UC Santa Cruz

NPCs (Non-Player Characters) are a staple of video games, filling all kinds of supportingroles. This work seeks to flip that paradigm and place the player in the role of support for the goals of a small collection of NPCs. Built on a world simulation where NPCs can take action according to their goals and knowledge of the world state and a conversation space in which the NPC is able to report their actions and exchange information with the player, this prototype AI-based game design explores a new player-NPC interaction in which player conversational actions indirectly influences NPC action. Here we discuss the architecture of these systems, provide a design postmortem, and report some initial player feedback.