A Demonstration of ScriptEase Ambient and PC-Interactive Behavior Generation for Computer Role-Playing Games

Abstract

ScriptEase is a visual tool that enables game designers to create complex interactive stories for computer role-playing games, without programming. In particular, ScriptEase automatically generates the scripting code for ambient and PC-interactive non-player character (NPC) behaviors from a set of behavior patterns. Without ScriptEase, a game designer would have to write scripting code manually to specify NPC behaviors. This demonstration describes the steps of generating complex and non-repetitive ambient and PC-interactive behavior scripts using generative behavior patterns with ScriptEase. We show how ambient behavior patterns are used to re-generate and improve the behaviors of all ambient NPCs in the Prelude module of the BioWare Corporation's Neverwinter Nights official campaign. We also demonstrate PC-interactive behaviors for a guard NPC in a custom Neverwinter Nights game module. With ScriptEase behavior patterns, game designers can easily and quickly populate a story with an engaging group of NPCs.