Read more: 鈥�Better living through video gaming鈥�
CLASS nerd Zack wants to make friends with prom judge Naomi, but she doesn鈥檛 think he is cool enough. Luckily, Zack can improve his social standing by insulting Monica, a third character, who is not exactly Naomi鈥檚 favourite person鈥�
Welcome to the world of Prom Week, a game about the social lives of high-school students that is powered by a 鈥渟ocial physics鈥� engine. Comme il Faut is an artificial intelligence system that tracks around 5000 social rules influencing a character鈥檚 behaviour and relationships.
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Many video games use physics engines, which apply the basic principles of gravity, momentum and other simple rules to affect what happens in the game. Prom Week, developed by Josh McCoy and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz, uses social interactions to drive the game in a similar way.
These include multilevelled social networks that determine whether characters are friends, dating, or are enemies. There are also rules about feelings, such as a secret dislike for another character. The characters have distinct personality traits 鈥� they may be competitive or witty, for example, and have a shared social history and knowledge. The game tracks previous interactions and the status of common objects, so calculators might be lame, while footballs are cool.
Each level in Prom Week focuses on a particular character with a number of goals, though the player can control any of the characters. Selecting two characters brings up a list of potential interactions such as giving advice, insulting or flirting 鈥� the available options are determined by Comme il Faut鈥檚 social rules.
Prom Week鈥榮 style of storytelling is more natural than The Sims, in which characters communicate using icons and nonsense-babbling. Prom Week characters speak in text-based English, thanks to dialogue templates for around 1000 scenarios based on characters鈥� relationships: particular details are filled in using past experiences or personality traits.
Prom Week was released as a Facebook game last month but Comme il Faut is also available separately for others to use in their own games. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping it will raise the bar on storytelling and video games,鈥� says McCoy.
, who researches artificial intelligence for games at the University of York, UK, says the high level of detail in the simulation might make it hard for players to predict how characters will react. 鈥淵ou might have a very smart game AI, but if the player cannot understand it, they might think it is stupid.鈥�
