A Demonstration of the ScriptEase Approach to Ambient and Perceptive NPC Behaviors in Computer Role-Playing Games

Abstract

Writing manual code to script the behaviors of thousands of non-player characters in a computer role-playing game adventure has a tremendous negative impact on the quality of games and their entertainment level. Many games use shared custom scripts for background characters that produce repetitive and predictable behaviors. Game designers often need help from programmers when designing a game story and this can lead to lost productivity and a distorted design vision. ScriptEase is a tool that enables game designers to use ambient and perceptive patterns to specify complex, non-repetitive entertaining behaviors for interactive characters, without writing code. This demonstration illustrates how entertaining ambient and perceptive behaviors can be easily and reliably inserted into BioWare Corp.’s Neverwinter Nights game stories.