Laura Neal
09/11/2017
Question Pair No. 5:
A) Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?
B) Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents, how individualistic are they as well as their behaviours? How might you set about improving them?
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Artificial Intelligence or A.I, similar to most current technology, is constantly evolving. It is a prospect that frightens a large sum of people and gives the media a lot of material to write about. This is due to the connection between how the media loves to fear monger and the reactions people have once they notice what is being written and said.

I do not claim to have a lot of knowledge of this subject, being much more of a games designer primarily concerned with character design rather than the programming element of the medium. This does not mean I am ignorant of A.I’s progression in gaming as I can see how it is changing the experience for players.                                                                                                          I may have witnessed first-hand several pieces of rudimentary A.I from games I have already played, but I think the best example of encountering evolving A.I I have had is through ‘Quick, Draw!‘, an online experiment initiated by Google to discover whether a neural network can recognise doodles by humans. You, as the user, are first told what to draw, and are then given twenty seconds to quickly sketch the item. Although this is not technically a game, it is still very interesting to see whether the network recognises what you are trying to draw and if not, see what it thinks an item should look like.

This brings us onto the topic at hand, whether emotive modelling should be part of NPC development in gaming. It is very noticeable that as games evolve, they are ultimately changed to make everything within them as realistic as possible for the player. With the technology currently accessible, a lot of this realism is due to the growing involvement of A.I. Games should, as much as possible, be realistic and by this, I do not mean that they shouldn’t contain magic or paranormal abilities, but that they should stay with the rules they set out initially. Emotive modelling can only make games better in this context of realism. As an example, ‘Detroit: Become Human’ is an upcoming game that tries to establish an emotional connection between the player and the events within the game, making it much more of an immersive experience.

Personally, it is difficult to consider my ‘favourite’ video game. I admit to having a select few which are the best I’ve ever played, and all have their own reasons for being so. However, one of them is the second instalment of the ‘Legend of Spyro‘ series: ‘The Eternal Night‘.
Firstly, we must take into account the fact that this game was released for the PlayStation 2, which may well have been a long way from the launch of video games in general, but here was still a certain limit to what the game’s technology could accomplish. I have noticed that several larger enemies follow the same fighting code as previous, smaller ones. This does make their combat somewhat predictable at times, and less of a challenge is presented as a result.