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The perception of suspense in stories is affected not only by general literary aspects like narrative structure and linguistic features, but also by anticipation and evocation of feelings like aversion, disgust or empathy. As such, it is possible to alter the feeling of suspense by modifying components of a story that convey these feelings to the audience. Based on a previous straightforward model of suspense adaptation, this paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a computational system that adapts narrative scenes for conveying a specific user-defined amount of suspense. The system is designed to address the impact of different types of emotional components on the reader. The relative weighted suspense of these components is computed with a regression model based on a sentiment analysis tool, and used as a fitness function in an evolutionary algorithm. This new function is able to identify the different weights on the prediction of suspense in aspects like outcome, decorative elements, or threat's appearance. The results indicate that this approach represents a significant improvement over the previous existing approach.

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Broadcast video games need to provide amusement to both players and audience. To achieve this, one of the most consumed genres is suspense, due to the psychological effects it has on both roles. Suspense is typically achieved in video games by controlling the amount of delivered information about the location of the threat. However, previous research suggests that players need more frequent information to reach similar amusement than viewers, even at the cost of jeopardizing viewers' engagement. In order to obtain models that maximize amusement for both interactive and passive audiences, we conducted an experiment in which a group of subjects played a suspenseful video game while another group watched it remotely. The subjects were asked to report their perceived suspense and amusement, and the data were used to obtain regression models for two common strategies to evoke suspense in video games: by alerting when the threat is approaching and by random circumstantial indications about the location of the threat. The results suggest that the optimal level is reached through randomly providing the minimal amount of information that still allows players to counteract the threat. We reckon that these results can be applied to a broad narrative media, beyond interactive games. INDEX TERMS Amusement, information management, interactive narrative, suspense, video game.

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