An emergent framework for realistic psychosocial behaviour in non player characters

Americans are increasingly concerned about video games, presumably due to the amount and graphicness of violence they contain. Social Cognitive Theory suggests that people are more likely to imitate characters they see as attractive or similar to self. To date, however, little research has examined attributes of violent characters in video games related to this issue. This content analysis examined 10 minutes of play from 60 of the most popular video games. Adapting the coding scheme from the National Television Violence Study (Smith et al., 1998; Wilson et al., 1997, 1998), various demographic and contextual features of violent characters and violent interactions were assessed. The results show that violent game characters have attributes that are likely to increase the extent to which some players perceive them as attractive and similar. Moreover, these violent characters engage in aggression that is presented as justified or graphic.

Authoring the AI for non-player characters (NPCs) in modern video games is an increasingly complex task. Designers and programmers must collaborate to resolve a tension between believable agents with emergent behaviours and scripted story lines. Behaviour trees (BTs) have been proposed as an expressive mechanism that let designers create complex behaviours along the lines of the story they want to tell. However, BTs are still too complex for non-programmers. In this paper, we propose the use of plan traces to assist designers when building BTs. In order to make this approach feasible within state-of-the-art video game technology, we generate the planning domain through an extension of the component-based approach, a widely used technique for representing entities in commercial video games.

The paper reports work to create believable autonomous Non Player Characters in Video games in general and educational role play games in particular. It aims to increase their ability to respond appropriately to the player's actions both cognitively and emotionally by integrating two models: the cognitive appraisal-based FAtiMA architecture, and the drives-based PSI model. We discuss the modelling of adaptive affective autonomous characters based on a biologically-inspired theory of human action regulation taking into account perception, motivation, emotions, memory, learning and planning. These agents populate an educational Role Playing Game, ORIENT (Overcoming Refugee Integration with Empathic Novel Technology) dealing with the cultural-awareness problem for children aged 13---14.

Purpose is to explore the potential of using Blender as an alternative to commercial software for creating 3D characters in video games. To identify the advantages and limitations of Blender compared to industry standards. Methodology. The research employs a comprehensive approach that combines the following methods: сomparative analysis – conducted a detailed comparison of Blender with leading commercial software; empirical research – implemented an experimental project to create a 3D character named Alice as fan art based on the game Alice: Madness Returns (2011), aiming to test Blender’s ability to handle all stages of modeling; content analysis – analyzed literary sources, technical documentation, reviews of professional artists, and industry standards, considering current trends in character design across various graphic styles: photorealism, stylized realism, low-poly, and cel shading; case study – examined practical cases of Blender’s use in professional environments, specifically analyzing the workflows of renowned companies like Rocksteady, Ubisoft, and Epic Games. Analysis of experimental data. Evaluated the effectiveness of Blender’s resource optimization methods, such as retopology, Normal and Bump maps, UDIM, and PBR texture maps. Assessed Blender’s performance on computers with limited resources (8 GB RAM) compared to high-performance systems (64-128 GB RAM). Results. Blender has demonstrated its competitiveness in creating 3D characters for video games, particularly in photorealism, stylized realism, low-poly, and cel shading styles. Despite its technical limitations, Blender’s functionality allows achieving professional results without significant financial investment. The study revealed that with proper workflow optimization, Blender can effectively replace costly commercial solutions in small studios, educational institutions, and among independent 3D artists. Scientific novelty. This article offers a systematic approach to analyzing Blender’s potential for creating 3D characters in the video game industry. For the first time, the technical limitations of Blender and ways to overcome them in professional practice have been thoroughly examined. The study proposes approaches to optimizing the process of creating 3D characters using Blender to achieve the required quality in various graphic styles. Practical relevance. The research findings will be valuable for students, independent 3D artists, small studios, and educational institutions seeking accessible tools for creating 3D characters.

Creating the behavior for non-player characters in video games is a complex task that requires the collaboration among programmers and game designers.

This paper explores the issue of male dominance in the video game industry and gaming community. Female game characters in video games are often over-sexualized to suit male preferences due to mainstream social consciousness. This practice not only disregards the needs and experiences of female gamers, but also reinforces gender stereotypes and hurts gender equality. This kind of disrespect and harm to women further spreads to real social life, which is not conducive to women’s physical and mental health. The paper analyses how male hegemony is manifested through the marginalization of women, the distortion of women’s representation, and the objectification of women as objects of male desire from the perspective of social psychology. In addition, the paper explores how gaming mechanics control women in games and real life and further exacerbate this problem by creating ‘second selves’ that perpetuate gender norms. The paper argues for the need to challenge this male dominance and discusses how women can actively resist this dominance in society and the gaming community. Finally, the paper calls for a more inclusive and gender-equitable gaming culture to improve the gaming experience for all players, as well as to promote respect for women in society.

Generally, male video game characters represent a hegemonic masculinity based on a patriarchal system that shows as a protagonist and dominant a white, western, heterosexual, wealthy male, disabled man and anti-ecologist. Videogames are one of the most consumed entertainment industry products worldwide. For students, video games are spaces where to find their masculine identity. Therefore, education must include video games. Video games are used as an educational resource for the improvement of the teaching-learning process of students. However, the aim of this study is to propose a didactic method untitled VIGLIAM (acronym for Video Games Literacy from Alternative Masculinities). From this method, firstly, students deconstruct critically the hegemonic masculinity of the characters in video games. Secondly, students build critically and creatively alternative masculinities that promote a fairer and more equal society. From this way, students develop empowering and empathetic skills from categories as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, body and nature. In short, this research is part of masculinities studies in the area of education and it is fundamental in the light of the emergence of posmachism that arises given the possibility of the loss of male privilege.

In this work, we intend to explore how motion capture technology can be used in the video game industry as a form of empowerment for female protagonists. We aim to highlight video games in which motion capture was used to portray reality and humanity and whose characters challenge both normative patriarchal and sociocultural values throughout the narrative. For this purpose, we will start by examining the portrayal of women in different media to classify the stereotyped form of their performance, further exploring this representation in video games. The case studies will stem from the Tomb Raider series and the development of the character Lara Croft through motion capture, to recent video games that feature female protagonists such as “The Last of Us Part II” (2020), “Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice” (2017) and “Assassin's Creed III: Liberation” (2012). This way, technology can break standards and enhance the details of action and emotion, revolutionizing the stigma associated with the personality and behavior of female characters in video games. We can conclude that several methods can be used in the industry, however, motion capture is the method that stands out the most in large productions for providing realism and immersion into the narrative. With this study, we were able to understand that it is possible to subvert gender stereotypes and how motion capture technologies were used in video games that intended to abolish the stereotypes associated with these characters.

This paper firstly seeks an answer to the question of whether Non Player Characters (NPCs) in Computer Games can also be viewed as game agents where reactivity, autonomy, being temporarily continuous and having goal-oriented behavior are taken as the features of being a game agent. Within this scope, we will try to assess whether naming NPCs as agents point to a desire that one day they would fulfill the requirements of being an agent or whether NPCs actually already fulfill these requirements. Secondly, the paper looks into the AI needs of video games. We present the AI methodologies that are either being used and under research for use in Game AI. The same methodologies are also likely to contribute to the increasing levels of autonomy and goal-directed behavior of NPCs and help them become more agent-like.

Nowadays, video games conforms a huge industry that is always developing new technology. In particular, artificial intelligence techniques have been used broadly in the well-known non-player characters (NPC) given the opportunity to users to feel video games more real. This paper proposes the usage of the MaxQ-Q hierarchical reinforcement learning algorithm in non-player characters in order to increase the experience of the user in terms of naturalness. A case study of an NPC with the proposed artificial intelligence based algorithm in a first personal shooter video game was developed. Experimental results show that this implementation improves naturalness from the user’s point of view. In addition, the proposed MaxQ-Q based algorithm in NPCs allow to programmers a robust way to give artificial intelligence to them.

