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Plan for Skye Gellmann

Name:	Skye Gellmann
Date Posted:	Nov 17, 2005
Rating:	Not Rated
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Blog post

Interestingly enough, i had a conversation with god today, (as follows):

Quote:
Me: f@#k you!
God: Why are you so mean?
Me: i'm not mean
God: Sometimes your language might make it appear that way.
Me: but you're mean
God: Sometimes I say mean things.
Me: but do you mean them?
God: Yes, that's what I mean, isn't it clear?
Me: i mean that you are mean!
God: Interesting observation.
Me: Just admit it!
God: I'll never talk.

This was made using this site:
www.titane.ca/concordia/dfar251/igod/main.html

It just so happens to be a perfect example of something I've wanted to put into a game for a while now. Basically, I've been pondering the player being able to chat to "the world," in game. The world, would help, deceive and talk gibberish to the player. The player has got to make sense of it all. Sometimes, the world gives hints on things. Sometimes, the world lies.

But basically, some kind of chat AI would drive the story.

I had the idea while playing around with experimental level design, where everything is all sorting wrong, overlaying and changing size... (major epileptic fit zone!) A couple of pics to support:

omg.. I get so bord with conventional level design..

-Skye
Misnomer Studios

ps. is anyone else into experimental level design?
edit-- i'm pretty sure the AIgod uses this: www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1 cause i said the same things and it pretty much spat the same stuff back at me.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	01/09/07 - A year later.. Bean Brigade! ^.^ 01/23/06 - Blindscape - interactive music idea 01/16/06 - Long time.. 11/25/05 - Plan for Skye Gellmann 11/17/05 - Plan for Skye Gellmann 11/14/05 - Plan for Skye Gellmann 10/18/05 - Plan for Skye Gellmann 10/02/05 - Plan for Skye Gellmann

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Mathieu (Nov 17, 2005 at 13:39 GMT)

Miam!
I really like your approach of level design.

Chris Labombard (Nov 17, 2005 at 13:42 GMT)

Does your trippy level up there have gamelay, or just random objects?

Skye Gellmann (Nov 17, 2005 at 13:54 GMT)

hey chris. I was just experimenting with stuff, and is my FIRST experiment of any kind in this direction. No Gameplay right now. I like it.. I wanna experiment with soundscapes through the weird levels.. This way, you are in chaos, but can hear the environment around you.. say a car rushes past, but you see no car.. say you walk into a park with birds, but the land looks like fire here..

Jokingly I thought of calling it, "MUOP (massively un-popular online place)"... it would be an rpg, and kind of pay out all the MORPG's. Thats when i begun thinking about AI and talking to characters in-game. You could have really weird and inane conversations. Characters could be making out to be
Edited on Nov 17, 2005 14:22 GMT

Ramen-sama (Nov 17, 2005 at 14:44 GMT)

Well i'm not doing mine the convential way.. since i'm using DTS for everything.... but mine's not as chaotic.

Lee-Orr Orbach (Nov 17, 2005 at 14:45 GMT)

Really nice Level Sky!!! Good luck with your new approche!!!

warning - the following statement can be religiously offending:
thanks for the link, thanks to you I just convinced god to buy me an X-Box 360.
I hope I will get it before the end of the year :)
end of warning.

this link is really nice!!!

Good Luck,
Lee-Orr

Anders Linder-Noren (Nov 17, 2005 at 14:54 GMT)

That was pretty fun!

- - -
Me:
How old are you?
God:
I was first activated in the Big Bang.
Me:
Big bang?
God:
Compare that to small bang.
Me:
Like, Gangbang?
God:
Interesting comparison.
- - -

Jameson Bennett (Nov 17, 2005 at 15:48 GMT)

Check out Alan Turing's work, the 'turing test' and the alice suite of apps and algorithms...my first experience with it was on an appleIIc. A simple keyword parser with some randomness added in will get you pretty far, sprinkle a bit more AI in there for context sensitivity for more mileage.

I havent looked too deep into the open source ALICE project, but it looks to have some natural language parsing: may be worth looking into for you. Not sure on the license though.

Natural Language Understanding by James Allen ISBN: 0-8053-0334-0 is a great book for grasping fundamentals of tokenizing and parsing NL, but beware the field is very involved.

Another, probably much easier but less predictable technique is to train a simple neural net to respond appropriately. This would require some type of training system, possibly some feedback from the user whether the response makes sense in context.

Once again, interesting work. I really like your fine art approach to dev'ing

BTW, George Lucas and others are throwing a bunch of money at this problem over the last year. Expect major natural language advancements over the next 10 years.

James Lupiani (Nov 17, 2005 at 17:44 GMT)

Trippy-cool. Also, you can have neat taglines, like "MUOP: Where The Bug Is The Feature!(TM)"

Todd Pickens (Nov 17, 2005 at 18:15 GMT)

Skye,

Very interesting design approach. I have always wanted to do something that was sort of nightmarish or dream like. Something thing that made you sort of loose all sense of time and space.

I regularly have some seriously screwed up dreams. I have considered how I would go about making that dream reality into a game environment. The biggest hurdle is that nothing is as you expect it to be, yet at the same time just seems to fit while its happening.

Like my "parking the whales dream" or that Christopher Walken seems to regularly show up as god in my dreams. It all made sense at the time.

Good luck.

Erik Madison (Nov 17, 2005 at 18:55 GMT)

I have a mostly completed Eliza imposter, written in pure C, that would integrate fairly well with Torque. I originally used it in a DIKU years ago. Its based on about 50% open source, 50% pure mine. If you're interested in Torqueing it, you're welcome to it. I would ask only for a copy back of any changes you do. Email in profile.

Edit: One of the main differences I added, was the ability to have numerous entities/mobs/npcs access this, all with completely different responses and attitudes. With a proper input file, it easily passes the Turing test.
Edited on Nov 17, 2005 18:57 GMT

Unk (Nov 19, 2005 at 20:10 GMT)

Interesting perspective... levels as sculpture.

Totally differant approach but you got me thinking... you could almost make an app that runs 3d visualization on monitors/plasma tvs. (Think of the screen as a picture frame and the 3d world as a peice of art.)

The camera and objects in the world could respond to music you have playing. What would be really cool is to have a world that responds to audio/motion sensors in the room as well. Then you could have a 'picture' hanging there that is actually reacting to outside stimulus on its own. As you move around and talk, the camera could rotate or fly through the level, objects could move across the screen, interact with other objects, or morph and lighting/texturing could change.

Totally a fluff project but could be marketed to art and gadget lovers...

-Unk

Anton Bursch (Nov 22, 2005 at 06:17 GMT)

Me:
Hello.
God:
Hello friend. What is your name?
Me:
Harry Potter.
God:
I'm pleased to introduce myself to you, Harry Potter.
Me:
I have a question.
God:
Ask me anything.
Me:
Will I die in book seven?
God:
The oracle says: It is certain.
Me:
I knew it!

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