CS Talk
Speaker: Ian Horswill, Northwestern University
Title: Constraint satisfaction for experimental game design
Hosts: Holly Rushmeier and Zhong Shao
Abstract:
Experimental game design seeks to build games that push the expressive boundaries of the medium. Those boundaries are determined in part by the technologies available, and designers have criticized game AI technology for emphasizing combat at the cost of narrative and character interaction. In this talk I will discuss the design of a constraint programming system suitable use in running games, and apply it to the generation of bespoke character personalities and backstories for interactive fiction. Such systems allow designers to delegate small aspects of a game’s design to the game itself, allowing them to be reinvented for each playthrough or to be tailored as the game progresses.