Murder She Programmed: Dynamic Plot Generating Engine for Murder Mystery Games
María Arinbjarnar, Yngvi Björnsson · 2005
There is an increased demand for more interactive and dynamic single-player computer games. Most currently proposed solutions usually focus on multi-linear narrations. The problem with those solutions is that they do not actually create a dynamic game, they only increase player choices; the games themselves continue to follow a fairly strict storyline. In this article a new game engine is proposed that dynamically creates new game plots for a murder mystery based game. The game engine uses Bayesian networks to create a new plot based on a probability map of a typical murder mystery novel. To abstract plot elements for the construction of the Bayesian network a unique morphology similar to the morphology of the Russian structuralist Vladimir Propp is created. A directed graph, which is inferred from the resulting Bayesian network, is used as a knowledge base for a murder mystery game. This game sets up a complete and consistent murder mystery that is solvable with logical inference. Each new game generates a unique plot, a murder mystery with all the attributes that are needed for such a plot to be logically consistent, coherent, and complete, and make sense to the human perspective. This game engine is responsive to preset constraints rather than a pre-authored narration, which opens up numerous possibilities for integration in computer games where the constraints can be manipulated by interactions from game events and player interaction. 11.. 1. Introduction