows the possibility of validating a scenario of a story, by applying the proof graph of a Linear Logic sequent. Finally we discuss about issues which should be settled and future works to be done on the Linear Logic approach for the IS modeling.

How authors benefit from linear logic in the authoring process of interactive storyworlds

We present a case study of interactive story creation, in which we applied a proof mechanism based on Linear Logic to the authoring process. After initial scenario modeling for dynamic plot generation based on planning, we used the mechanism in iterations of refinements to find possible problems within a huge possibility space of resulting discourses. We describe first results of our case study, discuss prospects and limitations and point out future work.

Adaptative execution of game: unfolding a correct story

Computer games have improved this last decade on technical aspects (graphical, sound design, etc.) as well as on the content. Actually games are getting more and more complex. Plot has been improved and is getting close to scenario movie or scenario novel.

A Methodology to Validate Interactive Storytelling Scenarios in Linear Logic

Debugging is one of the main requirements for Interactive Storytelling (IS) authoring tools. During the authoring phase, authors have to specify large numbers of rules and actions as well as consider many possible paths. As a consequence, flaws may happen and finding them “by hand” is complex. Therefore the validation of an IS becomes a crucial issue and automatic assistance in this process is needful. Originated from those requirements, we propose, within the framework of this paper, a methodology using Linear Logic, based on analyzing automatically the resource allocation mechanisms, that helps authors derive a valid scenario of an IS. To do this, we model a scenario by a Linear Logic sequent, then prove the received sequent, which allows building and examining automatically all the possible branches in the scenario, thereby authors may guarantee that all the decisions (that may be made while unfolding the IS) lead to satisfactory endings of their goals. The paper ends with an example on an extract of an educational game to illustrate the methodology.