What authoring possibilities arise by blending machine and human control of live embodied character experiences? This paper explores two different "behind-the-scenes" roles for human operators during a three-month gallery installation of an embodied character experience. In the Transcription role, human operators type players' spoken utterances; then, algorithms interpret the player's intention, choose from pre-authored dialogue based on local and global narrative contexts, and procedurally animate two embodied characters. In the Discourse role, human operators select from semantic categories to interpret player intention; algorithms use this "discourse act" to automate character dialogue and animation. We compare these two methods of blending control using game logs and interviews, and document how the amateur operators initially resisted having to learn the Discourse version, but eventually preferred having the authorial control it afforded. This paper also outlines a design space for blending machine and human control in live character experiences.

A growing research community is working toward employing drama management components in story‐based games. These components gently guide the story toward a narrative arc that improves the player's gaming experience. In this article we evaluate a novel drama management approach deployed in an interactive fiction game called Anchorhead. This approach uses player's feedback as the basis for guiding the personalization of the interaction. The results indicate that adding our Case‐based Drama manaGer (C‐DraGer) to the game guides the players through the interaction and provides a better overall player experience. Unlike previous approaches to drama management, this article focuses on exhibiting the success of our approach by evaluating results using human players in a real game implementation. Based on this work, we report several insights on drama management which were possible only due to an evaluation with real players.

Intelligent agents working in real-time domains need to adapt to changing circumstance so that they can improve their performance and avoid their mistakes. AI agents designed for interactive games, however, typically lack this ability. Game agents are traditionally implemented using static, hand-authored behaviors or scripts that are brittle to changing world dynamics and cause a break in player experience when they repeatedly fail. Furthermore, their static nature causes a lot of effort for the game designers as they have to think of all imaginable circumstances that can be encountered by the agent. The problem is exacerbated as state-of-the-art computer games have huge decision spaces, interactive users, and real-time performance that make the problem of creating AI approaches for these domains harder. In this paper, we address the issue of nonadaptivity of game playing agents in complex real-time domains. The agents carry out runtime adaptation of their behavior sets by monitoring and reasoning about their behavior execution to dynamically carry out revisions on the behaviors. The behavior adaptation approaches have been instantiated in two real-time interactive game domains. The evaluation results show that the agents in the two domains successfully adapt themselves by revising their behavior sets appropriately.

In this paper we present the results of a qualitative, empirical study exploring the impact of immersive technologies on presence and engagement, using the interactive drama Façade as the object of study. In this drama, players are situated in a married couple's apartment, and interact primarily through conversation with the characters and manipulation of objects in the space. We present participants' experiences across three different versions of Façade -- augmented reality (AR) and two desktop computing based implementations, one where players communicate using speech and the other using typed keyboard input. Through interviews and observations of players, we find that immersive AR can create an increased sense of presence, confirming generally held expectations. However, we demonstrate that increased presence does not necessarily lead to more engagement. Rather, mediation may be necessary for some players to fully engage with certain interactive media experiences.

Our demonstration presents AR Façade, a phyiscally embodied version of the interactive drama Façade, at the Beall Center in Irvine, CA. In this drama, players are situated in a married couple's apartment, and interact primarily through conversation with the characters and manipulation of objects in the space. Our demonstration will include two versions of the experience - an immersive augmented reality (AR) version and a desktop computing based implementation, where players communicate using typed keyboard input. Our recent study cross media study revealled emperical differences between the versions [Dow et al. 2007]. Through interviews and observations of players, we found that immersive AR can create an increased sense of presence, confirming generally held expectations. However, we learned that increased presence does not necessarily lead to more engagement. Rather, mediation may be necessary for some players to fully engage with certain immersive media experiences.

Within the framework of the project NICE (Natural Interactive Communication for Edutainment) [2], we have been developing an educational and entertaining computer game that allows children and teenagers to interact with a conversational character impersonating the fairy tale writer H.C. Andersen (HCA). The rationale behind our system is to make kids learn about HCA's life, fairy tales and historical period while playing and having fun. We report on the character's generation and realization of both verbal and 3D graphical non-verbal output behaviors, such as speech, body gestures and facial expressions. This conveys the impression of a human-like agent with relevant domain knowledge, and distinct personality. With the educational goal in the foreground, coherent and synchronized output presentation becomes mandatory, as any inconsistency may undermine the user's learning process rather than reinforcing it.

This paper describes the implemented first prototype of a domain-oriented, conversational edutainment system which allows users to interact via speech and 2D gesture input with life-like animated fairy-tale author Hans Christian Andersen.