Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Other examples of short-term narratives include “playing musical in-
struments” to improvise a song, and “reading of a picture book” (a sort of
narrative-within-narrative).
Long-term narratives in Babyz: Rivalries, relationships and development
The Babyz characters (as well as their Petz predecessors) are designed to be
regularly played with over the course of many weeks or months. Over time the
Babyz will change and develop, eventually able to walk, talk, and understand a
few spoken words. They may change how they feel about and behave towards
theuserandeachother.Overthelong-termthehopeisthatuserswillsuspend
their disbelief that these are artificial characters, and bond with their virtual
Babyz, forming rewarding emotional relationships with them.
Babyz have an persistent fuzzy “association matrix” memory, where they
keep track of how positively or negatively they feel towards the user and the
other Babyz and objects they encounter. This memory is constantly being up-
dated as they interact with their environment. When Babyz first meet, their
initial attitude towards one another is established as a function of how compat-
ible their particular personalities are, how well their first meeting goes (which
can be influenced by the user), as well as some randomness. If two Babyz feel
negatively towards each other, this can begin a long-term sibling rivalry, where
they take turns playing pranks on each other over time. (The previous section
on short-term narratives describes an example of a prank narrative.) At first a
rivalry begins with simple mild pranks such as stealing a toy, or startling the
otherBabybysaying“boo”.Butovertimethepranksgetmoreandmoreelab-
orate, such as throwing objects at each other, knocking over building blocks,
messy food fights, and so on. The rivalry can continue indefinitely this way, or
subside from user intervention such as keeping these Babyz apart to prevent
them from fighting, or praising them in the moments when they are together
and not fighting.
A long-term rivalry narrative is not implemented as a behavior goal, as
short-term narratives are. The history of a rivalry is kept track of with a simple
persistent episodic memory, which is queried by the story manager to decide
what short-term prank narrative goals to spawn next, and when. It is the overall
continuity of related short-term narratives executed regularly over time (days)
that constitute the long-term narrative.
Another set of long-term narratives in Babyz is the development of skills.
(Note that all skill behaviors in Babyz are pre-authored, with the user's inter-
