ABSTRACT
The First Person Cultural Trainer (FPCT), funded by TRADOC G2 Intelligence Support Activity, is a high-fidelity game-based simulation that stands alone as a way to train for unpredictable, non-linear cultural and behavioral situations and as a member of the Hybrid Irregular Warfare Improvised Explosive Device Network Defeat Toolkit (Hr"NT) program. The game inserts the player into Middle-Eastern settings where the goals are to explore the social and political settings through conversation, establish a presence within the area, provide humanitarian aid and eventually usc the social status established to gather mission critical information or "golden nuggets." This paper focuses on Conscript™ a highly developed conversation system within FPCT that responds to unscripted gameplay. The game unfolds in the narrative, which uses Conscript™ to tie together written and spoken dialogue, NPC emotional states, sound elements and culturally-accurate motioncaptured animations to present a high-fidelity virtual environment for the player to negotiate. In-game communication patterns cannot simply be memmized to progress to the goal. To successfully uncover the golden nuggets, the player must treat the non-player characters (NPCs) with respect, listening to their needs and evaluating their moods, while communicating and accomplishing objectives in a culturally acceptable manner.
