Questgram [Qg]: Toward a Mixed-Initiative Quest Generation Tool
Alberto Alvarez, Eric Grevillius, Elin Olsson, José Font · 2021
Quests are a core element in many games, especially role-playing and adventure games, where quests drive the gameplay and story, engage the player in the game’s narrative, and in most cases, act as a bridge between different game elements. The automatic generation of quests and objectives is an interesting challenge since this can extend the lifetime of games such as in Skyrim, or can help create unique experiences such as in AI Dungeon. This work presents Questgram [Qg], a mixed-initiative prototype tool for creating quests using grammars combined in a mixed-initiative level design tool. We evaluated our tool quantitatively by assessing the generated quests and qualitatively through a small user study. Human designers evaluated the system by creating quests manually, automatically, and through mixed-initiative. Our results show the Questgram’s potential, which creates diverse, valid, and interesting quests using quest patterns. Likewise, it helps engage designers in the quest design process, fosters their creativity by inspiring them, and enhance the level generation facet of the Evolutionary Dungeon Designer with steps towards intertwining both level and quest design.