1. Prom Week Josh McCoy, Mike Treanor, Aaron Reed EGG 16 February 2012
About social interactions in interactive stories.
Paris AI talk outline:
Motivation/Introduce CiF and Prom Week (15-20 minutes)
Prom Week demo/explanation (5 minutes)
CiF in detail. (15? minutes)
Design challenges (10 minutes)
Gimmicky lead-in to questions: Transition into more Demo addressing the design challenges.
EGG
16 February 2012

2. What is Prom Week?

3. Static Media http://dohistory.org/film/index.html
Social reasoning and rich narratives exist in commonly-found static media artifacts such as those seen in the slides.

4. Static Story Graph http://dohistory.org/film/process_preprod.html
Example of complex story lines traveling up and down dramatic arcs. They represent the drama around specific characters and rise and fall based on dramatic tension.

5. Interactivity UFO 54-40 - http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/
Journey Under the Sea
Trans:
If you want to build an interactive story with the interpersonal richness of a movie with equally rich interactivity, the authoring required would be immense.
UFO 54-40
Journey Under the Sea

6. Price of Interactivity: Authoring Explosion
This is representative of the complexity of interaction colliding with deep stories with complex social spaces.
Also, this is an underrepresentation as this is only a two dimensional graph and would only capture the states and transitions of a single modeled dimension (such as dramatic tension vs characters – says nothing of things like romantic interest or religious tensions).
World of Music

7. Managing Authorial Burden
Marie-Laure Ryan Peeling the Onion: Layers of Interactivity in Digital Narrative Texts
This is how CRPGs typically handle the problem – beads on a string.
The second graph features multiple starting locations and a few paths to a small number of end states.

8. Useful Patterns of Social Interaction
Façade is an example of an interactive story with a structure that is much more complicated than the beads-on-a-string model.
Façade has patterns of social interaction encoded to play with the users.
Therapy game
Affinity game – I like your decoration. I don’t like my decoration. What do you think, player?
During the development of Façade, these games became known as Social Games.
Façade

9. Social Science + Media = Social Exchange
Using analytic tools from social science (transactional and dramaturgical analysis featured) to encode media (mean girls & SatC chosen to have a source of highly-dramatic content – could be comedies if we wanted to create a game about comedy) into forms for knowledge representation that can be reasoned over by algorithms.
The goal is to create a readable and appropriate model of social interaction while preserving social norms and personality specific variation.
Maybe update the pre-existing media experiences to ones we used in Prom Week? How about Twilight, Mean Girls, and Glee?
Social Exchange

10. Social Exchange
A pattern of multi-character social interactions whose function is to modify the social state existing within and across the participants.
Personality specific variation phrase; appear on next slide?
This kicks off previous work section.
The emphasis of the system is on Social Games which are:
A pattern of multi-character social interactions whose function is to modify the social state existing within and across the participants.
In social games, the social state change is brought about by choices taken in a pattern of interaction informed by a description of a character’s personality.
A critical part of social games is that they are representations of common patterns of interactions or a distillation and encoding of social norms. When employed, a social game enforces local normal social behavior.
---
In the same way that playable
models of physics in combat games do not seek to model real
physics, but rather take inspiration from physics to create a
compelling experience, our playable model of social games does
not seek to accurately model social cognition, but rather takes
inspiration from a variety of social and psychological theories to
create a model that underwrites compelling, playable experiences.

11. Social Exchange
A pattern of multi-character social interactions whose function is to modify the social state existing within and across the participants.
Enable re-usable, dramatic patterns of interaction a that feature personality-specific variation in behavior.
Personality specific variation phrase; appear on next slide?
This kicks off previous work section.
The emphasis of the system is on Social Games which are:
A pattern of multi-character social interactions whose function is to modify the social state existing within and across the participants.
In social games, the social state change is brought about by choices taken in a pattern of interaction informed by a description of a character’s personality.
A critical part of social games is that they are representations of common patterns of interactions or a distillation and encoding of social norms. When employed, a social game enforces local normal social behavior.
---
In the same way that playable
models of physics in combat games do not seek to model real
physics, but rather take inspiration from physics to create a
compelling experience, our playable model of social games does
not seek to accurately model social cognition, but rather takes
inspiration from a variety of social and psychological theories to
create a model that underwrites compelling, playable experiences.

12. More Examples of Social Exchange
Goffman’s Dramaturgical analysis provides a method to capture normal interaction patterns.
To create dramatically interesting base of social games for our model, we applied dramaturgical analysis to the HBO show Sex and the City. We used sex in the city because the volume knob turned up to 11!
This study gave us an idea as to what the basic structure of social games needed to be and how personality specific variation looked.
Sex and the City
Season 4 Episode 1

13. Sex and the City Example
A video clip displaying social exchanges and personality-specific variation.

14. Computational Models
Angry Birds
World of Goo
With these social games encoding portions of normal social behavior with personality-specific outcomes, they need a framework to be used in.
We need playable models similar to those governing the physics in World of Goo and Angry Birds.
We need a system that plays allows the play of social games within social norms, performs the personality-specific performances, and properly maintains the social environment.
Replace bioshock with angry birds.
Computational model of social interaction that allows us to procedurally respond to changes in the social state much like these computational models of physical spaces.

