Artificial intelligence moving serious gaming: Presenting reusable game AI components

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive overview of artificial intelligence (AI) for serious games. Reporting about the work of a European flagship project on serious game technologies, it presents a set of advanced game AI components that enable pedagogical affordances and that can be easily reused across a wide diversity of game engines and game platforms. Serious game AI functionalities include player modelling (realtime facial emotion recognition, automated difficulty adaptation, stealth assessment), natural language processing (sentiment analysis and essay scoring on free texts), and believable non-playing characters (emotional and socio-cultural, non-verbal bodily motion, and lip-synchronised speech), respectively. The reuse of these components enables game developers to develop high quality serious games at reduced costs and in shorter periods of time. All these components are open source software and can be freely downloaded from the newly launched portal at gamecomponents.eu. The components come with detailed installation manuals and tutorial videos. All components have been applied and validated in serious games that were tested with real end-users.

Perancangan Media Pembelajaran Tematik Sekolah Dasar Berbasis Serious Game

“…Dari sudut pandang tersebut, banyak permainan digital yang kompleks misalnya roleplaying game dan multiplayer games berusaha menciptakan keaslian tersebut, bahkan memungkinkan bagi pemain untuk mengalami situasi yang mungkin tidak dapat didapatkan secara langsung secara nyata. Sehingga melalui permainan dapat disediakan lingkungan otentik dan menarik untuk mengembangkan keterampilan dan membantu pemecahan masalah, pengambilan keputusan, meningkatkan keterampilan sosial dan sebagainya [23][24][25][26].…”

“…Pemain menghabiskan banyak waktu dan energi dalam menguasai aturan permainan dan strategi dari permainan yang rumit [27]. Kekuatan game untuk memotivasi, membuat pemain terlibat dan dihubungkan dengan motivasi belajar yang efektif telah mendorong banyak pendidik untuk menggali potensi dalam pembelajaran [16], [23], [28], [29]. Dalam sebuah permainan terdapat tantangan yaitu suatu keadaan di mana pemain diperbolehkan mengambil berbagai tindakan untuk mengatasi tantangan dalam permainan tersebut.…”

Scenarios in a serious game for training communication skills

“…Advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) offer possibilities for open text interactive dialogues with virtual characters [111]. However, the usage of NLP techniques is still scarce in games, as it often requires additional NLP expertise for a game content developer and substantial processing [107].…”

“…De vooruitgang in Natural Language Processing (NLP) biedt mogelijkheden voor interactieve dialogen met open tekst met virtuele karakters [111]. NLP technieken worden echter nog steeds weinig gebruikt in games, omdat het vaak NLP expertise vereist van een dialoogauteur en substantiële verwerkingstijd nodig heeft [107].…”

“…I contributed to two EU funded projects, RAGE (Realising an Applied Gaming Ecosystem 4 ), and PrepDoc. The RAGE project addressed some of the challenges in the serious games industry, and one of RAGE's key objectives was to develop a repository of game components to help reduce the cost and risk in developing a high quality serious game [107]. These game components were developed to provide readymade solutions for typical components of a serious game, for example a component to easily control a gesture of a virtual character 5 .…”