Interactivity Engine: Strange idea I have

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
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The Interactivity Engine is an engine designed to create the desire of replaying a game. You need a story for the engine, and plenty of characters. The story can branch out and have multiple possibilities for events, but a linear story works just as well. When you place it into the Interactivity Engine, or “IE,” the IE lets people play the game, but when they do something, your story can change to revolve around what happened. Kill someone and the IE will make it a part of the story, for example.

Randomness is one of the factors in the IE. If the game did everything around what the character did, the replayability wouldn’t be there. After all, you open a door and you know it’s going to lead to something. So, the IE only chooses a few of these actions. This way, you can replay it and multiple things happen each time, usually never repeating.

For example, let’s play through one of the possible stories one could find. Your character is a mobster who needs to blackmail someone into a crime. The player decides to assault someone and steal his or her wallet. The wallet’s file has multiple “story possibilities” that tell the game what it can do. So, at random, it chooses to have the crime take place at their house.

Later, the mobster kidnaps someone and brings him or her into the empty house. The guy who lives there is at work, so there’s no need to worry about alerting him. The player shoots the kidnapped person, and leaves for the authorities to find him and arrest the guy.

Later, in court, it’s discovered that the guy couldn’t do it because he was at work, so he’s free. The cops pursue you when a neighbor says something about you leaving the house, and this all comes from one single assault.

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I have no experience in Python and would rather not try to do it myself, so I want to see what you guys can try with the idea.

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The Interactivity Engine is an engine designed to create the desire of replaying a game

that is called replay value…

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

no, sounds existant…what your talking about exists in games like dark cloud/2, as a quick example, and many others…

get lost… dont start spamming this forum too with your mental diarrhea… keep your post count increasers limited to the off topic forum if possible

:Z

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Ignore blengine:)

Yes, stuff like this has been done before in small doses. But it’s no where near realized yet, a game in which almsot anything can happen. Deus Ex is really good in this regard, as almost anything you want to try can work. But with close examination, it’s mostly just the developers placing a few ways to solve each puzzle. Although there is some TRUE emergent gameplay in the game. I think where games are headed is definately to the realm of true player expression, but we’ve a long way to go. I don’t think the blender engine, python scripting, or our general level of experience is quite ready for something as large as what you propose. I definately am trying to do as much of this type of gameplay (solving a goal in many different ways, which affects the story) in crescent dawn, but it takes incredibly good ai, and highly object oriented creation, lots of playtesting, and tons of forethought, to even do simple things relating to this sort of thing.

The big dev houses haven’t even come close yet, so I doubt we’ll be able to do it anytime soon.

Although I hope Im the first:)

But, if you look at a game like morrowind, this is what it promises (and quite fails to deliver). A world in which your actions truly have a profound effect on the world and the game. A world where the player truly can use any means they can devise to solve each problem. It’s the future of gaming I think.

I can’t wait to see what they do with emergent in upcoming games such as Deus Ex 2, and Xenus.

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It’s certainly one of the most interesting aspects of future games design in my opinion, but as Saluk says, we’re no where near ready for that yet technologically. Having said that, don’t underestimate the attractiveness of a well told story, we watch films over and over but they are always the same. So in the future I think we are going to see a more mature approch to story-telling go hand in hand with that kind of player freedom.

I feel I ought to flame you seeing as how your idea is hardly new…but hey :wink:

cheers
Piran

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Ignore blengine:)

kill saluk…slice his throat and slit his wrists

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I seem to remember my friend telling me about a game that was outlawed in most countries because it was so violent, but it had some sort of thing like you just told me. It was Post something i think.

Pooba

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get lost… dont start spamming this forum too with your mental diarrhea… keep your post count increasers limited to the off topic forum if possible

LOL
sorry, just seemed funny at the time :expressionless:

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Actually, there are plenty of games where “your actions have an impact on the world.” “Blade Runner,” “Tetris,” “The Last Express,” and “Final Fantasy X-2” have that kind of thing.

However, what I’m thinking is something where you can have a story, but the player’s actions can help dictate the storyline, or just nudge it. In fact, I have this idea for a game where you could play over and over and the story would change; the situation would even change. Mental diahrrea again, but whatever. (I also had another insane idea: “Tetris” with a real story. Pretty pathetic.)

