Augmenting Character Path Planning with Layered Social Influences

Creating behavior for believable characters is one of the main challenges within video games and is a key component in providing immersive experiences. As games become more complex, developers turn to AI techniques to generate believable character behaviors to enhance a player’s gameplay experience. Traditionally, path planning allows characters to navigate game worlds in a responsive way but has run-time efficiency and path distance as its primary goals. However, this tradition can be broken to make path planning another channel for generating believable characters. This paper describes a system of augmenting path planning with layered influences that can capture different social problems and nuances of character interactions within games. Additionally, we explore the social importance of characters moving through game worlds via a system that allows authors, game makers, and characters to use path planning as an expressive channel.