ScriptEase: generating scripting code for computer role-playing games
Matthew McNaughton, Maria Cutumisu, Duane Szafron, Jonathan Schaeffer, James R. Redford, David Parker · 2004
The state-of-the-art in game scripting is to manually script individual game objects that interact in the game. Thousands of non-player characters (NPCs) and props need to be scripted before they play a part in a game adventure. This situation introduces serious concerns about programming effort and reliability. We demonstrate ScriptEase [5], a tool to facilitate the game scripting process. It is based on generative design patterns for automatic code generation of scripts associated with game objects. ScriptEase is intended for a broad audience, from programmers to game designers and users without programming experience. Game designers can use commonly occurring patterns to generate scripting code without any programming knowledge. This demonstration illustrates the entire process of creating and scripting game props and NPCs. 1. Scripting in Computer Role-Playing Games The computer game industry’s commercial success is due to its ability to create captivating alternative worlds and to entertain game players by allowing them to meaningfully interact with these artificial environments. Continuing hardware advances are shifting the focus from form to content. Games are increasingly sold on the basis of their depth of story and engaging game play rather than their graphics performance. A computer role-playing game (CRPG) contains an engine that dispatches game events to scripts. Each story is composed of individual modules that can contain thousands of areas, non-player characters (NPCs) and other game objects (props). Each object must be scripted to respond to these game events. Currently, programmers write scripts manually and this situation introduces serious concerns about programming effort, reliability, and testability. Moreover, the scripting process is difficult for those game designers that lack programming skills.