And play adventure games over and over, but most are the same. (Especially LucasArts games.) Heck, “The Getaway” has a linear storyline. But the upcoming “True Crime: Streets Of L.A.” can branch out if you do something wrong. Maybe that’s where mission-based games are going…

YOU get lost. I’ll spam any forum I want, and off-topic isn’t neccesarily the only one. I can do whatever I want on here, and so can everybody else. In other words: F*** off, blengine.

Is “Deux Ex” a good game? I tried “Morrowind,” but it was slower than a turtle/snail going uphill. Nothing worked. Is “Deus Ex” as power-hungry as “Morrowind?” I don’t want that kind of thing. Is there anywhere I can get “Arena” or, preferably, “Daggerfall?” Those sound cool.

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YOU get lost.

if i ever do, ill make sure to have a compass handy and plenty of extra pairs of underwear… one can never be TOO prepared i always say…

I’ll spam any forum I want, and off-topic isn’t neccesarily the only one.

good to know… so what seems to be the problem? spam away…

I can do whatever I want on here, and so can everybody else

who said they couldnt? what i say is merely a suggestion and is perfectly allowable, because as u so bluntly pointed out, any one here can do whatever they want… right? stop trying to take away my freedom! /me flies away on golden mechanical monkeys

In other words: F*** off, blengine.

touchy touchy… u can do whatever u want on here eh? then why did u sensor your curse word? do all the cool people sensor themselves now? is this the new age craze? suddenly sensorship is the ‘cool’ thing to do? aw f*** yeah! i wanna be cool too!

-chris
8) <—too f***ing cool

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While I don’t agree with your logic, I do think you have one of the best senses of humor. I’ve got to write this quick, so… whatever.

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While I don’t agree with your logic

thats what people said to galileo… must i die before people beleive?!

I do think you have one of the best senses of humor.

ill take that as a compliment :slight_smile:

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Lol blengine you are a riot:)

Deus ex is MUCH more focused and linear than morrowind.  There is only one order you can play the missions in, and the outcome is similar for the most part no matter the route you go through.  However, the story is well put together and makes you feel more a part of it than most games.  Small things do change depending on what you do, and there are many choices to make throughout the game.  
It's really a game about choices, should I kill this guy like I'm told, or let him live?  Should I Gain the ability to cloak or rather gain the ability to get headshots without hardly having to aim?  (And no, you cant take one and get the other later).  This makes you feel a part of it.  And as far as gameplay goes, there are usually 3 or more different ways past each situation, so it becomes more about overcoming problems and obstacles and less about solving puzzles.  It still fails in some areas, but I think it's headed in the right direction.

And well, I’ve been replaying it recently so I’m kind of into it right now:)

The difficulty generally is, the more choice you give the player, the more difficult it is to tell a good story. Once you let the story be defined by the player, you run a major risk in that the story the player creates is very boring. Grand theft auto is a good example. It’s great fun to make your own story and just run around and do stuff. But after a while, you pretty much have to do the story missions because just making stuff up gets old after a while.

The main way this could be improved would be to expand the system, make anything possible. But this is not possible with today’s computers, and ai techniques. We can’t even simulate ONE character who acts as realistically as a real human would. For it to be as good as you want, where you can do anything, you would need to simulate many many many more than one of those characters.

So we have to cheat.  There are some researchers at a college working on something like this.  I don't remember what it's called but it looked rather interesting.  There is basically a master story that has everything that's supposed to happen predetermined.  But as you play, it figures out when the story it has planned becomes impossible and recalculates it.  I must add, they aren't very far along :(

That might be a good way to cheat.

Just don’t expect to be able to do this now, and no matter what forum you go on, the way you describe it you’re going to get laughs and ridicule. Figure out a more palatable way to describe it. Maybe phrase it like this: “How can we make our stories more flexible and interactive.” Also, check out the gamedev.com game design forum. They have discussed this numerous times before, do a search and see what you come up with. Also check out the ai forums. There are some super smart people over there!

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Your idea is used in the game called Fable :smiley: www.bigbluebox.com - developers

the site doesn’t tell you much but I read an article on it. It uses the same idea

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I didn’t read the article or even go to their website. I went to allgame.com and searched for it.

Sounds interesting, in fact, I think I’ll start a thread on consoles in another forum.