15. Benefits of a Playable Social Model
CiF
Prom Week
Dragon Age 2
The Sims 3
With this approach, we wish to model richly-realized characters interacting in highly dynamic social spaces.
Richly-realized characters are socially coherent (clothes match station in life, accent matches background) – this is not photorealism.
Highly dynamic social spaces are like the Sims; the player can modify the social space and the world/characters react appropriately.
Modify diagram to show CiF or Prom Week in the top right corner instead of Social Games (new branding needed!).

16. Being in accord with conventions or accepted standards; proper.
Comme il Faut (CiF)
as it should be
Being in accord with conventions or accepted standards; proper.
Maybe remove the literal translation.
Comme il Faut (CiF) is a playable computational model of social interactions designed specifically to allow autonomous characters to play social games. The design goal of CiF is to represent and reason over compelling social situations along with the variations of the resultant behavior that arise from different personalities being placed in similar roles.
Authoring Strategy for Game-based Interactive Narrative

17. Play in Social Space
Goal is to make a entertaining, readable, playable model of social interaction that is appropriate for media.
Goal is not to create a ground-truth model of social interaction.
What new and interesting playable media experiences could be created? What new genres of games would be discovered?
It is our goal to make a playable model based on social space. However, it is not or goal to create a ground truth model of everyday social interaction.

18. Prom Week
In the following discussion of CiF, examples from The Prom will be used.
Restate and clarify they are playing social games.
The Prom is a game about solving social puzzles. The game is made of up stories that each contain several scenarios. Scenarios have goals achievable via social games. An example goal is having Maeve (the goth girl) and Nelson (the computer geek) to date. The player gets to select characters and choose social games to play between them to progress toward the scenario’s goal.
Zoomed screenshot of interface.
Demo UI in game. Frontload with two juicy interactions.

19. CiF’s Architecture
Distinction between what needs to be authored (green) and what CiF does with the authored parts (orange).
Introducing these is a slog – should we assume this is obvious given the game design saavy crowd?

20. Social Exchange Ask on a Date Show Off Idolize Share Interest
Conversational Flirt
“You’re hot when you’re angry”
Open Up
Text Message Break Up
Make Plans
Insult Friend Of
Sabotage Relationship
Bully
and more…

21. Relationships, Statuses, Character Desc.
Friends
Dating
Enemies
Statuses
Heartbroken
Cheerful
Popular …
Reiterate that these are from the prom, not cif generally
Character Description
Traits (compassionate, sex magnet)
Character-specific locutions (“noob”, “word”)

22. Social Networks 10
Buddy
Romance
Cool 80 95 50 50 90

23. The Social Facts Database
Get the names straight.

24. The Cultural Knowledgebase

25. Predicates and Influence Rules
Detailed example of rules that trigger given state changes.
Types of things characters can care about.
Influence rules influence character’s decisions (metric crapton).
Some rules are true and motivate how characters interact with each other.
Here’s an example of some rules that fire for a character in a specific state. (flirted with gf so now I want to do something mean to you).
Diagrams form AIIDE paper.
Introduce initiator, responder, and other. Keep rules using I,r,o.

26. Social Considerations
Influence rules are social considerations.
Stored in microtheories and
social exchange rule sets.
Roles in social exchange:
Initiator
Responder
Other
This slide needs something.

27. Example Influence Rules
Weight
Intent
friends(i, r) +4
nice(i, r)
friends(i, r) and lowRomance(i,r) and
romantic(r, i, recently) -2
friendly(i, r)
friends(i, r) and hasCrushOn(i, o) and romantic(r, o, recently) +2
mean(i, r)
Communicate intents of the outer rules.
Incode many rules like being in the “Friends zone” – I becomes uncomfortable with R due to the romance.
If you’re friends with someone and they do something romantic to you, intent to romDown is increased, intent to be mean to them is increased.

28. Example Influence Rules
Weight
Intent
friends(i, r) +4
nice(i, r)
friends(i, r) and lowRomance(i,r) and
romantic(r, i, recently) -2
friendly(i, r)
friends(i, r) and hasCrushOn(i, o) and romantic(r, o, recently) +2
mean(i, r)
Communicate intents of the outer rules.
Incode many rules like being in the “Friends zone” – I becomes uncomfortable with R due to the romance.
If you’re friends with someone and they do something romantic to you, intent to romDown is increased, intent to be mean to them is increased.
And 4,300 more!

29. Processing Social Exchanges
Overview of the top levels:
Intent formation
Choosing SGs
SG Play
Performance Realization
Fall Out
More info on performance realization. Add an example of effects -> instantiations -> an NLG template. See how the traits, social considerations determine how the game plays out. Something smarter and more interesting than the norm in games.

30. Desire Formation
Pick an example to talk about that is shown on the slide.

31. Performing a Social Exchange

32. Performing a Social Exchange

33. Choosing the Most Salient Effect
Accept
i has done something to
embarrass o recently
responder is enemies with o

34. %i% reminisced to %r% about embarrassing %o%
Responder: Hey %i%. Man, I can't stand %o%...
Initiator: Tell me about it. Hey, remember that time when
%SFDB_(embarrassing,i,o,0)%?
Responder: Oh god, I totally do! Man, that was so embarrassing. %pronoun(o,he/she)% is such a %pejorative%!
Initiator: I know! You should totally join me next time. I feel another practical
joke coming on!
Responder: Totally! Text me!

35. Performance Realization and Fallout

36. Social Trigger Rules Cascading consequences of social exchanges
Cheating(i,r):
Dating(i,r) then Dating(i,o)
AnnoyedWith(i,r):
Dating(i,r) and Flirt(r,o)
AngryAt(i,r):
AnnoyedWith(i,r) and Flirt(r,o)
Conceptually doesn’t belong in SGs.

37. Prom Week Gamplay Demo

38. Design Challenges ?
AI-based design iterative in an intense way; there are major tweaks and changes on all sides.
Talk about big, sweeping changes in both AI and game design and how they settle into smaller changes as the design both settle.
Throwing out entire sets of implemented psychological theory (motivational analysis).
Not becoming a spreadsheet game.
Connecting the exchanges into stories (possibly describe story sequences).
Rules and dialogue.
Writing the rules (show tool).
Very emergent space and not wanting invalidate player choices that seem meaning – we just allow the player to go on even if they don’t match the goals.
Time ordered rules.

39. AI-based Game Design The development methodology we used in Prom Week.
Start with an AI system.
Prototype experiences in the domain of the AI system.
Use the feedback from the prototype to inform the AI system.
With the new capabilities of the AI system, make a new prototype.
Repeat and periodically release good prototypes or demos for external feedback.
The following slides are of The Prom going through this process: paper prototype, GDC demo, beta testing, and release.
Emphasis on how feedback loop and how it concretely affected the game design and the AI system.

40. Assisted Paper Prototype

41. Lots of Authoring Thousands of rules
Hundreds of dialogue instantiations
Multiple authors
Some not technical…
If we think it’s interesting, some time can be spent on the in-studio design tool for creating social games, levels, microtheories, etc.

42. Design Tool A pic of the design tool
If we think it’s interesting, some time can be spent on the in-studio design tool for creating social games, levels, microtheories, etc.

43. Making CiF Approachable
Showing System
State VS
Tension between system complexity and fun
Performance vs Spreadsheet
Translating system detail into performance
Synthesizing information into palpable form without eliminating the need for CiF
Subjective opinions
Character Performance

44. Constructing Stories with Social Exchanges
Series of social exchanges sometimes lacked dramatic narrative
Story Sequences: sequential social exchange effects across social exchanges
Popular person agrees to date with nerd if he will let her cheat on bio final
Popular person dumps nerd after test
“Someone else “ was the third bullet point and seemed to be an unfinished progression to the story sequence example.

45. Meaningful Choices and Puzzles
Failure invalidates player choices
Players move on whether they win or not
Future levels may be harder
Who knows! Emergent solutions…
Narrative coherence is maintained win or lose
Slide about not invalidating meaningful choices

46. Take Aways
CiF
Prom Week

47. University of California at Santa Cruz
Questions?
University of California at Santa Cruz
Josh McCoy
Mike Treanor

48. Additional Slides

49. Related Work: Playable Models of Social Life
Virtual Sex
Little Red Riding Hood Story
The Tactical Language Training Project (Tactical Iraqi)
PsychSim
Decision Theoretic Social Behavior
Theory of Mind
Reward-based Goal Persual
Goal Weight Fitting
Thespian
Socially Normative Behavior
Turn taking
Conversation Flow
Character Affinity
Obligation Management
Authored Plot Development

50. Related Work: Playable Models of Social Life
Pataphysic Institute
Fear Not!
ORIENT
Lots of pictures of other systems. Keep them here for reference.
Pataphysic Institute
Fear Not!
ORIENT (narrative Overcoming Refugee Integration with Empathic Novel Technology) – interactive agents for stage-based role-play
Restaurant Game
Virtual Beer Garden

51. Goal: Have Zack Date Someone Popular

52. The Social Landscape
Note that Monica is already popular and Zack has a crush on her.
Zack has no romance for his friend, Simon, or the bully, Buzz.

53. 2 Possible Strategies Make Popular Get New Girlfriend
Either (1) make your current girlfriend cool/popular or (2) get a new girlfriend who is already popular.

54. Date Monica

55. Obstacles
Doug

56. Overcoming Obstacles
Show some state or a social game that shows what happens when Zack dates Monica. (Break up with Cassie or have Zack cheat on her)

57. Overcoming Obstacles
Zack flirts with monica.

58. Overcoming Obstacles
Zack goes over to butter up his girlfriend

59. Overcoming Obstacles
But she’s not happy about how Zack just flirted with Monica

60. Overcoming Obstacles Talk
And they break up, which now opens up the possibility the Monica and Zack might want to start dating

61. Now Monica Wants to Ask Zack Out!