Previous studies have identified relationships between romantic media consumption and users’ romantic beliefs, but romantic video games (RVGs; i.e., games in which players attempt to foster a romantic relationship with a chosen game character, also called dating games or dating simulators) remain understudied. Using a cultivation framework, we conducted an online survey of female Chinese players to determine their consumption of the RVG genre, identification with their avatars, and parasocial relationships with the romantic targets they pursue in the game, as well as their beliefs about romantic relationships. Although the amount of time spent playing RVGs did not directly predict idealized beliefs about romantic relationships, the hypothesized mediation model revealed that it indirectly predicted romantic beliefs through identification with avatars and parasocial relationships with video game characters. We discuss the implications for studying romantic media, dating simulations, interactive narratives, and other video game genres.

Despite the fact that epistemic connectives are sometimes interpreted in concrete structures defined by means of runs and clock time functions, one of the things that strikes one when studying multiagent logics is how abstract their semantics are. Contrasting this fact is the fact that real agents like robots in everyday life and virtual characters in video games have strong links with their spatial environment. In this article, we introduce multiagent logics which semantics can be defined by means of purely geometrical notions: possible states are defined by means of the positions in ℝn occupied by agents and the sections of ℝn seen by agents whereas accessibility relations are defined by means of the ability of agents to imagine possible states compatible with what they currently see.

For decades, women have been the subject of several video game narratives, which relied on “saving the girl” as the main quest for many of these games. Moreover, for years, gender representations in video games were a part of an ongoing debate about gender inequality in video games narratives, which are considered one of the most popular, interactive fields of entertainment that young people currently enjoy. This, however, brings up some pressing questions about how reality is reflected in the content of video games regarding women`s representation. The research at hand is a qualitative analysis determined to examine the shift in the common narrative of women in video games as “a damsel in distress” to be a lead character on a special quest, through tracking changes in female representation in video games in recent years. This was conducted by analyzing how the portrayal and character development of female protagonists evolved across different gaming generations and trends. The researcher relied on Consalvo, and Dutton, (2006) model of critical game analysis to examine case studies of three popular video games: <em>Horizon: forbidden west; Rise of the Tomb Raider and The last of Us.</em> The research underlines how these games feature women as Lead characters of the gameplay. The analysis will examine the character design, game narrative and game interface of the video games understudy to discover the shift in the portrayal of female characters in these gaming experiences. <strong>Received: 19 October 2024 </strong> <strong>Accepted: 01 December 2024 </strong> <strong>Published: 10 December 2024</strong>

Real-time heuristic search is a standard approach to pathfind- ing when agents are required to make decisions in a bounded, very short period of time. An assumption usually made in the development and evaluation of real-time algorithms is that the environment is unknown. Nevertheless, in many interesting applications such as pathfinding for automnomous characters in video games, the environment is known in advance. Recent real-time search algorithms such as D LRTA* and kNN LRTA* exploit knowledge about the environment while pathfinding under real-time constraints. Key to those algorithms is the computation of subgoals in a preprocessing step. Subgoals are subsequently used in the online planning phase to obtain high-quality solutions. Preprocessing in those algorithms, however, requires significant computation. In this paper we propose a novel preprocessing algorithm that generates subgoals using a series of backward search episodes carried out from potential goals. The result of a single backward search episode is a tree of subgoals that we then use while planning online. We show the advantages of our approach over state-of-the-art algorithms by carrying out experiments on standard real-time search benchmarks.

Virtual characters have become ubiquitous in multimedia applications, appearing in numerous contexts such as characters in video games, avatars in immersive worlds, or tutors in multimedia learning environments. One type of virtual character is known as a pedagogical agent. Pedagogical agents are lifelike characters present in multimedia learning environments in order to facilitate learning. Pedagogical agents have been researched for nearly two decades, yet the effectiveness of including an agent in a learning environment remains debatable. The purpose of this study was to critically examine persisting issues in pedagogical agent research that examines the use of an agent to a nonagent condition. Our analysis of the literature highlights three persisting issues and provides promising future research directions.