Goal net based interactive storytelling

Abstract

This project is an implementation of a farm-simulation game based on interactive storytelling. There’s sufficient evidence to suggest the growing interest among developers towards enhancing the interactivity of games and stories. At the same time, evidence also maintains that the game development costs can be staggeringly high, which leaves the majority of commercial games unprofitable. Amidst this, the growing popularity of platforms such as social network games and gaming on hand-held devices have opened new avenues for research. To this effect the traditional game development must be approached with novel mechanisms that aim towards easy deployment on multiple platforms and emphasize reusability to avoid any reinvention of the wheel. Additionally, the focal point should be to let the players take control of the game's direction to augment their interest and immersive experience.

With the aim of addressing these issues, after a review of the planning capability of Goal net and reasoning ability of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM), this project investigates the concept of modularity in game storylines to understand Fuzzy Cognitive Goal Net (FCGN) as the story plot planning tool for interactive storytelling.

This project then discusses the implementation of the social farm-simulation game called ‘The Yin Tree’ which integrates interactive storytelling in an asynchronous multiplayer gameplay through the use of FCGN to evaluate and maintain user interest. This game has been developed for windows and the iPad using Unity 3D game engine and C# scripting.