ABSTRACT
Janet Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck suggests the possibility of an AI “cyberbard” automating the process of story generation within an interactive simulation, thus creating the possibility of greater replayability, greater user customization and greater user immersion. To date, progress toward achieving this has been quite modest. Various approaches, including the Interactive Drama Architecture (IDA) proposed by Brian Magerko, begin to build bridges toward this illusive goal. IDA suggests the creation of an “omniscient director” who can operate as a kind of on-site Dungeon Master for a simulation experience. Research in this arena should continue to be monitored, and incremental progress toward automating story generation is something we should expect in the decades ahead. The daunting nature of this endeavor—aimed at the illusive core of creativity—is much more difficult than increasing CPU cycles or accelerating graphics processing. No matter how much progress is made, the “human storyteller” will stay central to the conception, creation, and composition of immersive story experiences.
