Recombinable Game Mechanics for Automated Design Support

Systems that provide automated game-design support-whether fully automated game generators, or tools to assist human designers--must be able to maintain a representation of a game design and add or remove game mechanics to support incrementally modifying the game. The system should then be able to reason about the design to support the designer. For example, it might point out that the set of mechanics makes the game unwinnable; or that there's only one complex possible way to beat the game; or that some room is impossible to get to. In addition, the same representation should be actually playable as a game. Existing game representations encode a fairly narrow range of games, most commonly symmetric board games; these representations are also difficult to extend or revise. We propose an architecture based on the event calculus, a logical representation designed for reasoning about time in an elaboration-tolerant way, meaning that designs can be changed by adding or removing sets ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: AIIDE
• Authors: Mark J. Nelson, Michael Mateas
• Keywords: AIIDE 2008, Artificial Intelligence, Game, Game Design, Game Mechanics